On Wed, Jan 31, 2007 at 05:53:22PM -0800, Luna wrote:
On 1/31/07, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
One point which for me makes "Be civil" preferable to "Don't be a dick" is that it advocates something that people should be in preference to what they should not be. It has a more positive outlook.
Besides that, I can't remember a *single* occassion where linking [[m:DICK]] has ever done anything to calm a situation down. Of *course* the other person is going to be offended, and anyone linking this in a heated dispute is a fool to expect otherwise -- at the very least, get somebody neutral to do the linking. When the directly involved (and most biased) parties start giving each other dick/civility scoldings, it rarely ever calms anything down.
If we want the level of discourse to be more civil, we must first ourselves behave in a civil manner. Nine times out of ten, that precludes linking [[m:DICK]] in my opinion.
Besides their relative rudeness as rebukes, there is a substantial difference between the *meaning* of the two phrases. "Don't be a dick" is a far more broad concept, and makes greater reference to motives and meaning; "civility" is more about style and form. For example, a dismissive, one-line response to a carefully considered five paragraph argument is a "dick move" even if perfectly civil. An exasperated ejaculation of emotion may be incivil but is not a dick move--a dick does not act out of desperation or express vulnerability.