Sorting the opinion wheat from the chaff

I LIKE reading the views of other people, especially on subjects where I haven’t yet formed an opinion; and even where I disagree it helps to inform and focus the mind.

But if you’ve visited any social media forums lately then you’ll know how dire the level of debate can be. To protect both body and mind I have devised the following five principles:

Firstly, what value their views on complex issues of those who failed to grasp even the basics of their own native language?

Secondly, using swear words is only a device to startle readers awake when there is nothing else of any substance to engage them.

Thirdly, gratuitously derogatory nicknames or labels, applied to a person or group, are a cowardly form of verbal bullying.

Fourthly, distorting someone’s point of view ad absurdum, and then making fun of it, is an admission of having no rational response.

And finally, the biggest group of offenders, who pass off their own speculation, wishful thinking or prejudice as facts, with no attempt at validation or justification: they insinuate a Trojan horse of innuendo, half-truths or lies in the hope that, if repeated often enough, they will begin to take root.

The instant one of these five principles is violated I stop and move on. In this way at least 90% of most discussion forums become invisible. I commend this strategy for the reclaiming of both time and sanity, and wish you a healthy and peaceful new year (even those contributors whose letters I will no longer be able to read). Chris Power

Newport