| | --response to the principals about solo and civility--
Lindsay Perigo, Joe Rowlands, and Andrew Bissell, I am going to try one more time to explain this to the three of you (and to many other Soloists who seem to agree with you).
I'm going to pick apart your mistakes:
" to have an appointed vanguard comb threads for posts that violate some necessarily-vague definition of acrimony would be to treat posters like children " [Andrew - on the idea of moderating for civility]
"prissy prattlings demanding stricter censorship." [Linz]
These quotes use emotionally slanted language instead of argument. This is a bad habit that many Soloists get into, imitating other posters and adopting their style and that of many internet discussion lists. These lists are not the place to learn to think and write. You can't argue for something just by using adjectives with negative connotations: you have to present an argument, evidence, a syllogism. Linz and Andrew, both of you are committing a logically fallacy. You learn about it in critical thinking books or in logic classes. "Whenever a person attempts to make a point, get a view accepted, not by presenting cogent reasons, but by arousing the gut emotions of the audience, we havea grandstand appeal or the fallacy of grandstanding." [Thinking Logically, Freeman, p. 69]. In the quotes above, it is done by using slanted or loaded language or colorful rhetoric instead of making a detailed, serious argument.
The second quote, translated into simple fact, would be as follows: "multiple posts suggesting stricter moderation". The word "censorship" applies to cases of violating someone's freedom, not to rules set for the use of one's property.
The first quote, translated into fair lanaguage? The elitist-sounding "appointed vanguard" becomes "an editor or moderator". "Comb threads" might become "occasionally warn or reject". "necessarily-vague definition of acrimony" is unfair on two counts. First, you use a vague term like 'acrimony' which is a straw man. The complaint of people turned off by the food fights on Solo (and in Objectivism going back to the Branden split, the Peikoff-Kelley schism, and numerous fallings out) is not that there is anger or bad feelings, but in how it is expressed, how the angriest and loudest people are allowed to take over, how it becomes a constant theme and hijacks discussion and threads, how it involves psychologizing or character assassination rather than simple factual disagreement. Finally, "treat posters like children" translated into what is actually being requested would be "insist that participants on our forum behave in an overall civil manner".
If you do "slanted" writing for a non-Objectivist audience on a serious topic it will make you seem like you're not very smart or careful or fair. You will come across like a redneck or a used car salesman. It will close many doors to you intellectually. It may prevent you from getting published in the most influential magazines, journals, newsletters, or getting a book publisher. So this kind of "cleverness" is not a habit to automatize on Solo or on internet boards in general.
"How terrible it is that folk are squabbling, and that there is-horreurs!-acrimony on the board." [Linz]
Linz, again, this is slanted and unfair language. The basic problem that Robert Bidinotto, David M. Brown, myself and others are complaining about is not "squabbling" but how it is expressed and the extremes to which it is allowed to progress.
"Not everyone is going to be happy...There will be people who don't like someone's writing style. There will always be complaints." [Joe]
Joe, writing "style" is not the issue in general but something more specific. The fact that people make many complaints and you may be tired of hearing them doesn't mean that -sometimes- they are well-founded and you should learn from them and take them seriously.
"We should promote self-governance by the participants. It's preferable for the people actually participating to work out any issues themselves...You can see this in action all the time. When someone is unjust in attacking another person, other participants come to the defense." [Joe]
Funny, I hadn't noticed things being worked out and resolved a lot. What I see most frequently is that the disagreements simply continue, spread, and escalate. And this is fueled by personal attacks, name calling, questioning of intelligence and impugning of character. Which spreads onto other threads. And drowns out or drives most of the more intelligent posters away.
[continued in next post]
Philip Coates
(Edited by Philip Coates
on 8/23, 10:48am)
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