Posted by tabitha on January 7, 2004, at 18:33:28
In reply to Re: IMO, posted by Dr. Bob on January 7, 2004, at 4:15:28
> It's fine to refute what someone says, but that should be able to be done without being accusatory. For example, instead of:
>
> "Those claims are more than just simple opinion. They are provocative and threatening."
>
> one could say:
>
> "I can find no justification for your claims, and others may be alarmed by them."OK, when you put it that way I can see that Larry's statement was more accusatory than it needed to be. He put negative labels on the claim (provocative and threatening) rather than stating his underlying concern that people might be scared by it.
My concern is that people don't understand the concepts of making things non-accusatory and using I-statements and so forth. It's such a different standard than other boards, and from normal social discourse. I really think it takes some special training to get your rules. Did you ever think of putting together a bunch of examples like this, of blockable offenses, and the acceptable alternatives? Put it into the FAQ somewhere. Otherwise we keep having these cases of valuable, intelligent, well-spoken posters stepping over the lines without realizing it.
poster:tabitha
thread:296523
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/admin/20031120/msgs/297797.html