Re: Great SWT Program

In article <1189480478.503657.140030@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
<nebulous99@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On Sep 10, 6:35 am, blm...@xxxxxxxxxxxxx <blm...@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
I labeled it an attack post because it was -- its pure purpose was to
indirectly slander me by contradicting most of my previous post and
implying that I was some sort of ignoramus in the bargain. That almost
nothing in it failed to imply something negative about me, while at
the same time nothing at all in it was Java-related, is sufficient for
my purposes.

Nevertheless, labeling it an "attack post" without quoting any of it
leaves the impression -- to me anyway -- that it was nothing but
personal attacks and name-calling, which -- oh well, maybe that *is*
what you think.

That is what it was, aside from the detail that the attacks were
implied rather than explicit.

Your criteria obviously allow an attacker to slip subtle but serious
put-downs under your radar by simply making their claims indirectly by
implication instead of explicitly, which doesn't do a whole lot of
good.

My criteria? Huh?

Your criteria for what constitutes an "attack post". If you require
the attacks be explicit before you treat it as such and rebut,
attackers will simply learn to sneak their attacks in under the radar
if they want whatever nasty beliefs about you that they are trying to
promulgate to be promulgated unchallenged.

What I require before calling something an "attack post" is that
it be nothing *but* attack, explicit or implicit. I don't think
the post I was talking about met that criterion. I guess you do.
Your mileage varies from mine, again.

Oops. Better rebut implied ones as well then.

[*] vim and trn, under Linux. Yes, really. (Just curious --
what were you thinking I was using?)

Nothing specific, since you hadn't specified anything. But you'd need
some tool to enter untypable characters into a document no matter
what. A hex editor if nothing else was handy.

Of course, now you've mentioned the editors you're using,

I only mentioned one editor -- trn is a newsreader, and like
the good old-Unix-style program it is, it calls a program of the
user's choice (vim in my case) for text editing.

I think you
should probably get with the times. Console-mode archaisms from the
70s simply cannot and will not ever decently support unicode, anyway.
You're lucky if latin-1 accented characters work with that setup; most
likely you're limited to 7-bit ASCII.

Yes, I am. In part that's deliberate -- I'm fairly sure that
7-bit ASCII complies with all relevant standards, but unsure
that any particular way of getting other characters into Usenet
posts would. Something to research sometime (what the standards
actually are).

Gobs of software got written during the 80s and 90s, and more has been
written so far this millennium; I suggest that you find and use
some. :)

It will probably happen someday, though more in spite of your
suggesting it than because of it. I've spent a lot of hours
editing text with vim (and vi before that), though, and I'm
reluctant to set that aside. "Modern" tools are superior in
some respects, inferior (IMO) in others. <shrug>

Actually what I had in mind is that discussion can descend into
unproductive wrangling when someone starts dishing out personal
insults, and also when someone responds to any criticism by
defending his/her behavior. You can label the latter refusing to
roll over and take whatever. Generally speaking, I wouldn't.

Regardless, the place to stop such "unproductive wrangling" is with no
more personal insults, since no reasonable person can be expected to
simply allow some to stand unchallenged and permanently damage their
reputation (well, if an insulting posting had X-No-Archive: Yes on it,
it might not be so bad to let that one slide, since it won't be around
virtually forever waiting to pop up when someone googles you; OTOH if
it will pop up in a search you'll surely want the very next thing in
the thread to be your followup explaining why the insulting post is
wrong so it's maximally likely that whoever reads the insulting post
also reads a rebuttal.)

By recognizing that [insults my mental health]

Uh-huh. The alleged insult, for anyone who's curious but can't
be bothered to look upthread:

By recognizing that your perception of how humans interact is
distorted, and adopting a more accurate view.

Have I said earlier that I agree with those who have said that the
person doing the most damage to your reputation in this newsgroup
is you yourself?

I do not hallucinate and I do not believe it is appropriate for you to
be publicly making false claims that imply I have a mental defect.
Desist at once.

I stand by my opinion -- but it's only that, since all I know about
you is what I read in this and other newsgroups.

I know, I just insulted you, by your definition of "insult" anyway.

So at least you won't be claiming later that it was an "accident" and
you didn't mean to insult me; you knew darn well what you were doing
and now you've admitted it.

No. What I'm saying is that my words meet *your* definition of
"insult", but not mine.

My mileage varies -- when I'm doing something that strikes other
people as counterproductive, in general I'd probably rather hear
about it than not.

I find, and you apparently find (see above), that publicly insulting
people is counterproductive. So you shouldn't be bothered by followups
to public insults making rebuttals and calling the attacker on their
behavior, based on what you just said.

But I don't consider "you're wrong" an insult.

--
B. L. Massingill
ObDisclaimer: I don't speak for my employers; they return the favor.
.