[WikiEN-l] Should we do things Fred and Cunctator's way, or act like adults?

[The Cunctator]

On 4/11/03 11:06 AM, "Robert" <rkscience100 at yahoo.com> wrote:

> I should point out that the Cunctator's remarks about the
> dispute in the Idolatry Talk page were dishonest and
> misleading.

They may have been misleading, but they certainly weren't dishonest. I'm
appalled, insulted, and angered that Robert would impugn my honesty.
Actually, I'm not, but I thought Robert might feel better if I reacted as
emotionally to his statements as he did to mine and DF's.

> I was angered at Dietary Fiber for making certain remarks,
> especially the ones in which he/she attacked my religious
> beliefs, and made me out to be someone slandering all
> polytheists. (And I have never done this.) I was also
> bothered by Dietary Fiber's fake quotes (which my critics
> here are blatantly lying about)
> 
> Yet Cunctator ignored those particular remarks, and implied
> that they didn't even exist.  When Cunctator did make some
> brief quotes, he left the particular quotes in question
> out! A lie by omission is a lie nonetheless.

I did not ignore those particular remarks. Because Robert failed, in his
complaints on the mailing list, to include any relevant passages, I was
forced to rely on my judgment as to what he was talking about. And I quote
from my earlier post:

: Then RK seemed to get a bee in his bonnet for DF's paraphrase of RK's
: statement
:
:    This article then points out that this view is not accepted
:    by many liberal Chrisitans and Jews, is not accepted by
:    modern historical studies of religion.
:
: with this statement (by DF)
:
:    You indicated that idolatry has a non-religious meaning by
:    referring to a "liberal/scholary" view; as opposed to a
:    religious view.
:
: which certainly seems to be a fair paraphrase--though the quotes shouldn't
: have been there. Then the discussion went southward. But RK certainly
: threw the first punch.

Robert complained that I ignored the statements DF made that angered and
bothered Robert. Most of those statements were in succeeding passages, which
I refered to as "Then the discussion went southward". I did in fact refer to
the first time DF incorrectly (or falsely, though I would be less quick to
assume offence) put quotes around a characterization of RK's words, and said
"the quotes shouldn't have been there".

In short, Robert is complaining that I didn't attack DF for attacking
Robert.

And that's not true. I'll be more explicit: DF was wrong for putting quotes
around a paraphrase of Robert's position. He was wrong for responding to
RK's tone in kind.

But Robert was wrong, and is more wrong, for introducing and ratcheting up
an adversarial tone into the discussion.

In other words, while DF said things he probably shouldn't have, so did
Robert, and Robert started it.

That's my honest interpretation of the situation, and I encourage everyone
else to review the discussion and come to their own conclusion.

> Hey, maybe we should edit some Wikipedia articles today!
> We can forge a quote from Cunctator, questions his
> religious beliefs, and attack positions he does not have!
> We can also do the same thing to Fred Bauder!  And then
> when they complain,  we can insult them, and deny that
> these attacks against them even exist!  Hurrah!  How
> wonderfully fun it would be to join in with this type of
> trolling!

Robert is attacking positions I do not have, and insulting me.

I am not denying that attacks against RK exist; I am only saying that he is
engaged in a mutually adversarial discussion.

> Or we can cut the crap and learn to act like adults.  Some
> of us are here to do some serious work on this encyclopedia
> project.

Is Robert implying that I'm not? I'd hate to think so.