No room for Personal Attacks
 

I am just reminding everyone that there is no room for personal attacks here in Internet Tablet Talk.

Despite my previous warning, it seems like some members still have a hard time controlling themselves. I have previously mentioned that there will be new rules that will be implemented soon. So, for the mean time, while the new rules are not yet in place, I will start banning members who are reported for personal attacks. Bans will last for a week.

To control using new accounts to post, for each new account that a banned member registers, a month will be added to the ban.

Let us keep order in the forums. To the community, please don't hesitate to report members who are attacking other members.

Thank you.

Re: No room for Personal Attacks
 

Enough said.

Thank You.

Re: No room for Personal Attacks
 

What? All this because some people can't be bothered to learn how "ignore" works?

I'm in half a mind to say "byebye" to this forum... :mad:

Re: No room for Personal Attacks
 

I look at it this way: over 7000 members and a tiny handful of troublemakers (4 of which I strongly suspect are actually one person). Given that, there really isn't a huge problem here and it's not like Reggie will likely be banning people right and left.

Thing is, this is a more professional forum than, say, a gaming or wrestling forum and while having fun or even poking each other is fine IMO (as Karel and I have :D) outright harassment is over the line. I'm using Ignore on the troublemaker accounts but for it to be effective against a committed miscreant it has to be used by more than 1 or 2 posters. In addition, if the troublemaker spams then you wind up with a jackass filling his ignored posts (which of course show up as headers) in between the good stuff, adding unnecessarily to the page count.

I think Reggie is striking a good balance here, and I highly doubt there will be any of the "admin abuse" I've seen elsewhere.

So don't say "byebye" Karel. What other curmudgeon will I spar with? :p

Re: No room for Personal Attacks
 

Ok i guarantee this is over for me cuz I AINT GETTING BANNED... but TEXRAT just called me like 4-5 names above... and he has done this to many others... and since Reggie let him get away with it TIME AND TIME AGAIN in the past... so on my other thread when he called me names I JUST DECIDED HE WASN'T GOING TO DO THIS EXACT BEHAVIOR TO ME and so I played with him... BUT I AM DONE PLAYING WITH HIM CUZ IT'S GONNA GET ME BANNED but doesn't he have to stop or does he get a free pass?

Re: No room for Personal Attacks
 

I am a believer in freedom of speech, and especially in the freedom of expression of opinions that I detest (what else is freedom of speech good for anyway?).

Furthermore, it is only words. They cannot hurt anyone beyond one's feelings, so what's the point of going all Spanish Inquisition on them? If a troll and its detractors want to start a flaming war, I say let them have their puerile fun; it's no skin of my back. Actually, it's usually a good sign for a forum if the local troll population starts to pay attention: it means the forum has achieved escape velocity and is now cruising happily above the event horizon (Prof. Hawking would probably have me crucified for mixing metaphores like that).

Finally, when I "spar" on this forum, it's usually to get a point across or, sometimes, to apply a bit of (poor) socratic irony: on occasion things need to be said with brutal exaggeration to get noticed. I'm not saying I'm good at it, mind, just that I try...

Re: No room for Personal Attacks
 

There is no personal attack in Texrats post, he doesn't name you or otherwise identify you. Of course we all know who he is referring to - it doesn't take a genius to work that out - but as he hasn't instigated a direct personal attack he hasn't broken any forum rules so you'll just have to live with it, leave or accept a ban.

You, on the other hand, have identified and criticised a named individual in your post. Do you see how Texrat got away with it? Perhaps you should be a little more creative with your posts. By the way, did you read the title of this thread?

Re: No room for Personal Attacks
 

No personal attack in Texrat's post? I hope you don't speak for Reggie but if this is the mentality I am going to have to live by to stay on here so be it. I am done attacking and responding to THIS thread now and I will only post "good" stuff from now on and i will just accept the shots directed at me from here on in cuz I don;t want to beat a dead horse any longer... I know I made my point and now I need to make another silent point.

Re: No room for Personal Attacks
 

Nobody wants to rag on you, we should all be able to get along and enjoy this place.

Making posts personal and bating people "for fun" is the fastest way to make yourself a target, so if you can avoid that in future you may not have to "accept the shots directed at me" because the shots aimed at you won't be there in the first place.

Oh, and only Reggie speaks for Reggie as far as I know!

:)

Re: No room for Personal Attacks
 

Yeeeesh,
I concur Milhouse. As far as free speech goes one way to help protect it is to have consequences for its abuse.

I have seen on other forums where the admin enables the IP look-up icon for senior members...

A man can concentrate his mind wonderfully when he knows his IP addy is exposed...
(My apologies to Samuel Johnson whose quote about being "hanged in a fortnight" that I butchered was in reference to Socrates and The Euthyphro I believe.)

This can sometime lead to other abuses and for that a perma ban can be imposed.
The Romans had the right idea but in their forums one could look the other in the eye and usually knew where he lived.

Re: No room for Personal Attacks
 

You did it to SAP. I did it to Texrat. Reggie is the boss and says NO MORE. Enough Said.

Re: No room for Personal Attacks
 

I hardly think any of my posts can be compared to the stuff you've been posting recently! But you're correct, nuff said in this thread.

:)

Re: No room for Personal Attacks
 

The only difference was u were the local favorite and I was the outsider but we both did the exact same thing.

Re: No room for Personal Attacks
 

Sounds nice at first glance, but if you consider that the most vociferous trolls tend to achieve Senior Member status through sheer volume, such a strategy could easily backfire...

Re: No room for Personal Attacks
 

I am an ardent believer in free speech as well. If you read my political posts in other fora it would be obvious.

But there are some things to keep in mind. One, free speech is protected in public venues, not private. Therefore anyone running a private podium is well within his rights to establish limits. Along those lines, reasonable retraint does exist in the public environ, ie, decorum against "shouting fire in a crowded theater". That said, I am reluctant to accept even the smallest encroachments and am angered to say the least at the current attacks on speech here in the US under the guise of "political (in)correctness".

My last point is that while it is true we are talking about "just words" at a simplistic level, in a realistic sense such a statement actually contradicts your stance on free speech. If they are "just words" then they are powerless and protecting the right to utter them meaningless. The reality is of course that words do possess power and a reasonable person executes them with responsibility. The reality is also that only an objective robot could completely avoid being moved by incendiary verbiage.

Again, I believe Reggie is striking a rational balance against irrational forces. You, on the other hand, seem to want to rationalize the irrational. It's a fun exercise in detached ivory towers but useless here in the trenches. When a malcontent chooses to inflict his cancer unfettered upon a forum, all the philosophical rationalizing in the world won't cure or kill that effort. That's why we have civil laws, because man can be an uncivil beast in their absence. The evidence to that here is isolated, but evident nonetheless. Let's keep it isolated.

/soapbox

Re: No room for Personal Attacks
 

It's over man.

Re: No room for Personal Attacks
 

I find it disturbing when one party to an unnecessary squabble uses his power to shut down the other side. That is what I think is happening in this case.

Re: No room for Personal Attacks
 

i know what u r saying but i reggie is handling this 90% correct and i commend him for that. anyone but reggie and i am gone long ago cuz here is his side... he runNing #1 message forum for nokia n800 and here comes a nobody on here challenging a 1200 message poster plus many like him as he is a popular guy AND works for nokia. not many pEople would have been this tolerant. u got anotheR guy karl threatening to leave with 1200 posts under his belt. ok but i do haVe a side to this too. texrat is stilL calling me names although he only did a few times in his last thread so maybe he is gonna stop now and let it go. that's the 10% regGie hasn't got yet. he needs to ask teXrat to let this go and perhaps put me on ignore... but if texrat doesn'T let this go for the good of this website then i would ban him. also if karl wants to Threaten to leave i would let it go at first but if he really made a serious stance on this i would let him go before allowing him to push me in a corner like that.

Re: No room for Personal Attacks
 

Agreed. Hence why you may have noticed that I didn't demand that the right of free speech should be invoked on this forum. The owner does what he wants, but so do I.

Re: No room for Personal Attacks
 

I cannot add too much to what has already been said above. However, I believe it is important to realise that quoting free speech (a right that I defend fervently) obscures what to me is the real issue here. 90% of the members of ITT see this place as (i) a general HOW-TO and troubleshooting site for the tablets; (ii) as an exposé on Nokia's IT operations. The other 10%, I believe, look to the forums as a political arena of sorts -- what Nokia should(n't) do, where Palm went wrong with the Foleo, ...
Both ends of the spectrum are essential. There needs to be some regulation, however. New users (and Google) do not have a default ignore list. If people do a search on "nokia n800 forums" and find only flame wars, what are they going to think? What is needed is that "golden middle", and that is what the rules should be aimed at. IMHO, that is what the new rules will help achieve.

</philosophise>

Re: No room for Personal Attacks
 

As a full-time reader, part-time contributor, in this forum, I have learned to respect many of you who have posted their thoughts and knowledge and opinions here. Since the days I started lusting after the 770, this forum has been a great source of information and understanding for me. Since I assume it is this way for others, I would ask for patience from all of you tempted to put the entire forum on your ignore list. Stay on a little longer.

In addition, consider this. Those who personally attack others do so for attention (sometimes out of spite or revenge, but mostly for attention). They want to be in the middle of the explosive kind of flame wars we have seen here of late. If we all truly ignore those who personally attack -- simply don't take the bait, swallow the urge to lecture, or realize you don't have to defend yourself -- they will go away. Or at least we can raise the signal-to-noise ratio.

Thanks to Reggie for working on order in the forum. This forum and its contributors are worth it.

-F

Re: No room for Personal Attacks
 

I am not willing to participate in a system in which my behavior is "scored". This seems childish to me. It has been stated that such a system will be implemented soon. When it is, my participation here will end.

Re: No room for Personal Attacks
 

You are seriously miscontruing the situation. Reggie is the one invoking power.

Re: No room for Personal Attacks
 

I am personally thinking very hard about what I am to do. I hate nanny-organisations with a vengeance, but unfortunately am unable to escape most of them.

We'll see...

Re: No room for Personal Attacks
 

I find the opposition to Reggie's proposal interesting. He didn't say he's going to clamp down with a totalitarian fist. He said personal attacks won't be tolerated.

I'm fine with that. There's no need for that sort of engagement. And I have to wonder how those complaining would feel if THEY were the target of some angry, obsessive poster. If Ignore alone sufficed, that would be great. But again: as long as the target is the only one using it, and the troublemaker is hyperactive, then Ignore doesn't work. And as another poster wisely pointed out, newcomers (and we're having a steady stream) don't have the troublemakers on ignore, and can be put off by the sort of crap the Skype thread endured.

And along those lines, I also find it interesting that I'm catching some crap for that debacle. Anyone who objectively examines that mess can easily see I was exercising restraint (confirmed to me by some PMs). Despite what's been said, I never started off by attacking the person responsible for this nonsense-- I simply expressed doubt over a date. And for that a flamewar ensues, one in which you'll kindly note was engaged in by numerous people responding to the troublemaker. If I'm going to be blamed for doubting a date, well, then we've got more to worry about than a few rules.

Some of you say you'll quit if Reggie enacts a little overdue decorum. How do you think *I* feel being the target of unwarranted hostility? Should I stick around for that???

Let's all be adults here. I'll definitely behave myself as long as I don't have to put up with any ridiculous bs that I don't think the complainers would like.

/rant

Re: No room for Personal Attacks
 

Hello,

I am new here, and as such have refrained from saying anything... but this is getting a bit ridiculous. convoluted hit the nail on the head with his comment about new users and google searches pointing people to these forums...

2 weeks ago I started looking here because I was thinking about investing in an n800. It was this site and maemo.org that put me over the edge to buy one. Mainly because I said to myself, hey this is reminiscent of the early days of palm os, they have an intelligent community of users and developers who like this device and what nokia is trying to do in the market and who understand the benefits of open.... everyone seemed helpful and knowledgable...

Shortly after the flamewar started I will confess I found it very entertaining, but honestly this forum should be informative more than it is entertaining.

As for nanny rules and powers governing your free speech, we have this in society already, and frankly we need it here... just like there are laws against slander and libel and yelling "fire!" falsely in a crowded place, so must there be some degree of enforcement here in the forums or it ceases to function as it should.

The truely funny thing is these "rules" don't prevent flamewars, they just prevent "personal attacks" (as the title of this thread/announcement indicates.... this requires some degree of creativity and thoughtfulness to go into your replies, instead of attacking some one directly... attack what they are saying....

Anyway that was my 2 cents... I find this forum to be a valued resource and one I check on a daily basis.... I am not fearful of any new rules that go into effect because honestly the moderator/founder's postings on this subject seem very tempered and controled... this forum appears to be in good hands and hardly worth leaving over, or worth feeling persecuted over... I think everyone just needs to take a deep breath and relax :)

--Jeff

Re: No room for Personal Attacks
 

On another forum I've received actual PM-ed death threats (not very effective ones, obviously, unless you happen to believe in typing from the grave). Granted, it's a political forum, but still... And even then I voted against moderation.

Mind you, I'm against murder (especially my own :cool:), but I also believe death threats can only be effective if the threatener has a voice capability of over 1,000 decibels.

And any newbee who can't distinguish a flamewar in progress has no business on the intarrwebs to begin with. Let it go forth and educate itself... :cool:

To reiterate: This is Reggie's forum, we're only guests here and he can do as he pleases. If I don't like it, I'll leave.

Re: No room for Personal Attacks
 

It's just one freakin' thread in -- how many active discussions?

If the population of the forum insists on having nanny rules, it'll have nanny rules. But I will most likely no longer be here...

Re: No room for Personal Attacks
 

Wiser words could not have been said...

All we really need to know about behaving in a forum we should have learned in the first week of grade school.

IMO the problems with the thread in question would have been avoided had one or both parties chosen not to respond to the other. Membership would have had a chance to respond to the topic at hand and consensus could have been formed by the forum on the validity of the statement.

Because of the back and forth between the two, valid opinions from others were either ignored or categorized by one or the other of the two as either for or against them personally.

It ain't personal... it's the freakin' internet! Most use a screen name, so justifying a response as defending ones honor is kind of ridiculous.

This thinking may have bled into other threads and the typical response by most members is to not post in order to not get involved in the childishness...


I know I posted in that thread to "feed the fire and it will burn out" but that was only after an off topic post war had erupted. By then it was just too dang entertaining. :)

It is also MHO that both of the parties in question should refrain from responding in this thread so that once again, the forum membership is free to form a consensus with out the implication of a personal, ulterior motive.

Re: No room for Personal Attacks
 

Okay, I was going to drop it but apparently something else needs to be said after YoDude's post (with which I mostly agree):

1) we shouldn't have to walk on eggshells because one poster has a personal problem with another's input. By that I mean none of us should have to refrain from offering our reasoned opinions anywhere in the forum IMO. That entitles troublemakers to de facto control.

2) somehow a few have come to the absurd notion that there were 2 combatants in that thread. Check again. There was a thread-starter making an announcement, followed by a few expressing doubt-- then a hyperbolic reaction by the thread-starter to that doubt. After that, numerous members of the community universally took the thread-starter to task for his nonsense, which regardless of who posted was unreasonably directed at ONE person.

I'm sorry, but if we're going to belabor this at least get the facts straight.

Specifically:

Censorship? and.. BOTH parties? Looks like a math error there. Count participants again, and re-evaluate one particpant's involvement, please. Thanks. :p

Second EDIT: seriously YoDude: there was no back and forth between 2 posters. There was back and forth between one poster (about the other) and several other posters. The other poster (me) mostly made some silly asides and refrained for the most part from engaging the one. Hell, I had him on Ignore!

Re: No room for Personal Attacks
 

Correct, one thread where Texrat was the target of abuse - and direct abuse at that. Also don't forget the same thing happened with Sap also targeting Texrat (and me too for that matter!)

Irrespective of the rights and wrong of why the individuals found it necessary to target Texrat and myself, it's not right that such threads should run unchecked on this forum. At first the threads can be amusing but eventually they become tiresome and unnecessary.

Fortunately such threads are rare and the introduction of the new rules should make little difference to the day-to-day running of this place. Only when someone wants to pick a fight in cyberspace will it be necessary to bring a swift end in order to maintain the high quality discussion that is possible here.

EDIT: Added Karels quote as two other posts snuck in before I finished typing... :)

Re: No room for Personal Attacks
 

^ wiser words were never spoken. Thanks for the sobering reality injection into a lot of misinformation.

Re: No room for Personal Attacks
 

Thanks for proving my point about not contributing to this thread.

I could take your post as your belief that MY OPINION is not based on fact or worse absurd. I can see how some could take this as a personal attack.

If your not part of the solution then maybe you're part of the problem.

Notice I avoid using declaratives in response to another's posts. :)

Edit: Same reason as Milhouse, above.

I also see from others edits how my math abilities are now in question. :)

Re: No room for Personal Attacks
 

*sigh*... I see my relevant points were completely and summarily dismissed so you could "prove a point", YoDude.

So your position is I should not be allowed to participate in a discussion where falsehoods are spread about my participation here. Sweet. Ironic, too... and if you're going to stretch the "personal attack" definition that thin, you're in danger of hypocrisy in labeling me.

My definition of personal attack is the blatant, unwarranted type. But if you view what I said about absurd remarks as a personal attack, then I sincerely apologize because that was not the spirit in which it was intended. Ah, speaking of examples: THAT is how you distinguish a true personal attack from remarks intending far less harm: an apology and subsequent alteration in tone. Not too hard for adults to understand and master, I'd think.

Re: No room for Personal Attacks
 

Karl used the ignore button masterfully. Karl and I have not had 1 problem ever since.

Re: No room for Personal Attacks
 

http://www.internettablettalk.com/fo...ead.php?t=6144

Re: No room for Personal Attacks
 

Texrat I just might go back and post every single name u called me... I know it;s over 50 cuz I had to look them all up in the dictionary.

Re: No room for Personal Attacks
 

Just wait until you are called a couple of 12 letter words.

Re: No room for Personal Attacks
 

Could you point out the line in which anyone suggested you should "not be allowed to participate" in any discussion? I missed it.

Re: No room for Personal Attacks
 

Oh nooooooow you are all seeing what i decided i had enough of and went to work on.