"J. van Baardwijk" wrote:
>
> At 18:41 30-10-2002 -0600, Robert Seeberger wrote:
>
> > > >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.
>
> 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.
Actually, if X responds to the message, but ignores the personal attack
part, that gives the message that the personal attack part isn't going
to bother X, and some people will be less likely to make personal
attacks against X. And the perception of most people will be that X is
being quite reasonable, and the person making the personal attack isn't,
and the general sympathy will be in X's favor, and if it looks like it's
necessary to defend either X or the attacker, people will be more likely
to come down on the side of X.
And merely dropping out of a thread might have the results you indicate,
but if X drops out of the thread after posting, "I choose not to debate
someone using these tactics", it sends a message that the attacker's
behavior has been noted and condemned. If the attacker then turns
attention to someone else, and the same sort of message is sent as a
reason for *that* person not responding to the attacker, the message is
strengthened.
It's not so much *what* is done (dropping out of the thread, or at least
that part of it) but *how* it is done (a short, reasoned post explaining
*why* X is no longer going to respond to that attacker). If enough
people stop responding to the attacker, but continue to debate among
each other, the *general* tone of things will likely improve greatly.
Julia
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