Re: [PATCH] Documentation/CommunityGuidelines

From: Felipe Contreras <felipe.contreras@gmail.com>
Date: Jun 13, 2013, 13:36 UTC
Message-ID: <CAMP44s0aNVnxKLXMfyXN9CeJFkMha4bNUq1TVrgbph867mbR2g@mail.gmail.com>
In-Reply-To: <20130613101856.GA11034@workstation.dev.smoothwall.net>

On Thu, Jun 13, 2013 at 5:19 AM, Thomas Adam <thomas@xteddy.org> wrote:

> It's a point on which one is never going to win, because no matter what one
> says, it'll just get twisted round in such a way that one then ends up
> questioning their own words, and their own conduct, and that's bad, because
> there never was anything wrong with them to begin with.

Perhaps because you are actually wrong.

In the words of Tyrion Lannister: "Why do you want me to shut up? Am I starting to make sense?"

Questioning our own ideas is the hallmark of a rational person.

> So when you realise this point, it becomes almost impossible to proceed
> further with any kind of discussion, because even the technical points of
> discussion then end up being lost in a tirade of needless side-stepping
> discussion.

You start the side-stepping the moment you say "I don't like your tone", which is precisely why one should concentrate on the argument being made, and not *how* it's being made. I'm not the only one that things that way, read the extremely useful article from Paul Graham[1].

It is you the one that is against concentrating on the technical points of the discussion.

> That is why I think this is the wrong thing to do.

If you are suggesting punitive measures, let me remind you that any modern society follows principles established in the Magna Carta eight hundred years ago. Before being punished by the state, every person has the right to a speedy trial, and the trial of course has to be based on *the written law*.

If we don't have by-laws, you cannot be blamed to have violated them, and you are even against guidelines, so on what basis are you going to determine that somebody has acted in an illicit way? The opinion of a single dictator? Mob rule?

It doesn't matter how you cut it, that would not be the rule of law[2], a concept that has been in the civilized world even longer, for thousands of years.

[1] http://www.paulgraham.com/disagree.html [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rule_of_law

-- 
Felipe Contreras