Sorry to drag this out, but I feel I have something important to add.
On Thu, 6 Dec 2001, Manning Bartlett wrote:
If you want to criticise a decision, or an action, or an article, or discuss a policy, count me in. But I find expressing contempt for any individual, for any reason, to be unacceptable in this forum.
I wish I could agree, but I can't, not entirely. I agree that the initial posts about Cunctator being a troll, which started this most recent dispute, were unnecessary.
My own post, while it did express no small amount of contempt for some of Cunctator's public statements, was made not out of hostility but out of self-defense. Cunctator now tries to say that he himself is under "attack," as if he had not brought the criticism of his behavior upon himself. Words have consequences. In a dispute that has become personal, the consequences are consequences for reputation, and some of us (myself certainly) require at least a decent reputation in order to be able to do our jobs. If someone makes many misleading public statements (intentionally, or not!) that tend to undermine my reputation, I think it's important that I defend it. Repeatedly, if necessary. I won't apologize for doing so.
Two important qualifications to the above: first, of course, it would have been better if the dispute never happened in the first place. Then I would have enjoyed, well, *not* getting defensive. Second, if the misrepresentations are not credible to anyone, then of course there's no point in trying to correct them. But if someone has enough good will and credibility in the Wikipedia community, then, when he says something that I think is particularly damaging to me, I must consider responding, out of self-defense.
This is all of course a huge waste of time, in that all of our time would be far better used in working on the encyclopedia. But--seriously--I don't see how it can be helped! For instance, I would like to be able to take the high road and say, "There's no need to respond to this, I'll just let thinking people come to whatever conclusions they like." I wish it worked that way, but I really don't think it does. Personal attacks of all sorts really do have consequences, and if they have even some small amount of credibility, then if you don't fight back, there are going to be people who are convinced to some small degree.
Finally, I want to make a distinction--one that is all too easily blurred, however--between reasonable, constructive criticism on the one hand, and unfair, misleading attacks. I welcome constructive criticism. I don't even demand niceness. I do generally want fairness, though.
I'm not trying to offend anyone by this, and I truly hope no offence is taken.
No offense taken here.
Larry