"Bernhard R. Link" <brl...@debian.org> > [1] And as you gave no facts and just called names, you are sure you > are not meaning > "I do not understand what you are talking about and cannot assess if it > is something important" instead?
This is exactly the sort of personalisation of discussions which should really not be done! I almost replied with a similar criticism of style. In case anyone else missed it, the fact I gave was that the succinct label "ad-hominem"'s well-established meaning is different from "He is an asshole, ignore him". So, I suggest that the claim posted on 2009-08-19 09:35:07 GMT isn't generally true and anyone who does not see a difference maybe should be corrected. For a slightly more formal evidence, web-search ad-hominem "He is an asshole" and one will quickly see that the latter is an instance of the former and not a translation or synonym. Also compare with dict's output for ad-hominem. If anyone wishes to argue that any of the succinct labels are the same as "he is an asshole" then please name which label you think means that and provide some evidence at least as strong as the above weak evidence. Or if you'd like to argue that the misinterpretation is widespread and so we should work around it, please provide some evidence. Even knowing how many people at the BoF or otherwise actually believe that the succinct terms were personal attacks or "name-calling" (rather than thinking other people do) might be interesting. Otherwise, I feel that I understand this aspect, but the problem is rare enough that the simplest solution is educating the few who think succinct terms are insults. Hope that explains, -- MJR/slef My Opinion Only: see http://people.debian.org/~mjr/ Please follow http://www.uk.debian.org/MailingLists/#codeofconduct -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-project-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org