[WikiEN-l] Re: Please stop bashing me

Sat Oct 11 04:23:46 UTC 2003

Ed Poor wrote:

>You are miscontruing nearly everything I've said. It has the effect of
>putting words in my mouth.

ROTFL...this from a guy who just finished complaining that I "wished 
aloud for the ability to murder me by electrocution." I think that 
constitutes quite an extreme and unwarranted misconstrual of MY words.

>You then use these words in strawman arguments to disparage my
>character.

This discussion has reached a point of diminishing returns. I don't 
think anything I've written has been a "straw man argument" or a 
misconstrual of your words, and you haven't provided any specific 
examples. If, however, you would like to point out specific cases 
where you think I've misconstrued your words, I'll take a look at 
them. (For the sake of sparing everyone else, perhaps we should do 
this off-list.)

The main point, though, is that I'm happy to see Ed state the following:

>I will not issue unilateral temporary bans on egregious NPOV 
>violators, and you
>would be just as wrong to suggest I would do such a thing as I would be
>to accuse you of plotting to murder me. (BTW, you're not plotting that,
>are you? ;-)

No, of course I'm not plotting to murder you, Ed. But if it's wrong 
to suggest that you would issue unilateral temporary bans, you should 
realize that your own words were what created that suggestion. This 
is what you wrote in your original post:

>I'm going to start issuing official warnings to NPOV violators. If that
>doesn't slow them down, I'm going to suspend them -- give them a
>temporary ban.

Those were your words, right? How did I "misconstrue" them? Is there 
some way to construe those words OTHER than as a declaration of 
intent to issue unilateral bans?

In any case, I'm glad to see that Ed has now clearly stated that he 
will NOT issue unilateral bans. I'm sure he also understands by now 
that he has no authority to issue "official warnings." Whether this 
is a retraction or a clarification doesn't matter. I thank him for 
making it clear that he will do the right thing.
-- 
--------------------------------
|  Sheldon Rampton
|  Editor, PR Watch (www.prwatch.org)
|  Author of books including:
|     Friends In Deed: The Story of US-Nicaragua Sister Cities
|     Toxic Sludge Is Good For You
|     Mad Cow USA
|     Trust Us, We're Experts
|     Weapons of Mass Deception
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