Mid-conversation updates and what came before
Pat: I saw a group of ducks * 1: This comment is about ducks even if it doesn't mention them * * 2: This comment is about ducks if made early but could be about ducks or geese if made later * 3: This comment is about ducks even if it doesn't mention them * Pat: They were actually geese * * 4: This comment is about geese even if it doesn't mention them * * 5: This comment is about geese even if it doesn't mention them * 6: This comment could be about ducks or geese * 7: This comment mentions ducks * 8: This comment could be about ducks or geese * 9: This comment mentions geese
I have repeatedly had trouble trying to describe this situation in words, without diagrams or examples, and trying to give hypothetical examples of a concept like this in the middle of another conversation rarely goes well. The key detail here is that a correction or additional context or new information is later added to the original scenario. The result of this is that the original post and at least some of the comments become a functionally distinct conversation from the real/updated scenario and comments on that scenario. I regularly encounter people who don't understand this concept and so experience reading comprehension failures when presented with a scenario like this. This becomes a problem when I try to have a discussion about ducks and what was said about them, but people insist that the original post and the first comments were about geese and get upset at me for wanting to continue discussing ducks or to discuss the prior discussion of ducks. I say “Pat, 1, 2, 3, and maybe 6 and 8, said these things about ducks” and multiple other people respond with “No, they were all talking about geese, which you would know if you'd read Pat's update”. Once that happens, the conversation seems irreparably damaged, so I am hoping to find a way to fix this sooner.
That alone is too complex to discuss with many (most?) people without better tools to aid the discussion. It gets even worse when you get to the later comments, the ones after the update but not nested under it. Some of those comments will make it clear whether they are talking about ducks or geese, but others will be entirely ambiguous. Assuming one direction or the other doesn't lead to supported conclusions about the conversation or either of the two scenarios. “[Conclusion about geese] which is supported by 6 and 8” does not follow; you don’t know whether 6 and 8 were talking about geese. Although I've managed to discuss the previous paragraph successfully a few times, I don't recall ever getting through to someone on this further aspect of the situation.
There's another layer here about the different meanings of positive and negative statements about uncertain groups, but that would double the length here and this is already too long.
If you have ideas about how to more effectively approach this scenario when I encounter it, I'm open to suggestions.