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,
FWIW, I've noticed some less-than-exemplary behavior today on other, quite different lists. Maybe we can blame the CME which hit Earth over the weekend . . .
-- Ronn! :)
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