[WikiEN-l] Personal attacks and low EQs

Sat Jul 2 14:01:32 UTC 2005

> 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.

Strange then that 99% of the people on the talk page for "no personal
attacks" don't actually understand it.  There is no conensus on it as
you're suggesting, so your argument holds no water.

Also, there is no  Wikipedia policy against hurting peoples' feelings.
 The policy is against personal attacks only, whether or not it hurts
 someone's feelings is entirely irrelevent.  You might have a point if
 you were arguing from Wikipedia policy rather than your personal
 feelings.

 Now following your premise, we can *never* criticize another
 Wikipedian again without using totally politically correct,
 walking-on-eggshells language.  You couldn't accuse someone of being
 a troll, you'd have to say something like "well, it seems to me like
 you're just trying to get people riled up, I may be wrong and I
 apologize if I do, but it seems like that and you should please stop
 doing this kind of behavior that seems like it" instead of just
 saying "you're a troll."

> 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.

Your accusation of me being abusive and having a low EQ hurts my
feelings.  Ooops, I guess that puts you in that 1% too!  Now this is a
very good example of hypocrisy, he just got done saying that "personal
attacks" (as in applying a label to someone's behavior) is wrong, then
just proceeded to do it himself right now!

Oh wait, did I hurt your feelings in describing your behavior that
hurt my feelings?  Who do we punish in a case like this?!  What a
conundrum!

> 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.

Wow, you just attacked me by saying I don't have a life, where does
the hypocrisy end?  *clap clap clap*  I applaud you on making yourself
look so bad.

I'd also like to note that it's actually quite the opposite, the
Wikipedians who are the whiniest are the ones who spend the most time
editing.  In fact, that is the typical accusation--that "meany heads"
like me rarely edit by comparison.

> 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".

(a)  You don't meet that requirement (pot and kettle situation).
(b)  Watch this get put on the article without having a vote.

> 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".

Well you don't seem to have an intuitive ability to do it either,
since you just engaged in several "personal attacks" against me.  You
even proceded to call the many people on the "no personal attacks"
talk page low EQ having, abusive people for wanting a definition.

Apparently, Timwi is one of the great enlightened ones who knows
better than those obviously inferior people on the talk page who agree
with me that it's not clear what constitutes a personal attack.
Clearly, this is something that is TOTALLY obvious if you're not a
bad, abusive person (I'm still crying over that personal attack
btw--are you going to apologize?).

In any case, if you're relying on "intuition" it means that you're
probably not relying on logic, which is a very, VERY bad thing when
you're talking about a policy.  If a policy can't be based on logic,
then it shouldn't exist.  That said, it IS possible to define it if
you are an objective thinkier with a high IQ (wait, is it a personal
attack for me to say you ahve a low IQ, but not one for you to say I
have a low EQ?).

I also love your assumption that personal attacks should be defined in
terms of how hurt people's feelings are rather than how
counter-productive they are to Wikipedia.

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Nathan J. Yoder
http://www.gummibears.nu/
http://www.gummibears.nu/files/njyoder_pgp.key
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