Philosophy Now Forum

Hi,

I'm an administrator on another forum, and I've just started writing up what I hope will be a concise explanation of what we mean by "personal attack" in the context of our forum. Our forum rules prohibit personal attacks without defining in much detail what we mean. (So far it says "name-calling and ad hominem attacks"...) I've been looking in the obvious place for inspiration (Wikipedia), but I was hoping maybe someone here would have thoughts or ideas on the topic that I can borrow, or know of online articles etc. that could be useful.

I wouldn't bother with a definition, it'll only be challenged. We all know what red is, until it starts turning into brown or orange or purple. It's your forum, you decide when someone oversteps the mark.

tillingborn wrote:I wouldn't bother with a definition, it'll only be challenged. We all know what red is, until it starts turning into brown or orange or purple. It's your forum, you decide when someone oversteps the mark.

If it's challenged, I will put my foot down Our membership is perhaps a bit of a special case as it consists of many people who are kind, but a bit sensitive and may respond emotionally if they feel provoked. So they want to be kind and not inadvertently personally attack others, but partly because they are not used to debate, they do so anyway. And that's why I think a concise definition would be helpful. Raising awareness and all that.

Personal attack: any sentence or group of sentences that will cause the recipient to feel transgression upon a circle deeper into their personal life than they are open for. In public sphere, as forums are (closed forums being possibly limited public spheres), this transgression occurs usually when the interest of a discussion is distorted from its intended topic or any relevant side-topics or off-topics that does not deal with people's person, into a person's personal life, which is naturally separated from the public sphere. However, this transgression only occurs when the recipient takes it as a transgression, but initially, the crucial part, is that the recipient has the right, but not the obligation, to be protected from such transgressions.

Examples of personal life: family life (trash-talk about wife, children, family activities etc.), love life (trash-talk based on sexual orientation or sexual partners), work life (wages, working hours, location of work, hired position etc.), self identity (this is where name-calling comes in, also categorization- or type-naming based upon no intendedly publicly available information or no information at all -> declarative assumption), also other information like about ones home, ones everyday life, ones genealogy or ethnicity or nationality (all these falls under identity), etc.

Examples of what is not supported: information that is freely available with intention (they are still protected from accidental slips or information that is publicized without allowance), assumptions that are reasonable (shows clear evidence) based on a person's behaviour at the forum, or asking questions without repetition (could also be called, asking questions without aggression) as these questions can be politely declined unless the question makes excessive assumptions in its formulation (at which point it is making assumptions that, unless information is freely available to support its likelihood, should not be assumed by itself)

On another forum I once dared to say something about depression.
I suggested something which made sense to me: that one should rather do this or that to feel less depressed.

Two people attacked me for this, they seemed to preserve some idea of "clinical depression" which was dear to them and I inadvertently trespassed and had to be punished for it.
I did not even use the term "clinical depression" but they wanted to give me a thorough blow and that´s it.

So:

I apologized (for the sake of peace). Although I did not feel guilty.

And my personal consequence has been that I have been avoiding these people from then on.
If someone expresses hate towards me even once I rather prefer to talk to other people.

Which is my personal strategy to avoid ... getting depressed !

Lucifer wrote:If it's challenged, I will put my foot down Our membership is perhaps a bit of a special case as it consists of many people who are kind, but a bit sensitive and may respond emotionally if they feel provoked. So they want to be kind and not inadvertently personally attack others, but partly because they are not used to debate, they do so anyway. And that's why I think a concise definition would be helpful. Raising awareness and all that.

I'm a bit puzzled as to why someone charging themself with the care of such a delicate bunch of shrinking violets should choose Lucifer as a name. Oh well.
I still think you're on a hiding to nothing, but since what you want to achieve is people not being nasty to each other, how about: An argument you cannot support without referring to a named individual. (Other than the subject of the debate, if that happens to be the work of Plato for example.)

If A calls B 'fukin' idjit' because B is, indeed, a 'fukin' idjit', then you ought to let it stand.

If, however, A is just bein' a jackass, then you ought to challenge.

And: what's the address of your forum?

I'd like to take a gander at this *****-fest for myself.

Something that should be allowed is a request for substaintiation or credentials. If someone makes a statment they may sometimes be challenged to back up ther statment with some kind of reference. This would only be abusive depending on the tone of the request and that can be monitored and warnings issued. Also, Like Henry, I would be interested in viewing the site to 'see for myself' what you are refering to, the members may not be as thin-skinned as you think.

tillingborn wrote:

Lucifer wrote:If it's challenged, I will put my foot down Our membership is perhaps a bit of a special case as it consists of many people who are kind, but a bit sensitive and may respond emotionally if they feel provoked. So they want to be kind and not inadvertently personally attack others, but partly because they are not used to debate, they do so anyway. And that's why I think a concise definition would be helpful. Raising awareness and all that.

I'm a bit puzzled as to why someone charging themself with the care of such a delicate bunch of shrinking violets should choose Lucifer as a name. Oh well.
I still think you're on a hiding to nothing, but since what you want to achieve is people not being nasty to each other, how about: An argument you cannot support without referring to a named individual. (Other than the subject of the debate, if that happens to be the work of Plato for example.)

Perhaps 'Lucifer' denotes a strong personality who will protect them from all the meanies out there.

.





It would be useful if you were honest enough to tell us which philosophy forum you are associated with.


If you are an administrator and you are shopping around for such a basic concept as this, that tells me that you have a new philosophy-related forum. If this isn't bullshit.


So...what is it?


...oh,...and the fact that you hide behind a phoney moniker on a philosophy-related web site is a personal attack upon me as someone who respects truth in an open philosophy community.



So, you don't need the concept personal attack explained to you...just follow what you already did to me.






.......................................................................................................






.

thedoc wrote:Something that should be allowed is a request for substaintiation or credentials. If someone makes a statment they may sometimes be challenged to back up ther statment with some kind of reference. This would only be abusive depending on the tone of the request and that can be monitored and warnings issued.

Thank you.

Also, Like Henry, I would be interested in viewing the site to 'see for myself' what you are refering to, the members may not be as thin-skinned as you think.

I don't know, just yesterday I had two members demand their accounts deleted over what seemed a trivial matter to me.

tillingborn wrote:

Lucifer wrote:If it's challenged, I will put my foot down Our membership is perhaps a bit of a special case as it consists of many people who are kind, but a bit sensitive and may respond emotionally if they feel provoked. So they want to be kind and not inadvertently personally attack others, but partly because they are not used to debate, they do so anyway. And that's why I think a concise definition would be helpful. Raising awareness and all that.

I'm a bit puzzled as to why someone charging themself with the care of such a delicate bunch of shrinking violets should choose Lucifer as a name. Oh well.
I still think you're on a hiding to nothing, but since what you want to achieve is people not being nasty to each other, how about: An argument you cannot support without referring to a named individual. (Other than the subject of the debate, if that happens to be the work of Plato for example.)

Hehe, am I sensing a personal attack in my direction? Thanks for your input though.

The overwhelming vast majority of forums are built upon the "almost anybody can join and say almost anything" model. This publishing model explains why the entire forumosphere, including this forum, have been going steadily downhill for years now, to the point where even most forum owners rarely participate on their own forums.

If you want a forum that isn't just a repetitive clone of a thousand other failing forums, you'll need to escape this publishing model. The way to do that is to think of your forum as if it were the Letters To The Editor section of your local paper. Anybody can submit an article, but only the best ones get published.

All incoming posts go to you first before being published. You review the post and if it meets your standards, the post gets published. Thus, no personal attacks, as defined by you, ever see the light of day on your forum, thus the counter attacks never appear either. The rug is pulled out from under the entire personal attack cycle.

You'll no longer have any need to discipline your members, threaten them with punishment, issue warnings and demands and so on. Members will soon learn what is acceptable and what isn't. Those who share your editing philosophy will stay, and those who don't will leave, making your job as editor easier and easier over time.

Such a forum will surely be smaller than an "almost anything goes" forum, but it will have a feature very rare in today's forum world, you'll have a forum actually worth reading.

If you instead stick with the standard "almost anything goes" model, you'll face the fate of most forums, you'll fight a losing battle with Facebook, Twitter and other such sites, which were designed from the ground up for the "almost anything goes" experience, are extremely well funded, and have far more members than you can ever hope for.

Speaking only for myself, I've observed that I start wandering in to the personal attack realm when I get bored and frustrated with the level of conversation.

I would propose to you that the main problem on forums is not the spam and personal attacks everybody is so worried about, but rather the tidal wave of crap content. When members see a forum filled with crap, they stop respecting the forum, and each other.

Whatever you do, good luck!

Bill Wiltrack wrote:.





It would be useful if you were honest enough to tell us which philosophy forum you are associated with.


If you are an administrator and you are shopping around for such a basic concept as this, that tells me that you have a new philosophy-related forum. If this isn't bullshit.


So...what is it?


...oh,...and the fact that you hide behind a phoney moniker on a philosophy-related web site is a personal attack upon me as someone who respects truth in an open philosophy community.



So, you don't need the concept personal attack explained to you...just follow what you already did to me.






.......................................................................................................






.

Good one! Yes, that is a good (though perhaps exaggerated) example of the kind of emotional responses I'm talking about, and demonstrates well why "personal attack" needs to be defined.

It's not a philosophy forum, though I wish my members were of a slightly more philosophical persuasion. And no, I won't be posting the link or name of the forum. I have enough problems as it is

Felasco wrote:The overwhelming vast majority of forums are built upon the "almost anybody can join and say almost anything" model. This publishing model explains why the entire forumosphere, including this forum, have been going steadily downhill for years now, to the point where even most forum owners rarely participate on their own forums.

If you want a forum that isn't just a repetitive clone of a thousand other failing forums, you'll need to escape this publishing model. The way to do that is to think of your forum as if it were the Letters To The Editor section of your local paper. Anybody can submit an article, but only the best ones get published.

All incoming posts go to you first before being published. You review the post and if it meets your standards, the post gets published. Thus, no personal attacks, as defined by you, ever see the light of day on your forum, thus the counter attacks never appear either. The rug is pulled out from under the entire personal attack cycle.

You'll no longer have any need to discipline your members, threaten them with punishment, issue warnings and demands and so on. Members will soon learn what is acceptable and what isn't. Those who share your editing philosophy will stay, and those who don't will leave, making your job as editor easier and easier over time.

Such a forum will surely be smaller than an "almost anything goes" forum, but it will have a feature very rare in today's forum world, you'll have a forum actually worth reading.

If you instead stick with the standard "almost anything goes" model, you'll face the fate of most forums, you'll fight a losing battle with Facebook, Twitter and other such sites, which were designed from the ground up for the "almost anything goes" experience, are extremely well funded, and have far more members than you can ever hope for.

Speaking only for myself, I've observed that I start wandering in to the personal attack realm when I get bored and frustrated with the level of conversation.

I would propose to you that the main problem on forums is not the spam and personal attacks everybody is so worried about, but rather the tidal wave of crap content. When members see a forum filled with crap, they stop respecting the forum, and each other.

Whatever you do, good luck!

That is an interesting take on it. I don't agree with you entirely, and I don't think it's feasible to pre-moderate all posts on a busy Internet forum, but perhaps it could be an idea for a slower sub-forum. Thanks for you thoughts, I shall contemplate whether that is something I'd like to try.