Personal attacks

CSGnet Archive CSG2004
1

[From Bruce Abbott (2004.09.18.1030 EST)]
At the business meeting held on the evening of the last day of the CSG
conference this year in Chicago, the CSG membership supported a
resolution to reorganize the CSG along professional lines. Plans were
laid to create a new, more comprehensive and active CSG website and to
develop a new, in-house peer-reviewed scientific journal to be called the
International Journal of Perceptual Control. Projects to
accomplish these goals are underway.

A professional organization needs to adopt professional standards of
conduct. You can think of these as a set of reference values that members
and other contributors to CSG activities are strongly encouraged to
control for. Nowhere is the need for such standards more evident than in
the “flame wars” that occasionally erupt on CSGnet. Yet as an
organization we have been philosophically opposed to measures aimed at
controlling others. Such measures also raise serious questions about who
will decide when a violation has occurred, what actions will be
sanctioned, and who will monitor the monitors. Perhaps we can arrive at a
compromise that will be minimally intrusive.

I propose that we adopt a small set of reference values for discourse on
CSGnet. These will be displayed on the CSG website and periodically
posted to CSGnet. Posting to CSGnet will constitute an implied agreement
by the poster to control for these reference values (just as use of a
copyrighted computer program implies that the user has agreed to abide by
its rules of use). We will then trust everyone concerned to behave
honorably and control for these reference values to the best of their
abilities. Those who feel unable to do so should simply refrain from
posting to CSGnet.

I would hope and expect that nothing further would be required. However,
sometimes even honorable persons get carried away in the heat of the
moment and post things that violate the standards. Violators would be
politely reminded of their agreement to uphold the standards of discourse
on CSGnet.

Here is a minimal set of standards to provide a starting point for
discussion:

  1.  No personal attacks

on others.

  1.  No foul or obscene

language.

Your comments and suggestions for improving this proposal are
welcome.

Bruce Abbott

President, CSG 2004-2005

2

From [ Marc
Abrams (2004.09.18.1333)]

I am always struck by the good
intentions of people who try to get others to behave in a manner they approve
of. As if a majority of folks who suddenly decide to kill someone has a
superior moral position because a ‘majority’ says it’s all
right.

I find the use of ‘Marc the Sharc’
both a personal attack and
obscene. What do you think Bruce?

Or how about this stuff:

I guess you believe he is a pretty deep thinker and are afraid he
might be right. Is that the error?

I think I’m plotting estimates of dGNP/dt over time,
don’t you?

The important
thing is, don’t you? Have you let an overenthusiastic beginner shake your
confidence?

I’m real
interested in hearing what you think about these comments.

A little insensitive
maybe, something I should just shrug off?

Good, I feel, the same
way when I tell him to go Fuck off.

Marc

···

From: Control Systems Group Network (CSGnet)
[mailto:CSGNET@listserv.uiuc.edu] On Behalf
Of Bruce Abbott
Sent: Saturday, September 18, 2004
11:31 AM
To: CSGNET@listserv.uiuc.edu
Subject: Personal attacks

[From Bruce Abbott (2004.09.18.1030 EST)]
At the business meeting held on the evening of the last day of the CSG
conference this year in Chicago,
the CSG membership supported a resolution to reorganize the CSG along
professional lines. Plans were laid to create a new, more comprehensive and
active CSG website and to develop a new, in-house peer-reviewed scientific
journal to be called the International
Journal of Perceptual Control. Projects to accomplish these goals
are underway.

A professional organization needs to adopt professional standards of conduct.
You can think of these as a set of reference values that members and other
contributors to CSG activities are strongly encouraged to control for. Nowhere
is the need for such standards more evident than in the “flame wars”
that occasionally erupt on CSGnet. Yet as an organization we have been philosophically
opposed to measures aimed at controlling others. Such measures also raise
serious questions about who will decide when a violation has occurred, what
actions will be sanctioned, and who will monitor the monitors. Perhaps we can
arrive at a compromise that will be minimally intrusive.

I propose that we adopt a small set of reference values for discourse on
CSGnet. These will be displayed on the CSG website and periodically posted to
CSGnet. Posting to CSGnet will constitute an implied agreement by the poster to
control for these reference values (just as use of a copyrighted computer
program implies that the user has agreed to abide by its rules of use). We will
then trust everyone concerned to behave honorably and control for these
reference values to the best of their abilities. Those who feel unable to do so
should simply refrain from posting to CSGnet.

I would hope and expect that nothing further would be required. However,
sometimes even honorable persons get carried away in the heat of the moment and
post things that violate the standards. Violators would be politely reminded of
their agreement to uphold the standards of discourse on CSGnet.

Here is a minimal set of standards to provide a starting point for discussion:

  1.  No personal attacks on

others.

  1.  No foul or obscene

language.

Your comments and suggestions for improving this proposal are welcome.

Bruce Abbott

President, CSG 2004-2005

3

[From Bruce Abbott (2004.09.18.1350 EST)]

Marc
Abrams (2004.09.18.1333) –

I am always struck by the good intentions of people who try to get others
to behave in a manner they approve of. As if a majority of folks who
suddenly decide to kill someone has a superior moral position because a
�majority� says it�s all right.

I find the use of �Marc the Sharc� both a personal attack and
obscene. What do you think
Bruce?

Marc, I deplore this sort of language, whoever engages in it. It
doesn’t create a healthy and productive environment for discussion and
debate, and isn’t good for our public image as a group. I have no
interest in acting as some kind of policeman of civility on CSGnet.
As president of CSG and for the good of the organization, I’m simply
asking contributors to these debates to adopt a small set of references
to maintain a professional, courteous, and respectful demeanor in these
exchanges. If we adopt these standards for discourse and let everyone
involved know what the standards are, then getting the desired result
becomes a simple matter of personal control for each of us, and nobody
has to police anybody.

Would you support such a proposal or do you prefer the “no holds
barred, take no prisoners” approach?

Bruce A.

4

From [ Marc
Abrams (2004.09.18.1514)

Bruce,

I’m glad to see you agree with me
on this. But this kind of stuff has been going on for years here on CSGnet. Just
because I’m bit more vulgar in my use of language, doesn’t make
Powers and Marken any less obscene then me. Is that what it comes down to,
developing non-vulgar ways of ripping people apart?

I understand the good intentions on your
part. The problem is in the results. You are dealing in a forum that is exposed
to the world and as such we have many cultural norms at work here. What is ‘obscene’
and ‘offensive’ to one, is not to another. Who gets to decide which
things are too ‘personal’ and which things are ‘obscene’?
Whoever decides which is which will do so arbitrarily and in so doing will
offend one group of people or another by what is not included in the ‘prohibited’ list. Who gets
to add to list?

Here in the U.S. we have the first amendment
specifically to protect the right to allow dissenting
points of view and views that are not
popular with the majority of people. This is not about shouting “fire”
in a crowded movie theater. This is about words that one group of people find
offensive, and another group might find effective,
in getting their point across.

The key I think is tolerance. That is, the ability to allow
the free expression of ideas and not take everything as a personal affront. I
don’t like coercion, and I don’t think it works well. If you list 5
words you cannot use, people will find 5 others to get the same job done

These things would not happen if people actually had a bit of respect
for others and their ideas on this list. How are you going to legislate that?

Marc

···

From: Control Systems Group Network (CSGnet)
[mailto:CSGNET@listserv.uiuc.edu] On Behalf
Of Bruce Abbott
Sent: Saturday, September 18, 2004
2:53 PM
To: CSGNET@listserv.uiuc.edu
Subject: Re: Personal attacks

[From Bruce Abbott (2004.09.18.1350 EST)]

Marc
Abrams (2004.09.18.1333) –

I am always struck by the good intentions of people who try to get others to
behave in a manner they approve of. As if a majority of folks who suddenly
decide to kill someone has a superior moral position because a
majority says its all right.

I find the use of Marc the Sharc both a personal attack and obscene. What do you think Bruce?

Marc, I deplore this sort of language, whoever engages in it. It doesn’t
create a healthy and productive environment for discussion and debate, and
isn’t good for our public image as a group. I have no interest in acting as
some kind of policeman of civility on CSGnet. As president of CSG and for
the good of the organization, I’m simply asking contributors to these debates
to adopt a small set of references to maintain a professional, courteous, and
respectful demeanor in these exchanges. If we adopt these standards for
discourse and let everyone involved know what the standards are, then getting
the desired result becomes a simple matter of personal control for each of us,
and nobody has to police anybody.

Would you support such a proposal or do you prefer the “no holds barred,
take no prisoners” approach?

Bruce A.

5

[From Bruce Abbott (2004.09.18.2000 EST)]

Marc
Abrams (2004.09.18.1514) –

I�m glad to see you agree with me on this. But this kind of stuff has
been going on for years here on CSGnet. Just because I�m bit more vulgar
in my use of language, doesn�t make Powers and Marken any less obscene
then me. Is that what it comes down to, developing non-vulgar ways of
ripping people apart?

No, that’s not what I’m arguing for. I’m arguing for establishing a small
set of reasonable standards of decorum for discourse on CSGnet.

I
understand the good intentions on your part. The problem is in the
results. You are dealing in a forum that is exposed to the world and as
such we have many cultural norms at work here. What is �obscene� and
�offensive� to one, is not to another. Who gets to decide which things
are too �personal� and which things are �obscene�? Whoever decides which
is which will do so arbitrarily and in so doing will offend one group of
people or another by what is not included in the �prohibited�
list. Who gets to add to list?

I don’t envision any list of prohibited words or any thought police to
enforce conformity. We all know what it means to be civil; what I’m after
is simple: that everyone posting on the list do his or her best to
control for that reference value.

Here
in the U.S. we have the first amendment specifically to protect the right
to allow dissenting points of view and views that are
not popular with the majority of people. This is not about
shouting �fire� in a crowded movie theater. This is about words that one
group of people find offensive, and another group might find
effective, in getting their point
across.

I’m looking for a CSGnet where dissenting opinion on matters of theory,
application, or interpretation is welcomed. What would not be
welcomed are attacks on the person rather than the ideas being expressed
by that person.

The
key I think is tolerance. That is, the ability to allow the free
expression of ideas and not take everything as a personal affront. I
don�t like coercion, and I don�t think it works well. If you list 5 words
you cannot use, people will find 5 others to get the same job
done.

Again, I don’t have in mind any list of prohibited words or the like. I’m
just suggesting that we as a group adopt a few simple standards of
decorum and voluntarily try to live up to them. Discussion and even
passionate debate are encouraged, but it doesn’t have to sound like a
Jerry Springer show.

These
things would not happen if people actually had a bit of respect
for others and their ideas on this list. How are you going to legislate
that?

Obviously you can’t legislate good behavior, as people are autonomous
control systems. However, by adopting standards of decorum, we as a group
indicate what reference values we wish to control for. I would hope that
everyone concerned would take these standards to heart and do his or her
best to live up to them. The first step is to agree on what those
standards of decorum will be; the second is to agree to follow them, to
the best of one’s ability.

Bruce A.

6

[From Bruce Nevin (2004.09.21 19:40 EDT)]

Bruce Abbott (2004.09.18.2000 EST)–

[From Bruce Abbott (2004.09.18.2000
EST)]

Marc
Abrams (2004.09.18.1514) –

I understand the good intentions on your part.

It may seem that this is Bruce Abbott’s initiative or proposal. It’s not.
It was discussed and decided at the last business meeting of the CSG, a
few months ago in Chicago. As the new President, Bruce was given the task
of putting it into effect.
Milton Rokeach did a lot of research into dogmatism (closed-mindedness
about beliefs) and rigidity (resistance to change in belief-disbelief
systems). Somewhere in The Open and Closed Mind, he reports
anecdotally that among those who were familiar with this work, there was
a marked reduction of opinionated language because they realized that it
reflected poorly on their personal capacities. We might say that only an
intellectual cripple would use opinionated language – but that would be
opinionated.

Hence, professionalism: opinionated language gives others the false
impression that we’re a bunch of intellectual cripples incapable of
arguing on the merits.

Explicitly opinionated language is easy to identify. “Any idiot can
see that.” Implicit disparagement may be less obvious, but it
equally brands the author. Regardless of whether or not it’s true, it
prevents anyone else from discussing the issue on its own merits with
that person. Same effect.

by posting a small set of unambiguous,

agreed-upon rules of decorum and asking CSGnet posters to adopt these
as

reference values, everyone would know exactly what the reference values
are

and would agree to them as a condition of participation. Whether
everyone

would cooperate, I don’t know, but at least everyone would be aware of
what

is expected of them.

Here is a minimal set of standards to provide
a starting point for discussion:

  1.  No personal attacks

on others.

  1.  No foul or obscene

language.

Anyone can call someone on it. Raise a violation flag, as it were.
“You might not have realized that this comes across as a personal
attack. Could you restate that, please?”

While not everyone may agree about instances of foul or obscene language,
saying “You call that foul language, what kind of wimp are
you?” is clearly personal attack. I think we agree that
“bullshit” and “asshole” are not technical terms. But
I propose that my use of these words in that sentence is not an
objectionable use of foul or obscene language because it is not part of
an attack on a person or on what they have said. If I said “Bruce
Abbott’s proposal is bullshit” that would be objectionable.
Ostensibly it’s only an attack on his proposal (the implicit personal
attack is not obvious), but it says nothing useful about it. It says no
more than “I disagree with Bruce Abbott’s proposal”. The
naughty word is gratuitous.

Anyone who objects, you have to wonder what’s more important to them,
freedom of expression or the subject matter of this list.

OK, so, what if someone raises a flag on a breach of our agreement, and
the flagged person disputes it? Or defends their right to say whatever
they want however they please?

“Agreement as a condition of participation” is a key phrase.
First, we have to implement the agreement. How is that accomplished?

Next, there is an implicit sanction. We have to make the implicit
sanction explicit. We may not need to figure that out immediately, but we
do need to bring it into focus so that we can do so expeditiously at
need. If the condition is violated, participation is ended – but how? A
social contract can be enforced by various means. Individuals can ignore
the person (the ancient practice of shunning). Individual action can go
so far as filtering email from that person to trash. Institutional
responses are possible, e.g. the Roughneck room in a forum like ECACS, or
on CSGNet the Listserv can be configured to exclude insistant violators.
All of these measures have been considered and some put into practice at
one time or another. We probably don’t need to determine a sanction now,
but we should at least be aware that it is an implicit requirement of an
“agreement as a condition of participation.”

Within the above considerations, I agree to the proposed conditions of
participation in CSGNet. And if I violate them, please let me know.

    /Bruce

Nevin

···

At 07:57 PM 9/18/2004 -0500, Bruce Abbott wrote: