At 18:41 30-10-2002 -0600, Robert Seeberger wrote:
OTOH, if someone decides to stop posting (in a specific thread, or altogether) because of personal attacks against him/her, it will send a message to the attacker that personal attacks are in fact effective weapons for silencing people one disagrees with. If the attacker does not get criticised by others for his behaviour (let alone *punished* for it), it also sends a message to the attacker that launching personal attacks is acceptable behaviour.> >As for what I said, well, personal attacks doesn't ever let anyone > >'win' an argument/discussion. So I fail to see what the big deal is. > > Those personal attacks tend to have quite a lot of effect on the list > as a whole -- and not exactly a positive effect... >Only when they are reacted to. If you ignore them (and one should if one is wise) they have almost zero effect on anything beyond the attackers karma.
I do not think we should be sending such messages. Sticking your head in the sand and hoping the problem will go away has never been a good approach.
Jeroen "Flamethrower ready, sir!" van Baardwijk
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