Jon Gabriel wrote: > These nasty things *are* clearly being posted and said, and they are against > the Etiquette guidelines. The people who post them should, quite frankly, > attack your argument and not you. I have said this onlist before, and I > recently rose to your defense when I thought something had been said that > was particularly out of line. Yet, I handled it in a manner which I felt > was more appropriate to the nature of our list: I posted a plea/complaint > about the way list members were treating each other, and urged the list to > be more civilized. And, at least one list member who was previously > attacking you seems to have ceased doing so.
Maybe I've missed it but nobody ever complained about this one: Robert Seeberger wrote: > ----- Original Message ----- > From: "J. van Baardwijk" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > To: "Brin-L" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > Sent: Wednesday, May 01, 2002 3:25 PM > Subject: RE: And here we go again. > > I see 2 patterns superimposed on each other. > 1 You like to argue with Americans > 2 You have a problem admitting that you are a disagreeable cuss I'd say the latter is an inexcusable personal attack (weather it was meant funny or not). If Jeroen had said something like this he'd be crusified by a number of people on this list by now. I don't think it is funny and it doesn't contribute anything to the discussion. I really liked Jon's post where he actually posed an interesting question. Is the production of a site of shame'' actually an attempt at moderation? Also interesting points are what factors would contribute toward moderation, is it desirable or is a site of shame a good idea at all, what could be put on such a site and what makes such a site better/worse. I think it is a valid discussion as is any on this list. (Although I personally would much rather like to go back to the 'ding' system) I can understand that (keeping in mind the co ownership of Jeroen) it can make people nervous where the suggestion of shaming and naming come into play. But there are three listowners. Fearing that anything Jeroen does will end in excluding listmembers, from this end, looks a bit like good ol' American paranoia* if you ask me. Finally I'd like to nominate Marvin's post on the subject of the way of discussing and the subject of personal attacks as post of the week. (I'm afraid I deleted it , or more like Tom hit some keys and messed up my inbox. Somehow it's gone.) Marvin worded (as elequently as ever) exactly what I've seen happening on this list lately. And I had some 1500 messages to plow through largely deteriorating into 'is so' 'is not so' arguments spiced up with plenty of insults, to make up my mind about this. Personal attacks (like the one above) shouldn't happen. Never ever. And whenever someone (in the heat of a discussion or otherwise) gets out of line, the rest of the list should breath down his/her neck untill there is an appology for this indiscretion. I'm afraid we are in dire need of some godesses to ding people like in the good old days. I think that not responding (like some suggested to cool down the list) in cases where the personal attack line is crossed isn't the way forward. Actually I think that it is the reason why this list is going down hill fast. Did we stop caring about insults? I can't remember who said it but I found it alarming. Some one mentioned that he was getting more insensitive to heated arguments. And I think it was Marvin mentioning that his response threashhold (I'll christen it Marvin's ignition point ;o)) had gone up. I think in some cases this is a good development preventing discussions from getting out of control. But I do get the impression that as the response ignition point on certain subjects go up, the insensitivity to personal attacks is also increasing. And that doesn't fit in with the IAAMOAC credo we members of this list are said to adhere to. Sonja PS *) I say 'American' here because I get the impression that Americans in general are against any type of interference by people percieved as in power. Furthermore the concept of conspiracy theories are a largly American type cliche, widely introduced to the world by Hollywood. So I'm using it here as a cliche not as judgement.
