[mejari]

It's very clear that it is copy-pasted from somewhere, just from the formatting of the text, so I was honestly wondering where it was from. As it is it's just an unsourced block of text without any commentary about what they meant to show by it or even if it is accurate.

>this can easily be read as "you're just copy/pasting stuff that doesn't have anything to do with the conversation".

Good, because that is what I meant. Until they can show the source of that information and can explain why they posted it I have no way of knowing if it has anything to do with the conversation.

>With contentious topics, extra care needs to be taken to ensure constructive conversation.

I do not consider just copying blocks of text at someone without any attempt at elaboration a constructive conversation. I asked a valid clarifying question and I feel no need to beat around the bush. Nothing in my comment was unnecessary or aggressive. Read it literally, as that is the way it was written.

[grzm]

If you no longer think the person you're engaging with is interested in constructive discussion, it does absolutely no good to make it worse by raising the level of antagonism. If you're interested in rehabilitating it, you need to make it abundantly clear that that's what you're doing. Otherwise, just leave it be.

Given the nature of internet forums with text being the only medium, you do need to take extra care to ensure the best possible reading of your comments. I wasn't the only one to read your comment in a negative way (as another commenter posted as well), and your comment didn't elicit the response from 'billfor that you were looking for. The bar needs to be higher. Although it happens much too often, HN isn't intended for battle or point-scoring debate: it's intended for substantive, constructive discussion.

Similarly, at this point I don't think I've done an adequate job in presenting what I've intended, so I'll leave it at that.

[mejari]

>it does absolutely no good to make it worse by raising the level of antagonism.

I do not believe I did so. Again: I asked an honest question to which I honestly want to know the answer.

[narrowrail]

Apparently, the only link that comes up in a search is:

http://redstatewatcher.com/article.asp?id=64995 "Media outrage at White House briefing is more 'Fake News' - Look ..."

[mejari]

Awesome! Thank you, I appreciate it. Looks like that's just a rehost of a Brietbart article.

Seems like some of the events disagree with the collation article:

>On Thursday, Fox News’ Ed Henry tweeted that MSNBC hosts Ed Schultz and Lawrence O’Donnell, as well as Ezra Klein of the Washington Post and Fox News’ Juan Williams, had been invited for a private off-the-record chat with President Obama.

So not exactly the "lefty" conspiracy painted in the root article.