Being Right Not Excuse For Being Rude
Being Right Not Excuse For Being RudeBelieving you are right is not a sufficient reason to be rude to others.
Believing you are polite is not a sufficient reason to mislead others.
Perhaps, but that's a different "sin" topic.
Examples of right-to-be-rude activity on wiki:
On Sarcasm
I am not beyond the SarcasticGuy in me. But even GentleSarcasm to one person generates a RudenessObjection in another. Ant then there is the impact to WikiReaders that need to be taken into account. People who are watching the activities of this community with interest, for example, those contemplating setting up inhouse communities. -- dl SignedWithaPurpose ShortWikiSignaturesSmell
IsYourRudenessNecessary is not quite sufficient in highlighting the BeingRightNotExcuseForBeingRude aspect, violation of this principle do much damages to PositiveDialogue.
I am not sure that effectively tries to weigh the issue of a belief that "truth" overrides getting along with others. I believe this is a very important issue for technologists, as it is a common theme of conflicts on wiki. Or even with Bin Laden.
Some people do not believe in some or all of PositiveDialogue because they believe that truth, as they see it, overrides all else and those who are against "truth" must be dealt with harshly as if they are flies spoiling the food.
The 'harmony' and 'mutual progress' described in PositiveDialogue requires all participants have common 'goals' towards which to harmoniously work and mutually progress... 'truth' being one possible example (among many). But it seems a great many people are far more intent on convincing others they are right, regardless of truth, through much handwaving and fallacy. Be this behavior intentional or unintentional, some people find it extremely rude. The people who find it rude believe that when one enters an argument one has a duty to present a reasonable argument and thus have a derived duty to know what they are talking about, and that any failure in this duty (e.g. blurting uninformed opinions or presentation of fallacy as a reasonable argument) qualifies as negligence (when unintentional) or trolling and sophistry (when intentional) and either way as extremely rude. You can't say they are wrong. Rudeness is in the eye of the beholder.
And, as is human nature, this extreme rudeness tends to beget the same in turn - especially after several attempts at reasonably pointing out the fallacy or edifying the offender have been defended with the same (extremely rude) handwaving and sophistry and negligent or even willful ignorance. These people may even agree that BeingRightNotExcuseForBeingRude; I certainly do. But one must admit that meeting rudeness with rudeness in turn, while perhaps not 'right' (two wrongs don't make a right), certainly qualifies as an 'excuse' for being rude.
It's true that what people find "rude" varies widely. But to get along requires some kind of community standard. I believe we need to set standards if we don't want wiki to turn into a ugly battlefield. Being rude because you feel strongly that you are right does not scale, and such is a recipe for ugly fights because most debaters think they are right. I think I am right, you think you are right, Jane Doe thinks she is right, etc. Thus, if being right is a justification for being rude, then everybody will be verbally violent to everybody. The old saying applies: An eye for an eye would leave everybody blind. We need a behavioral tolerance policy that scales. Further, being rude rarely achieves its desire goal of "fixing" somebody (although punishment is sometimes the goal of the rudeness giver).
I certainly agree that merely 'thinking' you are right is not an excuse for anything. There are too many self-aggrandizing narcissists who think they are right. What matters on a forum such as this one is the presentation of informed and reasonable arguments. There is NoExcuseForIgnoranceOrFallacy? the moment you take it upon yourself to present an argument. Ignorance and fallacy IS a valid justification for banning the offender for a few weeks and refusing to publish their words (even if that means deleting them), forcing them to re-evaluate how they present arguments, especially on a forum that seeks truth. Allowing people to present ignorant and fallacious opinions as 'reasonable', be it intentional or otherwise, results in a forum where each untruth and fallacy is given as much voice as truth and reason... a state that does not scale because there is only one truth and limited forms of cogent reasoning, but there are an infinite variety of untruths and fallacies and combinations thereof. There is no value at all in a forum that seeks truth if the people there just grin and bear it when other people preach fallacy because they are unwilling to be 'rude' enough to kick and tempban or otherwise enforce rules. We don't need to tolerate such behavior... we could properly punish it by restricting those who perform it. A few crude words resulting from the frustration and inability to inflict such an appropriate punishment might not be 'justified', but certainly can be 'excused'.
I know the feeling. There are those who claim rigorous evidence exists that such-and-such is net better, but when probed they just invent convoluted excuses and red-herrings for not providing it. But I don't think banning will "fix" them. I suspect they just have personal mental blocks whereby they cannot be critical of their pet ideas because their ego is protecting them from unpleasant truths. Plus, to ban fairly would require a complex wiki-trial, and few WikiZens seem interested in taking on such a duty. for example, VolunteerWikiModerators didn't go over so well. Plus, banning may just create another GrammarVandal. (I'm sure grammar-vandal feels he/she is morally justified for what he/she is doing. They just happen to value grammatical accuracy far above social harmony.)
Tempbans, unlike permbans, serve triple purpose: corrective punishment, prevention, and cooldown. Those who are 'fixed' won't receive many tempbans in the future. Those who aren't 'fixed' won't cause many problems between periods of banning. Hotheads who were yelling at one another will have moved on emotionally by the time they are allowed back (and, if not, they'll be tempbanned again). And there are plenty of technical mechanisms to enforce banning; WikiWiki simply doesn't implement any of them. That doesn't make it difficult to do. Even GrammarVandal would be nearly powerless if users were password-protected with e-mail addresses verified through PayPal or a similar third-party service.
Are we talking about banning due to abusive insults or other things such as "being ignorant" mentioned above? I agree that excessive personal insults are a reason for a temporary ban. Perhaps there can also be "topic lockouts" where topics are locked for a while so that both parties can cool down. This makes it less accusatory.
Presenting fallacious arguments, joining an argument without doing your homework first (negligent ignorance... not just asking questions), insulting someone directly, etc. - I'd tempban for any of these things. You can slap for bad behaviors, but you also need to hit the root causes... including the sort of pervasive and extreme rudeness of those self-amused trolls, sinister sophists, and the vociferously ignorant who undermine the purpose of the forum. Just tempbanning the people who get frustrated enough to throw an insult while allowing the cool-headed sophists to spout their lies would not be a very intelligent idea if you wish to create something useful. Is that what you propose by just aiming at the insults?
But a lot of those are a matter of opinion. Nobody wants to be banned because a moderator is grumpy. Justice has to be somewhat clear-cut and fair, otherwise it will create a back-lash. And frankly, if you don't want to argue with somebody who you feel is poorly educated, then simply stop. No need to call them names. (When I encounter such people, I use my superior knowledge of the subject to corner them with clear self-explanatory examples or logic, no need to call names, but to each his own. Dishing out victory is more satisfying than dishing out insults. Truth can be better punishment than punishment.)
[Superior knowledge of the subject? What subject(s) would that be?]
For example, if somebody says one of my favorite languages "can't do X". I show it doing X and they just go away and shut their flapper. (However, sometimes they just change what they "meant" into a more wishy-washy claim, such as "do X without using stupid syntax". Wishy-washiness is always an escape-hatch for trolls.)
I see. So you aim at the rudeness and insults because you believe they are the easiest to measure. This is a point with which I'm not inclined to agree, having met a master of subtle insults and sarcasm. I feel you've fallen victim to the SovietShoeFactoryPrinciple of forum moderation, believing you can make a better forum by stomping out the rudeness. Rudeness is a symptom of other problems. You'd create a forum where everyone is allowed to present uninformed opinions and fallacy and trolling without strong objection ("then simply stop", you say). I'd rather have one where there is only 10% as much content but all of it is well informed and well reasoned, and I believe that PortlandPatternRepository was intended to be such a forum. See CollectingSeashells. To me, those who undermine this vision are far greater sinners than those who object to its undermining... even if they do so by, ultimately, deleting content or bluntly informing others of the 'fraud' and 'sophistry' being presented by certain individuals.
Ultimately either the "citizens" or caretaker will decide which sins are worse, or there will be anarchy where every zealot fights every other zealot. So far this wiki tends toward anarchy.
True, true... too true. The problems with WikiWiki arise in part because standards of behavior are pointless if neither the community nor technology enforce them. What good does whining or bickering about fraud and sophistry and rudeness do when the people listening only have the power to join you in the whining and bickering? We're all fools. In hours, days, weeks, how much life has been wasted? WikiWiki was a phenomenally successful experiment, but it has long fallen to people bickering and whining about stuff they have no power to change... you and I, for example.
I've my own idea for an open forum for intellectual pursuit - WikiIde - and I plan to pursue it should I acquire the time and resources to do so. I believe it would appeal to my absolutist nature... executable code crossed with semantic web, arguments presented within constraints of a logic language, and hard usage statistics aren't exactly something one can confuse with uninformed opinions, subjective nonsense, HumptyDumpty equivocation, fallacy, pretense and sophistry. And, given the real (legal) need for users to take responsibility for their actions and code, even RealNamesPlease and commit signatures can be justifiably enforced.
If you turn it into a gated community with scary grumpy guards and rules against pink flamingo lawn ornaments, you may end up with insufficient visitors to maintain sustainability.
[More likely, it will attract visitors who like scary grumpy guards and rules against pink flamingo lawn ornaments. Forums of a distinct flavour tend to attact like-minded individuals. The 'net is a big place; as long as WikiIde is usable and not duplicated by something similar that's already popular, it has every chance of attracting those who object to the anything-goes nature of WardsWiki and its brethren.]
Only if they enforce the rules that match their own sense of morals. What it may do is create communities of like-minded individuals. While it may increase the comfort level for those involved, it may reduce "mind stretching". Gated communities may eventually just sit around and congratulate each other for "thinking right". One of the reasons I continue to communicate with people that frustrate me is that I learn from people who think different from me, even if its frustrating trying to communicate and get along with such people. Lars, for example, is like a weird alien with alien views. I'd like to eventually decipher his convoluted mind to figure out what makes him tick and why he thinks what he does. But I have to put up with a style that frustrates the living hell out of me to do it. No pain, no gain.
You speculate quite a bit, and you speak of what gated communities "may" eventually do when we already have fine examples of how non-gated communities also devolve. In any case, examples such as peer-reviewed journals (with their standards for inclusion) and WikiPedia (with its self-enforcing standards for entries and data) would tend to serve as a counter-example, demonstrating alternative paths gated communities "may" eventually take. I believe WikiIde would appeal to people who think that bullstuff doesn't compute, and I'd readily invite visitors who are willing to test their own words with the same bullstuff-o-meter as everyone else's (that being parse, compile, run, compute, verify). Hypocrites (who are unaware of it), sophists, ignorami need not apply. I've learned enough from such people to know I don't wish to learn more.
I'd welcome such a site where true science is done instead of science-pretenders. However, I am skeptical it will work because I believe most real benefits are tied to psychology, which is still a soft science. Most writers of the subject area are either poor researchers and/or poor documenters. There are very few researchers who care about detailed and meaningful metrics and even fewer of those who care about this wiki. The rest are usually agenda pushers.
Benefits need to be objective to be 'real' even if they have a partial cause rooted in psychology. Regardless, I believe there are a great number of inherent benefits in a collaborative integrated development environment. Among other things, it would help break down walls between development teams by allowing code sharing and refactoring on a far more global scale than is provided in existing languages and environments. It would also provide a world-wide-web forum to access generic computation and communication. Either of these is sufficient benefit on its own to justify WikiIde. I don't expect "true science" to be done so much as true development: pretenders would expected, and socially forced, to put their code where their claims are. Detailed metrics would be more a byproduct of having hundreds of projects and project-histories (including edit histories) available to a single (distributed) database readily available for datamining.
I'm a WikiFilterist at heart. If a group of elitists (for lack of a better word) want to mark "wrong" stuff with the official seal of the elitists so that others can know to ignore it if they choose, thats fine by me. However, it should not be outright deleted or banned. (Banning personal insults is another matter.)
If the purpose of the forum is open discussion and free speech on any topic, including promotion and politics and humor and fiction and fallacy and news and gossip and spam and sex and sleezy pitches by for the most recent brand of snakeoil, then I'd agree with you. WikiFilterist is the way to go. But, if the forum has any dedicated purpose... e.g. to people, patterns, and history in software... then I consider the WikiFilterist view to be of negative net consequence because it dilutes the value and content of the wiki and introduces extra 'noise' for those seeking the value. It also costs extra $$$ in space and processing for whomever is hosting it. Wikis with dedicated purpose should be WikiReductionist. Content that is not on topic or is incorrect or misleading (be it nefarious or otherwise) should be outright deleted and the perpetrators should receive warnings (at first) then tempbans (later). WikiFilterists shouldn't whine and complain if their words are deleted on such a wiki; they should go find another wiki.
There's a misunderstanding. I didn't mean to recommend off-topic stuff. However, this issue is already addressed in the contents of WikiFilterist.
Yes, you only recommend the intentionally and unintentionally incorrect and misleading stuff. I get that.
And even projectionists.
The biggest problems of the world can be traced to variations of this principle. Dogmatic people believe that war and violence is justified to preserve the concepts of their dogma. They simply put their dogma over getting along.
WhereCriticizeBluntlyDoesntWork, SayItDirectlyButNotCriticizeBluntly
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