John,
In my humble opinion, the Etiquette Guidelines are not intended to be a bludgeon.
I agree and pledge to continue to use them to provide gentle correction, and never as a bludgeon, as you have done here.
In general, if you are a Party to the discussion, I think that you
should probably refrain from quoting the Etiquette Guidelines in
response to other parties in a discussion. There are more than enough
Third Parties on this List who could interject to calm down a heated
discussion by reference to the Etiquette Guidelines, rather than letting
participatns wield them against each other.
Point taken. Would that it worked that way. It does seem to me that some folks get a pass for abusive behavior. I will only take so many public hits before I decide to counter them. In particular, I will not brook sustained personal attacks.
Moreover, in general, I think that one generally has the best luck in
correcting someone's actions by pulling them aside *privately* and
speaking with them, rather than announcing your criticism of that person
to the whole list.
That may be. I hope we'll get there.
In today's discussion, I think there is enough lack of eitquette to be spread among several parties. While its unavoidable that the context of this message will probably be interpreted as being a criticism of only one person, suffice to say that I have criticized more than one person.
While I may be the most obvious target of your comments, I don't feel in any way abused by your appeal to better behavior. I hope that other recipients of your gentle reproof are as receptive.
Thank you sincerely,
Dave
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