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Re: Question to all Candidates: Heated discussions



On Tue, Mar 16, 2010 at 12:11:39PM +1100, Ben Finney wrote:
> Wouter Verhelst <wouter@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>).

I meant 'ad hominem attacks', rather than 'ad hominem discussion'. I.e.,
you're making the discussion personal, rather than about the technical
matter you're supposedly talking about.

-- 
The biometric identification system at the gates of the CIA headquarters
works because there's a guard with a large gun making sure no one is
trying to fool the system.
  http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2009/01/biometrics.html

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