[WikiEN-l] Personal attacks and low EQs

Sat Jul 2 11:11:41 UTC 2005

David Gerard wrote:

> [[Wikipedia:No personal attacks]]

I've taken a look at the page and I quite agree with Nathan that it 
fails to define what a personal attack is.

99% of people have an intuitive feel for what constitutes a personal 
attack; they have the empathy to understand that certain remarks can 
hurt another person, even when the objective contents of the statement 
are true (e.g. "you're a hypocrite"). [[Wikipedia:No personal attacks]] 
assumes this of the reader.

Nathan appears to belong to the 1% of people who have a low EQ 
(empathisation quotient) which enables him to comment in an insulting 
way without realising the effect it has on other people, solemnly 
believing that he's "only telling the truth". Most of the abusive 
ranters I see on this list are like that. It is no surprise to me that 
such a person strongly feels that a block for something they cannot 
define is highly unjust, and that they feel they are treated quite 
unfairly given they're telling their version of the truth.

Wikipedia is one of those online communities that tend to attract these 
kinds of people, so the percentage of them is higher here than in the 
general population. Unfortunately, even, these kinds of people tend to 
be more dedicated editors, since high-EQ people tend to have more of a 
real life.

I don't know how many Wikipedians have thought about this issue in the 
past, but we will have to come to some sort of agreement on whether to 
(a) require a minimum EQ, thereby outright excluding a certain set of 
people, or (b) actually attempt to define "personal attack".

Once you start to try defining "personal attack", you'll begin to 
realise how hard it is; then maybe you'll begin to understand how hard 
it must be for someone who doesn't have the intuitive ability to 
classify remarks as "personal attacks".

Timwi