Wouter Verhelst <wou...@debian.org> writes: > On Sun, Mar 14, 2010 at 02:40:32AM +0000, Dmitrijs Ledkovs wrote: > > Do you think current frequency/amount of heated discussions is > > acceptable for the Debian project? > > I believe no amount of ad-hominem discussion is acceptable.
There's a significant difference between ad hominem discussion (which I interpret as meaning “discussion about a person”) versus argumentum ad hominem (the widely-used but sometimes poorly-understood logical fallacy <URL:http://www.fallacyfiles.org/adhomine.html>). The only case where ad hominem discussion qualifies as the argumentum ad hominem fallacy is when it is used as a red herring; i.e. when the personal details being discussed are irrelevant to the substance of the argument. Could you clarify what you mean by your statement above in light of that difference? -- \ “I used to be an airline pilot. I got fired because I kept | `\ locking the keys in the plane. They caught me on an 80 foot | _o__) stepladder with a coathanger.” —Steven Wright | Ben Finney
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