Rick answered Chris:

...

The deletionist attitudes are pretty dumb - they don't give articles the chance to become good.

Please don't post ad hominem attacks on the mailing list.

But Chris was not making an ad hominem argument, nor was he making a personal remark. He was calling an idea or practice "dumb", and that is permitted by the rules of this mailing list.

Now, if he had said that trolls like Michael or Wik advocate deletionism, so it must be dumb -- that would be an ad hominem argument, and therefore fallacious (although not against the list rules).

Or, if he had said that Chris or I was dumb, because we advocate deletionism, that would be a personal remark -- and not permitted on this list.

Pedantically,

Ed Poor List Admin Emeritus <-------- and keeper of the Flame