[WikiEN-l] Personal attacks and low EQs

[Jerome Jamnicky]

Alex Regh wrote:
> Hi!
> 
> On Mon, 04 Jul 2005 07:29:54 +1000, Jerome Jamnicky wrote:
> 
> 
>>>Calling someone a hypocrite IS criticizing their behavior.  Having to
>>>write out "your behavior is hypocritical" in place of "you are a
>>>hypocrite" is just tedious and redundant. 
>>
>>It's useful because Wikipedia is not written by Vulcans.  The emotional 
>>impact of differently-worded but logically equivalent statements is 
>>different, and this affects how constructive the discussion is.
> 
> 
> No, actually, those two statements are not "logically equivalent".

I didn't claim that they are, nor did I mean to imply it.  The point I 
tried to make is that changes in wording can change the emotional 
impact, even in the extreme case that the meaning is exactly the same. 
Obviously this would also apply in the case where the meaning is similar 
but different.

(And I should have written "can be different" in place of "is different" 
in my previous mail.)

> Calling
> somebody _a_ something implies that this person engages in this behaviour
> regularly, while saying "your behaviour here is something" does criticise only
> a behaviour at a certain place and time. 
> 
> "You lied about X" is therefore far less (potentially) insulting than "you are
> a liar". Not to mention the fact that it is impossible to say the latter about
> any Wikipedian whom one does not personally know, and very well, too - because
> I doubt that there are any people who spend so much time on WP that their
> behaviour here, even if they were constantly lying (or doing anything else) on
> WP, would constitute most of _all_ behaviour they ever exhibit.

Yes, thank you for putting this so clearly.

> Alex
> (who wanted to keep out of the debate, but that had to be said)

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