--- In [email protected], Bronte Baxter <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > Rick wrote: > >> These are all good points Judy and I agree with them. As you know, >> I have been very reluctant to institute such a policy, for many of >> the reasons you mention. I consider it to be an experiment, and >> I'll drop it if it doesn't work. At t this point, my idea of >> personal attacks and insults are the more blatant, abrasive ones. >> I have no problem with "you need a checking." I do have a problem >> with calling someone a f*ckhead or threatening them with physical >> violence. Let's see how it goes. > > I agree with Edg on this one. Rick, if you start to discriminate > between "blatant, abrasive personal attacks" and milder personal > insults, you really do step into the role of a judge. People are > likely to get upset with you, comparing their remark, which you > ruled against, to someone else's remark, which they feel was worse > but which you allowed. Perhaps for this to work it has to be > entirely clear-cut: personal derogatory remarks of any kind not > being acceptable.
Having "said my piece" earlier, I've been staying out of all this. But I'll make one comment as to when someone has stepped over the line. It involves the use of the word "liar." IMO, *most* of the uses of that word here are in response to someone's *opinion* of another person. Person 1 says something that he or she believes is completely accurate about Person 2; it is Person 1's *opinion*. And then Person 2, who *disagrees* with the opinion of his or her behavior expressed by Person 1, steps in and disputes it. *If* Person 2 disputes Person 1's opinion by saying something like, "I don't agree with your assessment of my behavior; here is what *I* think is happening," that's not an attack. But when Person 2 says, "Person 1 said such-and-such about me and that is a LIE, and Person 1 is a LIAR," that's a *personal attack." No question about it. Person 2 has chosen to take an exchange of ideas and different points of view and interpret someone else's opinion of them as a personal attack against them. They have then decided to "attack back." In general, anytime someone tries to justify "attacking back" they are trying to justify a personal attack that was just made by them. It couldn't be any clearer. In their minds the personal attack may be justified, but the very fact that they *are* attempting to justify it shows that they know it was a personal attack, and thus against the FFL guidelines. Just my two centimes...
