[Foundation-l] Board statement of responsibility

[Thomas Dalton]

On 18/05/2008, Mike Godwin <mgodwin at wikimedia.org> wrote:
>
>  Thomas Dalton writes:
>
>  >  If you consider all (personal) criticism to be an
>  > attack, then clearly you're going to have a problem with it.
>
>
> It's not really a matter of what I consider to be a personal criticism
>  or a personal attack. I think it's really a matter of what the Board
>  members judge to be a personal criticism or attack, and they are the
>  ones who ultimately will interpret this provision.  That said, I think
>  it is entirely possible to criticize someone's actions without
>  attacking their character (for example). The notion that the only way
>  to express disagreement with someone is to criticize them personally
>  seems to me to be dead certain to lead to personal animosity.

Expressing disagreement with someone involves saying, in some form or
other "I think you are wrong." That is criticism, and it's of a
person, thus it's personal criticism. Perhaps we're using different
definitions of "criticise"? (In addition to different spellings ;))

>  > (really, I struggle to see how you can
>  > criticise anything other than a person or group of people -
>  > criticising what they do, rather than them, is just semantics).
>
>
> This doesn't strike me as a struggle, and I disagree that this is just
>  semantics.  I certainly know how to express disagreement without
>  personally criticizing someone, and I think this posting of mine
>  actually stands as a demonstration of how to do this.

I take responsibility for my actions, therefore if someone says
something against my actions I see it as saying something against me.
I know other people don't see it that way, but I do.