Re^18: What is "aggressive" argument?

[BrowserUk]

The latter part, whether true or not, is easily seen as inflammatory, etc.

And we come full circle. That you are going to bat for a sock puppet id who's sole purpose in existance is to allow its cowardly controller to ply his 'art'--the very things you are judging me for, but 100x worse--safe in the knowledge that his real id is thus protected from any fall out. That speaks volumes.

The conclusion is obvious -- if you want to do something about the situation then you need to change your approach.

Firstly, changing my approach won't correct the prejudgement that you apply when you see my name attached to a post. That boat sailed long ago. It might have some small effect on the perceptions of me by newbies; but I don't have run ins with them.

Secondly, I don't perceive the need for change. You're the one sitting in judgement of me, but you make no attempts to apply your standards to my sparring partners. Not even the non-contributory, wholly vacuous, deeds of an insipid, cowardly sock puppet.

do you really think the rest of us care about your inflammatory sock-puppet diatribe?

I wasn't talking to "the rest of you", only you.

Do I think you care? I don't have to "think", you've made it very clear. And confirmed everything I've been saying all over again.

A more interesting question is: Do I think you should care about the actions of someone holding (at least) two accounts, and using one of them to get away with spewing foul, if vacuous and insipid, rancour, safe from redress. Yes. I think you should.

That you seek to protect him from me; that should give you pause for thought.

I'm not keen on bible quotes, but there is one that comes to mind: judge not others lest you too be judged.

What I do, I do in my own name, and take full responsibility for whatever consequences arise--good or bad.

[Argel]

I personally do not like the idea of multiple accounts, save for having an "official" / "admin" type account and then one to post under regularly as a normal user. But I do not make the rules here. :-(

But more importantly, this thread is about you and things you can do to improve your situation. And that's because while you cannot control the actions others you can control how you respond to them! And that is why your sparring partners are irrelevant to this discussion, save for their ability to egg you on and your unhealthy fixation on them. Which brings us back to changes you can make to your behavior.

I think I need to clarify:

[D]o you really think the rest of us care about your inflammatory sock-puppet diatribe?

What I meant was that the rest of us will likely see you being overly abrasive (and thus startign a minor flame war), see you falling for flamebait, or even worse, see you feeding a troll. That doesn't mean we do not notice who you are sparring with. What it means is that an individual's perception of you will be based on your actions, not your sparring partners. Staying above the fray will likely leave a positive impression. Falling/jumping into, or worse, starting the fray will likely leave a negative impression.

Or to put it more succinctly -- we don't care about them, why do you? The Do Not Feed the Trolls!!! thread might offer additional enlightenment.

[BrowserUk]

But more importantly, this thread is about you and things you can do to improve your situation.

No. It isn't! I started this thread, so I reserve the right to decide upon its purpose, and that is not it!

It might be the purpose you think it should have; or even the purpose you've decided to try and bend it to; but it is not my purpose.

So let me try (one final time) to clarify my purpose.

You see, I do not believe written argument can "be aggressive". Words cannot leap off the screen and punch you in the face; nor lie in wait in a dark alley to confront you. If you google "physical aggression", you'll get ~1/4 million hits; "verbal aggression" much the same; but "written aggression" and you'll get a paltry 643.

But, a tiny proportion of the perlmonks community have taken it upon themselves to accuse me of "aggressive argument". So, in respect to the community, I attempted to get a feel for what, if anything, constituted a "community consensus" on the matter.

I did this because if there was any such consensus, that could be adequately codified, then I would

1. Attempt to get it clearly codified.

   For rules to be followed, they need to be defined--rather than made up on the spot at the whim of individuals

2. Attempt to bind myself to that codification. But with caveats!

   The codification would need to be clear; ie. written.

   The rules would need to be applied universally--with equality of application and sanction--to all participants of this place.

   Not capriciously, by a few self-appointed guardians of morality, to a self-selected few of the rest of us.

To date. I see a) no consensus; b) no universal application of (even) the capricious, unwritten judgements being applied to me; c) no modicum of realisation by those sitting in judgement, of the arbitrary and capricious nature of their judgementalism.

When tirwhan used the (widely recognised) most offensive word in the English language, nobody turned a hair. Indeed, he got upvotes for using it.

I was more than happy to allow IBGS to continue cowardly spewing his tiresome venom in my direction, for as long as he felt the need to do so, because his unchallenged and upvoted fifth was making my point for me, far more strongly than I could have done alone. The fact that you came out to bat for him was just the icing on the cake.

I've said this (less formally), at least twice before in this thread, but for the sake of completeness, and in the hope of putting this now meaningless dialog to rest, I'll repeat it one last time.

If, as and when I see you and others applying the same censorship & censure to others--not just my sparring partners, but others too--as you seek to apply to me, then I will take said censoring and censure under advisement. That is, I will attempt to avoid the need for censure, by applying self-censorship commensurate to my understanding of your 'rules', to my writings here.

But while it remains unwritten, decided arbitrarially by a self-appointed minority of individuals, and applied capriciously, to only me or some small subset of those writing here, I feel no obligation to be so bound.

[Argel]

And here we have yet another example of you digging your heels, refusing to concede even an inch, etc. It's amazing how stubborn you get in these debates. And so we get this thread, which it seems has really just been an attempt at proving you are write and whoever called you aggressive is wrong. Ugh!

So earlier you basically accuse me of supporting (in-effect) IBGS. Me, the person who started the Do Not Feed the Trolls!!! thread!! If you give a troll attention, you are feeding the troll. And there is no better way to support a troll than to feed it. So who was it that was supporting IBGS? Last time I checked I was ignoring him as per SOP. You on the other hand were not only feeding the troll but practically doing the tango with him!!

As for applying standards, I have different sets of standards to apply, as the occasion fits. In my opinion you do resort to abrasive, confrontational language in heated debates, and I will definitely ding you for it from time to time. So, why didn't tye and ikegami get dinged? Because it's you getting all passionate about threads again, whipping out the inflammatory language again, etc. Geez, it's really starting to wear thin. Is it really that hard for you to argue something just on the technical merits? Apparently so, especially when you do not want to take advice from others.

And your hypocrisy wears thin. You claim everyone should be judged by the same standards, but when tye pointed out that you were the one who started yelling, you just dismissed it. But by convention writing in all caps is considered yelling on the Internet, which is exactly what tye was referring to! So I guess the standards should only apply when you find them convenient??

As for how I apply my standards, you're right -- I am applying a different standard to you. If I thought you were just a troll or just flaming away I would likely just ignore you -- I mean, I started Do Not Feed the Trolls!!! for a reason!! But, because you have contributed so much to the Perl community, especially here on PerlMonks, instead of just writing you off in regards to these heated debates, I am actually devoting a considerable amount of my time an energy trying to get you to see that you can make changes that will work toward your betterment.

Update 2010-11-12: Sorry if this post came across too strong. The frustration factor finally started to get to me.