OMG, you’re right!
I completely forgot about the netiquette of referencing things I've written that are relevant to the topic in hand,
We are, of course, supposed to hijack somebody's comments section with a reply longer than the original piece.
For me, the trouble started when people I was responding to objected to my 41,000 word replies and requested that I write a post and link to it instead.
It was downhill from there: I just kept penning ever more replies containing links to stuff I felt to be (at least tangentially) relevant to the issue(s) I was replying to ... or that the OP might perhaps find amusing (as well as relevant) ... that people could exercise their own judgement about and choose to follow (or not) as they saw fit when they read my reply.
And not only did nobody ever object, but some of them even pursued the links and left comments and links of their own that I pursued in my turn and, before we knew it, we had interesting, but divergent, parallel discussions about multiple posts simultaneously.
It's almost as if the only people who care about the netiquette of it are narcissists (and, perhaps, those with other Cluster B personality disorders) ... those with low self-esteem, for whom everything is a threat, or a competition in which to prove themselves (which behavioural motivation they 'project' onto others) ... or those who are psychologically damaged and/or developmentally arrested in some other way (resulting in control freakish tendencies ... or whatever other motivation for confecting outrage in their own minds).
And don't get me started on the sanctimonious SJW types, who leap to defend others without even knowing them, let alone being asked to by them ... they give those of us who might actually be not unpleased to be considered proponents of fairness and equality for all a bad name — man, the next thing you know, you've got incel snowflakes whining on and on about how they're just defending the OP from being 'cancelled' by the 'woke' bleeding heart libtards who want to impose Socialism on everyone by taking away people's God given right to oppress others they disagree with on behalf of the OP in absentia..
I'd drop a link to something I wrote about the matter but, surprisingly, it's almost as if I just don't consider it significant ... a sort of First World Problem of concern only to those with deep rooted psychological issues they should really get to the bottom of before venturing any further contact with a world full of psychoemotionally healthy adults not subject to the limitations imposed by developmental arrest ...and, now I come to reflect upon the matter, I'm not actually sure I've ever got around to penning a single, coherent post about the issue you've raised rather than a number of different, off-the-cuff, remarks over the years about some of the ones I've raised in reply here.
Yes, it's a matter I really should give more thought to: is it abhorrently impolite to give people the option of reading no more of my ramblings than absolutely necessary by dropping a link to them, whilst making my immediate point succinctly .... or is it more so to pen ludicrously long screeds in my replies that slow down page loading times, necessitate the transfer of more data every time (resulting not only in needless extra energy use but potentially rendering it impossible for the OP's own post to load as a result) ... and other stuff I'm losing the motivation to contemplate any further, because, let's face it, the only people who care are whiny-a**ed, bedwetting, snowflake keyboard warriors nobody likes (which is why they're keyboard warriors moaning and b*tching on the Intarwebz rather than out partying with friends they don't have)?
I'll have to reflect upon the matter ... possibly pontificate upon it at length in a post of my own.
What are your thoughts?
D*mn, this reply is long!
Maybe I should use it to form the basis of the aforementioned post I might be better off writing and simply drop a quick reply and a link here instead — I just don’t know.
(Does this all need a ‘😉’ at the end or not? I’ve written about that at length in the Past too and would drop a link but, well, you know how it is … I wouldn’t want to cause offence. And, equally, I wouldn’t want you to feel I’m patronising ¹ you).
I think I’ve about covered the issue you raised here, but feel free to correct me if I’m wrong — maybe I misread you and you were actually trying to passive-aggressively rebuke me on behalf of the OP ⁴.
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¹ That’s when you ‘talk down to’ people and needlessly explain things to them that they (should) already know, or might reasonably be expected to — it’s a bit like being condescending … which is (sort of) a simile. ²
² A simile is a word that has a similar (albeit slightly differently nuanced) meaning to another ³, that people who have no grasp of the subtle differences in meaning use (willy-nilly) interchangeably with the original word in lieu of expanding their vocabulary and ... once they've grasped why, despite being similes, the two words don't in fact mean exactly the same thing ... using the (more appropriate) original,
³ I’ll come around and scroll your browser for you as well, shall I? 😉
⁴ Ir’s just so hard to parse people’s intent on the Internet, isn’t it? (See here,for instance ⁵ )
⁵ Oops … like Britney, I appear to have done it again ⁶ ).
⁶ HA! Gotcha! 😉 ⁷
⁷ Terry Pratchett has much to answer for.
