Re: I guess it just depends who you are...
* James Kanze:
[snip]
Regarding rejections.
I'm not sure what you mean by "nit-picking" rejections, but as far as I
can see the contested rejections, so far, fall roughly in two groups:
* Missing context, e.g. no quote or no attribution.
The clc++m moderators have agreed to disagree over this (unwritten)
rejection cause, but still there's room for further disagreement
about agreeing or disagreeing over its concrete applications.
I see no reason to reject for this, and until recently, there
never were any such rejections.
This is food for thought.
I will have to think about it.
It may be that that rejection reason, which was explained to us newbie
moderators by the founding moderators, is like Norway's law against
plucking moss in the wilderness (it's formally a criminal offense, or at
least it was), a law that was introduced to placate someone's feelings
without ever being intended to be enforced, except if perhaps someone
started industrial scale moss-plucking...
* Personal attacks (ad hominem) by implication.
E.g., hypothetical example, instead of "you're an idiot" writing
"idiots often hold similar points of view", only typically a bit
more subtle -- otherwise there wouldn't be disagreement.
As I see it the first category isn't really a problem, because it's so
easy for the poster to add a quote or attribution or other context and
repost, without changing in any way whatever the article is meant to
express, and thereby improving or keeping the overall quality of the group.
The second category is in my view more problematic, and I think that's
why we have the policy of when in doubt, accept, except for flames or
flame-bait, where when in doubt, reject.
The word idiot would, IMHO, put it over, in this case; idiot is
an insult, no matter what. On the other hand, I've seen
rejections for use of words that the standard dictionaries don't
consider insulting, and I've seen rejections when only the
argument was being attacted, not the person.
The latter is a very delication situation: I'd reject "that's an
idiotic argument", even though it explicitly attacks the
argument, and not the person, because "idiotic" is an insult,
per se. On the other hand, a lot of uses of "you" are obviously
generic: "if you say X, it implies Y". And what do you say
about things like "A professional programmer will..." (which
obviously implies that if you don't agree, you aren't
professional). There's also a question of personal style; in
one discussion not so long ago between Andrei and myself, I know
that one of the moderators commented to the effect that
normally, that kind of posting was just over the limits, but
since he knew Andrei and I, and knew that we fundamentally have
great respect for one another, and didn't mean it personally, he
accepted it. I know that both Andrei and I can be somewhat
biting at times; I actually enjoy discussing things with him
more because of it. On the other hand, Walter can at times be
condescending: no flame, or anything concrete, but I feel more
insulted by it than by anything Andrei has ever said.
I think in the above you're referring to a posting from July 2005, <url:
http://preview.tinyurl.com/2u72ml>, accepted by Francis with comment.
And perhaps mixing it up with a posting (not by you) that I felt
wouldn't be right for me to process, which was rejected by Dom.
It is an interesting question whether the above would have to be or
/should/ be rejected in a mod policy thread in clc++m. :-) And I think
here is perhaps an example of the fuzzy dividing line between our points
of view. I'd tend to reject the above, whereas you posted it.
Cheers, and thanks for explaining,
- Alf
PS: I don't think of you as biting, and IMHO you shouldn't either! ;-)
--
A: Because it messes up the order in which people normally read text.
Q: Why is it such a bad thing?
A: Top-posting.
Q: What is the most annoying thing on usenet and in e-mail?