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Blocking people certainly isn't petty if they consistently resort to ad hominems. Attacking the speaker rather than their arguments ought to result in a mod action unless there are exceptional circumstances IMO since it almost always degenerates to heat > light, but that's not really enforced here. I wish there was something like Twitter's mute functionality as that's what I'd prefer over full blocking, but if blocking is the only thing I have then that's what I'll use.
But you're right, I should probably have just ignored this. Fruit from a rotten tree.
Yes it is. We just don't always agree with you what constitutes an attack. Many people are maximally sensitive to anything said to them, and want maximum charity when interpreting anything said by them.
If you consider your behavior in posts like these to be fine, then I would not consider you to have a very good definition of what constitutes an ad hominem
That selective edit is interesting. Here is the full context:
When you pull a stunt like that, literally chopping a piece out of a sentence to imply I said something quite different than what I did, it's hardly worth addressing the rest, but yes, I stand by everything I said in that post, and I have applied the same judgment to others. When you are arguing with someone, you are allowed to criticize, even harshly, the things they actually say.
Very bad form, and the way you slipped it in with the other quotes makes it clear that was calculated and intentional.
This isn't the gotcha you think it is. For what it's worth I'll include the "a lot of people think" part to the front of it for fuller context going forward, but it's still quite bad even with that included. Claiming you're just relaying what other people think shouldn't be a shield that lets you just write whatever inflammatory stuff you want.
E.g. if I wrote something like this, I ought to get moderated:
I do not think it would be a great defense if I said: Oh hey, technically I wasn't saying that about you, it's just what other people have said about you that I'm informing you of ;)
(If it's not clear, this was for illustrative purposes only. I would never describe you as a "lying shitbag" or "bad faith borderline troll" no matter what our differences of opinion were.)
Also you're saying I didn't include enough context, and then you turn around and clip out the context of the next sentence in that post of yours:
The important bit is the "I get it now", which I'd say isn't a far leap from saying you agree with them, at least somewhat.
"Very bad form", as they say.
Isn't it funny how you had to modify the quote yet again, beyond just changing the names involved, to make your point.
I want to make the principle clear. I think accusing someone of being a "bad faith borderline troll" is bad enough that it should be sufficient, but a lot of people on this site seem to think that's perfectly fine as far as debate etiquette goes. I don't think anyone would defend "lying shitbag" though. Hopefully I'm not wrong.
That doesn't make sense. If no one would defend "lying shitbag", but they think it's fine to call some "bad faith borderline troll", you are not making the principle behind calling someone "bad faith borderline troll" clear.
His whole point was that it was a "selective edit".
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