| Eh. I’ve found that a reasoned argument works better than a rant. When I send a story out for beta reading, I go through and fix all the major spelling and grammar mistakes first. I shouldn’t need to, but people get hung up on the spelling and don’t see the story. It’s the same with rants. People see the anger and frustration and miss the argument being presented. You can argue people should look past the emotion and consider the logic. I’d agree. And I do my best to do that myself. But the reality is many people won’t. I choose to be pragmatic and rewrite any rant more carefully so I’m heard. Or I delete it because it doesn’t add meaningfully to the conservation. Also, some controversial topics are the result of irreconcilable beliefs. See any discussion of Apple. In those threads, people talk about things they value and other people don’t value those things. There are arguments and rants that don’t go anywhere as a result. As a result of this observation, I approach communication deliberately. If I think a rant will be heard, I’ll let myself rant. If I don’t, I take time to think why I disagree and figure out how to phrase it in less aggressive language. There are people who really dislike this approach for a variety of reasons. I enjoy talking to them because I don’t have to do this song and dance number. TL;DR read the room and speak in a way you’ll be understood. :) |
One good rule of thumb: people will respond to the weakest part of your argument. So instead of making it as long as possible, and addressing several unrelated points in an attempt to preempt all objections, it's best to cut out everything but the core of your message. The question I always ask myself whenever commenting here is, "is my comment strong enough?". If it isn't, I delete my comment. If there are weak parts, I prune them. It's better to leave an incomplete but strong comment, than a comment which tries to be complete but has several weak pieces.