On Tue, 18 Aug 2009 15:25:30 -0500 Manoj Srivastava <srivasta@debian.org> wrote: > These attacks on people, as opposed to discussion of what they > said, is one of the major reasons discussion threads devolve into > unproductive chaos. It takes more than one person to produce chaos. > We should be managing to police discussion > better, and the first step is identifying that such a post has been > made. I don't think so. Pointing it out just leads to a whole new discussion about why - it has not been a personal attack - it has been a personal attack but was justified - it is important to be resolved - etc. If your goal is to discourage useless sub-discussions, IMO the only reasonable reaction is to not react. Don't feed the trolls, as they say. If your goal is to discourage such unwanted behaviour by punishing the evil-doer, then again ignoring the poster is the best you can do. Being ignored is a sort of punishment, even a strong one, and it can be executed by anyone without the need of special powers. The only alternative would be some central authority, like a list moderator which I think is not practicable for this list and would come with all the problems that giving power to a selected group of people brings (like actual or felt abuse of power). Cheers, harry
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