[Foundation-l] Concern for the safety of Wikimanians in Alexandria

Fri Mar 7 04:57:55 UTC 2008

Mark Ryan writes:

> I find it a weak argument to imply that
> they take off their Trustee cap and replace it with their Jury Member
> cap. Their presence on the jury is predicated on their being trustees.

You should of course find it a weak argument, since it is not, in  
fact, an argument. I confess I have a fairly refined sense of what an  
argument is (blame training in formal logic), but I didn't mean to be  
understood as offering an argument.

What I was offering was an opinion, based on experience. In my  
experience, intelligent individuals have no great trouble keeping  
their roles separate (for example, I'm a parent, a teacher, and a  
lawyer, and I have no trouble confusing which role I'm playing at any  
given time), and, in fact, human beings are pretty good at switching  
caps. You may disagree, and I respect your disagreement. But don't  
walk away under the impression that I'm either arguing with you or  
offering an argument.  Believe me, when I am framing an argument, it's  
pretty explicitly labelled as such.

--Mike Godwin