Summary style (was Re: [WikiEN-l] Response to Bryan Derken)

Tue Jun 8 01:02:50 UTC 2004

At 10:39 AM 6/7/2004 +0000, Abe Sokolov wrote:
>On that note, I found the tone of Bryan's postings far less constructive 
>than Mav's. While I'm not saying that Bryan was deriding me in his two 
>mailing list postings, the tone of his postings was certainly derisive 
>(using terms and phrases like "obstinate," "going on the attack," 
>"threats," "bludgeoned into submission," and the like). We do not have to 
>analyze this disagreement in terms of our character flaws. I regret that 
>Bryan'd decided to join in on this vitriolic attack-fest on the mailing 
>list in response to a single disagreement.

Actually, that was the point of my original posting. I wasn't specifically 
trying to discuss the article Origins of the American Civil War here, since 
that's not what the mailing list is for and that's not the subject of the 
thread to which I was responding. I was describing my personal opinion of 
your editing style based on my experiences in that specific encounter. So 
it's not surprising that I would use a lot of "character flaw"-type 
language and that my posting wouldn't be particularly constructive as far 
as the debate over the article itself is concerned, since the subject I was 
focusing on was (my opinion of) character.

>Perhaps I was curt -- and I'm sorry. Now let's take this discussion back 
>to where it belongs—back to [[Talk:Origins of the American Civil War]] and 
>try to avoid personalizing this difference of opinion next time.

I'll accept your apology, and offer one of my own for any personal offence 
I may have given via poor phrasing (though I still stand by my underlying 
opinion since I didn't form it lightly). But my main concern is still 
whether you plan to continue using the threat of edit wars in that 
discussion. Apologies don't matter much if the basic problem remains 
unresolved.