Re: Dealing with ad hominem attacks in comp.programming


"Richard Heathfield" <rjh@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message news:v-CdnVDLYpazZSraRVnyhwA@xxxxxxxxx
There has been an unfortunate spate of ad hominem attacks in this
newsgroup recently. This is not good for the group as a whole, it's not good > for the victims of the attacks, and it's not good for the attackers either.

Nilges is an interesting case. I've noticed for instance that the amount of political content in his posts has dropped markedly since I objected to its relevance. I don't think he's a troll in that his desire is not to disrupt the workings of the newgroup. However there seems to be some lack of perspective. He's not the only person to think that C sucks as a language, for instance, but most people advancing that position would expect pretty robust dismissal for C practitioners. He sees it as a campaign waged against him.

Some of those attacks have been directed against me. Whilst I think it's
bad for the group as a whole for me to respond to such attacks
point-by-point (I've done this before, and it did indeed result in
monster-threads that almost nobody wanted), I do think it necessary to
point out that my lack of a response does *not* indicate agreement with
those (very few) people who are conducting those attacks.

I think the problem is that most people are more interested in other peoplethan they are in programming. There's nothing to be ashamed about in this. Only unusual people would think the reverse is even possible. And generally, whilst technically-focussed people do find a niche, those who are promoted to high position tend to be those with good social skills, not the most competent.

However the group is a group about programming. A thread demanding the removal of a poster is so meta-topical as to be absurd. Other people don't bnecessarily want to enter into internal battles for dominance.

Whilst he is not the only offender by any means, it is of course mostly Mr
Nilges to whom I refer. It is possible that Mr Nilges's habit of
misrepresenting reality might, by dint of constant repetition, mislead
some people into thinking that his attacks might have some substance to
them.

That's a danger, I agree. The saying "never argue with an idiot, because people listening will not be able to tell the difference" has some merit. You pull Nilges trick in the paragraph below of referring to some obscure incident as though it were current and important.

Just one example will suffice here: he keeps banging on about a C++ test in
which I "did poorly", by which he means that I *only* scored 86% on a test
set by an idiot who'd probably learned his C++ from a Schildt book, and
the "poor" score of 86% was achieved despite refusing to answer at least
five of the fifty questions, because it was quite clear to me that they
had no correct answer. (Do the math, and you'll find that my 43 "marked
correct by a question-setter who doesn't know the language" responses out
of a self-imposed maximum of 45 comes to over 95.5%.)

Others who took the test, and who I am happy to concede know C++ far
better than I do, also commented that the test was flawed. This was in fact
the test in which I was so busy spotting one error that I didn't happen to
notice *another* error in the same question. (This is the &&/|| thing, by
the way.)

A couple of questions had flaws, and then it became a game to see how many questions could be presented as flawed. Mutliple choice questions are very frequently like that, partly because truth is in shades of grey, even for something like programming. So plausible distractors usually have some truth to them, often the answer will have some elements of falseness.

I promise that, if he continues to make these ludicrous accusations, I will
*not* post (or at least *try* not to post!) rebuttal after rebuttal after
rebuttal. As you may have noticed, I have been practising for some weeks
before making this promise, and it does seem that I can more or less keep
to it.

You could maybe ration yourself to one rebuttal a thread. Ghis can be as short as "A Nazi, me?".

But what I may do instead is put up a rebuttal Web page, a link to which I
will post when necessary, so that those who really want to know the facts
behind the lies can find out without a monster thread being generated.


I really don't think this is a good idea as it feeds Nilge's fantasy that there is some sort of orchestrated campaign against him. At times this even looks very like a clinical condition - it is very characteristic of people with certain mental illnesses. You can be charitable - after all, you might develop mania yourself some day.

--
Free games and programming goodies.
http://www.personal.leeds.ac.uk/~bgy1mm

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