Author: Dirk Frickenschmidt
Date: 10:42:28 09/23/98
Go up one level in this thread
On September 23, 1998 at 07:26:18, Djordje Vidanovic wrote: >On September 22, 1998 at 22:33:07, Dave Gomboc wrote: > >>I'm glad he's gone. I'll be even more glad if he can come back and restrain >>himself from conducting himself in such an unpleasant manner. I don't plan to >>hold my breath in anticipation of that wish's fulfillment, though. >> >>You were right about it being overdue. >> >>So my question now is: does my own post constitute a personal attack? Certainly >>it's not very polite, but I've been insentitive before. >> >>Dave Gomboc > >If the only comment about Thorsten's conduct is "unpleasant manner", then you >yourself should curb your outburst of unpleasantness. Because if you say that >you are glad [that someone is] "gone", it is sheer unpleasantness for me... Do >you think that you should be pegged down for a yellow card now? > >This clearly shows that the Thorsten affair was dealt with not only prematurely, >but unwisely. All kinds of sentiments will start coming up now, and Peter >Gilgasch seems to be right: we should start doubting our own ability to carry >on in this forum. Walking on one's tiptoes (metaphorically speaking) has never >been productive, and we'd surely like to have fruitful discussion here and not >worry too much about the amount of enthusiasm, conviction and, if need be, >intellectual aggression while voicing our opinions. Which is exactly what >Thorsten was doing. For me it was only intellectual aggression, stemming from >his absolute conviction. His conviction may have been, and may be, quite wrong >(which I think it often was), but we should recognise it as purely intellectual >-- and not malevolent, which I am positive it was not. > >Regards, >Djordej Hi Djordje, I understood Dave in another manner than you do. His main statement was: >>I'll be even more glad if he can come back and restrain >>himself from conducting himself in such an unpleasant manner. I regard "Unpleasant manner" as a very polite way of describing how Thorsten adressed others, having had the questionable pleasure of being one of the adressed several times myself. The problems I (and more and more others) had with Thorsten were *not* some sharp points of view which could have been debated in a sharp manner, including some irony. The problem was that the way he adressed others while promoting his well debatable and in part interesting ideas in an offensive way which I will *never* accept as long as I post within CCC. CCC was simply founded because we wanted a computer chess forum without constant offensive, contemptive or slanderous ad-hominem ranting. I remember that quite well because I belonged to the group founding it for that very reason, just like Thorsten who had to suffer from Mr Tueschen's abusive way of adressing him in rgcc before. My wish now is very simple: I wish to have Thorsten here and post about computerchess! But: I do definetily not accept offensive crap. And I saw plenty of that from Thorsten's side recently. So what else can I hope than Thorsten coming back here one day and being non-offensive while having all rights to promote his ideas even in a sharp form, as long as he keeps offensive ad-hominems out. I don't think that this would require much more than some fundamental sense for the rights of others. I saw something very simple happen here in this case which made me thoughtful. Those people who by chance happen not to be among the offended tend to see no big problems in offences as long as they are not hurt themselves. ;-) And some contributions in this context (not especialy yours) sound to me like: 'I have no problems with Thorsten, as long as he only offends *some* of the people posting here in only *some* of his posts and as long as *I* personally am not involved by chance'. I look at this very self-critical. Because I remember I had the same tendency when I was still co-moderataing, and once Ed Schroeder had a serious reason to complain. My feelings were: hopefully the offenisve thread would end soon and we could equally soon all be nice friends again. This did not work at all. To my diasappointment things rather became more difficult, and soon after we had to exclude the offending person, if we didn't want to establish very, very questionable double or multi-standards (being completely unjustified) soon. I hope you understand that my intention is only to hint to something like both sides of the coin. Kind regards from Dirk
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