To refute, or not to refute, that is the question.
Sometimes people make posts on forums that are just crazy, full of misinformation, logically flawed, full of false assumptions or just plain wrong.
So what do you do?
Do you ignore these posts; or do you refute them?
Generally I have chosen to refute them believing that if you don't then there's a chance that people especially those starting out may believe them and have their time wasted finding out that they've been steered wrong.
This just, well it's exhausting, it just annoys the me and makes me feel tired. I'm not the internet policeman, I'm not the bondage policeman. However I feel that if you're engaged in a 'community' and want to see it advance you do be being part of that community have take on an implicit responsibility to oppose something that you see as detrimental to that community. And I think that misinformation falls into that category.
I've come to dislike doing this however for a few reasons.
Firstly the person who posted may simply be mistaken in their belief and though you try it's hard to effectively tell them they're 'mistaken' in a way that they are able to accept. People naturally in some cases become somewhat defensive even though the intention was never to attack them.
Secondly some people repeatedly jump on the same hobby horse time after time and have a kind of tunnel vision about what they think is right and wrong and cannot consider any other approach or the possibility of their error. Saying anything to someone like that is just a thankless task in any case because they will never be persuaded by argument, fact or in extreme cases even sanity.
Thirdly and very importantly I start to feel like all I ever post for is to argue. That's not fun. It sucks up energy that could be used for something useful.
A further thought is that there are many topics and posts that occur to me that I don't post because I can well see that if I do I'm going to have to dedicate quite a bit of time to responding to replies that either, didn't read the OP, didn't understand the OP or plain just posted something unrelated. Also you may get one of the afore mentioned hobby horsests who will use any opportunity to push their agenda especially if you post something not in tune with their personal world view.
It seems unavoidable and is tiring. Yet you shouldn't let things go past that you really think are wrong.
