Thread by @TheRealHoarse

One programming note:

I’m going to be making a bit of a change in my engagement style on here.

I’m going to tone down the sharpness of my interactions with people who reply to my posts.

1/

When I first joined Twitter, I had a very specific logic for replying harshly to some posts and some of the comments under mine.

1) Ripping Trump and Repubs punctured the facade that they were widely popular and liked.

2/

When I joined, we were outnumbered on here and too quiet.

There weren’t a lot of people willing to verbally punch a prominent right-winger in the mouth on here knowing at it would rile an angry, scary mob.

I am blessed with not giving a fuck about that. So, I punched away.

3/

Now, all those former bullies on the right have blocked me because they don’t need the humiliating headache.

So, mission accomplished there, in a way.

We’ve effectively reduced their audience size, reach - and the public perception of their popularity.

4/

2) Replying harshly to some of the replies to my posts cut down trolls.

Trolls generally don’t enjoy being dragged out into the town square and flogged.

They’re like bullies: they don’t want a fight; they want to sucker-punch someone.

A spotlight and a smack works wonders.

5

3) Replying harshly diminished undermining noise.

I am here first and foremost to have an opportunity to express things I believe are important and need to be said.

I am not running a chat room. My feed isn’t an open mic night.

6/

One of the ways trolls, bots, and bad actors diminish people’s effectiveness on here is by merely “flooding the channel with noise.”

The more distracting, argumentative, or hijacking, the chatter in replies is allowed to be, the less the original point is heard.

7/

While this has pissed off plenty of people and will continue to, my primary task *on my own Twitter feed* is to ensure that I am heard not that *we all* are heard.

We all have our own timelines.

I work to make sure I am not undermined on mine. You should too.

8/

So, I have often been deliberately harsh for good, well thought out reasons.

That often comes off as dickish; it was supposed to.

And it worked wonderfully.

I get trolled very little.

I get heard when I feel that is important.

I go generally unfucked with by bad actors.

However, I am not just a dude on a sofa scrapping and clawing in a troll-filled cesspool at this point.

While I don’t feel it is earned or deserved, a startling number of people read what I say now.

And that beholds me to being thoughtful and purposeful about how I act.

10/

In specific, it is time for me to retire mixing it up harshly and argumentatively in the replies to my own posts.

Expect that to be reduced.

Being rough regularly in exchanges serves no one at this point.

11/

I have been thinking nearly nonstop about the next year; what we face; what the moment needs; and what that demands of me.

I believe with my whole soul that we need to be the very opposite of the 2016 Dems.

12/

We need to be cohesive and aligned. We need to be a big tent. We cannot lose sight of the fact that all infights are losing fights.

We need to recruit and persuade.

We need to find and activate.

Any time spent bickering is an investment in losing.

13/

So, while I won’t always succeed at this, expect my cannons to be pointed up and over the wall not sideways or down into my comments.

14/

And as one last note for the small number of you who read thus far…

The harshness has been draining. It isn’t fun. I mean, it has absolutely “worked” and has been absolutely necessary but it isn’t fun.

And I wrongly assumed people could separate the affect from the person.

15

Twitter isn’t real life.

I don’t have to fight off trolls in real life. I don’t have people decide to stalk me because they disagrees with me anywhere but here.

And I don’t maintain this harshness anywhere but here

I assumed people knew that.

16/

So, if there is a fringe benefit to learning to bite my tongue, ignore, or mute stuff I would’ve hammered by design, I dunno, maybe I’ll seem more panda than grizzly.

Though, I gotta admit, I am pretty partial to the grizzly.

Anyway, expect some change in discourse.

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