Around 2 years ago I remember I was pretty new to this subreddit, I had played xiangqi for a couple years but never really achieved any advanced level of skill so I was still relatively new, somewhere around advanced/amateur. Anyway I loved explaining the game and ideas to new players, so when beginners missed or didn't understand something I liked talking about it with them, it was fun to me and I enjoyed being on here.
Anyway one time I saw a post from a new player asking: is this (炮) (兵) (炮) formation good? And in the position red had both cannons in the central file sandwiching a soldier. So I spent a lot of effort to debate amongst myself and used all my knowledge to try & answer this question. Since I remembered in many of my first games and in lots of online trap sequences, the red player went out of their way to set this formation up at the cost of development and ignoring the general theme of the game, I decided it was pretty weak and I made a lengthy explanation of each feature and on how I looked at it. While the explanation may have been inaccurate, it was genuinely so well-intentioned and helpful yet in the comments a man named ioSurvivor viciously attacked and berated me for it.
I actually tried to be as nice as possible to understand where he was coming from , so I tried to repeat whatever he said back to him to see if I could understand it better, but he just said "stop shoving words in my mouth", and I tried to argue that my points were still valid in some way, like the cannons worked better if only one of them was in the central file and the other was fighting elsewhere, or that the formation concentrated too much power in one file which may end up creating a stiff and inflexible position that gives the opponent better chances. Also it was unclear how the cannons would arrive in that example position, and whether or not the opponent's central soldier still existed to attack the cannons.
But these are really all simple misunderstandings that could've been cleared up with a simple question like "do you mean a position where a cannon launched over and captured the opponent's central soldier? Or a position where that soldier still exists?" Any of which could've been asked to clear up a lot of the misunderstanding I was harassed for, I didn't even get the chance to try to ask what he was on about or learn anything about the actual position itself. Regardless of the inaccuracy or completeness of my explanation to the beginner who asked, I don't deserve to be harassed for anything I spent effort on to make a well-intended explanation, at most, just having the position simply explained to me in a factual way instead of using it to harass me as a person. Xiangqi is just a game and lighthearted hobby, not something where the slightest mistake leads to war or devastation, which is why mistakes are natural and a good part of the learning process. It's honestly ridiculous I'm even having to type this , I kinda regret being so nice instead of probably just ignoring him instead of trying to explain what I meant
Here are some of the things he said
-"This is the stupidest thing I've ever heard in my entire life" after I explained what I thought about the position
-Picking apart each and every explanation I made, both the original one I wrote to the beginner I tried to help, and the preceding ones where I tried to defend my ideas and argue that they have some merit even if he's apparently a higher elo player. He tried to criticize and discredit every single possible point I made, interpreting every last one just the way he read it without bothering to ask what I had meant (basically misinterpreting them all) to criticize all of them. Whenever I spoke up against what he'd gotten incorrect about my meaning, he simply repeated the same procedure on everything I said all over again, and linked them each time to ideas like "there must be something very wrong with me to think this way" or that "I'm stupid or worthless as a person for being "bad" at a game"
I apologize for asking you, the reader, to believe me even if I can't remember exactly what he said. My head just hurts thinking about it
-Basically tried to get me to completely discard every last one of my original thoughts before accepting me as any kind of player with reasonable opinions
I tried to report it to the mods but nothing really changed, so pretty bad experience here, just thought I'd share it instead of keeping silent
