On 10/18/05, Snowspinner Snowspinner@gmail.com wrote:
On Oct 18, 2005, at 8:39 PM, Guettarda wrote:
You have made it very clear that you are not suited for a position of authority like the ArbComm. Thanks for the clarification.
If you're not going to vote for me because you don't like the straw man of me you created, I somehow don't think I ever had your vote in the first place.
I didn't know you well enough to have a decision before today. I knew you by name, knew you as an established user, and assumed the best. I really didn't have a specific opinion about you. And I didn't think anything much about your posting this morning - I was curious, but mostly took what you said at face value - until I looked at the articles. Once I realised who the editors were - good solid contributors, at least one admin - it struck me that comparing them to LaRouchies was a totally unwarranted accusation. So I asked "was that really necessary"? Up to that point, I still didn't see this as anything major, but your facetious dismissal of a valid concern was enlightening.
How I am building a straw man of you, I don't know. I realise that this is not the whole picture of who you are, but it's a good picture of how you react when challenged. And, it would appear, that your reaction to being challenged is to try to redirect. You made attacks on other editors. You unjustifiably tarred them - people who I have interacted with, and people whose decisions as editors and admins I know and respect. The right thing to do is to call a person on an insult like that.
And the normal thing to do would have been to say "yeah, ok, I exaggerated". That's the answer I expected. That's what a normal person would have done. But you didn't. You could have said nothing. That wouldn't have put you back at the "don't know but broadly positive" opinion I started out with, but it I probably wouldn't have thought any the worse of you. But you chose to answer my question/comment with tangents about teaching comp. What the point of that was, God alone knows. I never challenged you on the issue that the articles were long and poorly sourced. And then you went for "Yes, I have stopped beating my wife", which appears to be your favourite line (since you have already used it in your ArbComm Q&A page). I'm not an English major, I may lack your rhetorical skills...all I can make of that is the fact that you somehow see my question about insults to fellow editors as a "have you stopped beating your wife" question.
I find that baffling. I didn't set out to trick you. You can either say "sorry, I overstated things" or "yes, I think that Ryan and Kizzle and Kevin Baas are POV-pushers on the level of the LaRouchies" or you could say "NPA does not apply to the mailing list". You chose to run for the ArbComm - your opinion on Wikipedia policy are very germane. But you chose to duck the question. So I made the questions explicit. I really do think that we NEED to know what you think about these things. I don't know you that well, I assumed that you abided by the norms of the community. How is asking these questions a strawman attack?
I had no opinion about you. Sure, I held you to a higher standard than I would a person who was not an admin, and I held you to a higher standard because you are running for the ArbComm. I think I asked fair questions, I think your refusal to answer them is telling. Is it unfair to judge your personality and your character from one episode? Maybe. Obviously there is more to you than this one aspect. But it say a lot...
Ian