Re: [WikiEN-l] Re: Personal attacks and low EQs

I'm a bit puzzled as to why you think I'm angered and why you persist in attacking me personally. So basically you just made up that figure? It really doesn't matter anyway, since you're not dealing with the general population, you're dealing with Wikipedians. You make Wikipedia rules to deal with Wikipedians, not Wikipedia rules to deal with the general population. Of course people *prefer* it, but that's not a realistic expectation, especially in the context of contrversial topics on Wikipedia, and it's certainly not something that should be enforced. There's a reason why there are no laws against hurting peoples feelings. I doubt many people would disagree that Wikipedia policies exist for the purpose of making a better encyclopedia. Preserving anyone and everyone's personal feelings at all costs is not only impossible even by the most well intentioned people, it's also very counter-productive to enfore a "you must be politically correct and hand-holding" rule. The personal attacks rule exists to squash counter-productive behavior, not to enforce some insane politically correct standard. It has nothing to do with temper. If someone is behaving badly, it is *necessary* to discuss that. Otherwise you're simply accepting that bad behavior and allowing it to continue. Then you're really out on a limb here, since you'll have trouble finding support for a "don't call people trolls no matter what" rule. By supporting that view, you can't really claim you're acting in the interest of the consensus formed on the policy. You did say I had a low EQ and made the association between the two, so I just read the implication and cried buckets of tears over it (yes, that was sarcasm, but with a point to demonstrate that there are very fragile people). Since your alleged goal is to avoid offending people at all costs, you should have been more careful with your language and that would be a violation of your interpretation of the policy. And this is exactly why such an undefined rule is silly, because you can never know when you're going to offend someone. So then where do you place yourself then? When people say something like "I never said X" and then refuse to clarify what their stance is, it usually means that the "assumption" was dead on. Which is why it should be defined soley in terms of the reason it was created--to punish seriously counter-productive behavior. Defining it in terms of the general population instead of Wikipedia producitivity makes no sense. Saying someone's life is primarily online is what is usually meant by saying someone doesn't have a life, don't try to weasel your way out of this one. In any case, that kind of accusation, regardless of what you call it, is typically considered insulting. Again, I'm totally crying buckets of tears here. If you're going to be a spokesperson for EQ, personal attacks and whanot, it would help to have a better understanding of what a personal attack is. Now how would you be able to make an asessment like that unless you're suggesting you have a high EQ yourself? You seem to like to pull all kinds of figures out of your ass without substantiating them. I also have to wonder though, if what you say is true--that most Wikipedians have a low EQ, then what's the point of a rule that they couldn't understand? So then would you think that the only admins enforcing the rule would be required to have a high EQ? Because that doesn't seem to be the case. How much a certain type of behavior contributes negatively to Wikipedia progress is something which can be logically and objectively analyzed. You keep thinking in terms of personal offense, rather than the resulting producitivity (or lack thereof) of said personal offense, which IS measurable. ---------------------------------------------- Nathan J. Yoder http://www.gummibears.nu/ http://www.gummibears.nu/files/njyoder_pgp.key ----------------------------------------------