From CriticizeDiplomatically: * Blunt: "That's not what I meant, you blind idiot. Read it again!" * Smoother: "It seems there is a misunderstanding. Let me attempt to rephrase it..." * Problem: After the fifth or sixth time you've rephrased it for someone who ''really is'' a blind idiot, especially if they're a blind idiot who travels one topic to another and brings up the same points over and over. Sometimes people JustDontGetIt. This is fact. This is much truer of the 'simple' things, such as types and monads and CategoryTheory and PropositionalLogic (if you've ever taught it), because these are 'new' ideas to whomever is attempting to comprehend it. And some people don't even ''want'' to comprehend it; they'll fight you every step of the way. 'JustDontGetIt' makes them blind. Fighting you makes them idiots. ** The assumption is that calling people names rarely changes their behavior. In this case, the other party is likely to believe the insulter's writing is poor, and trying to rephrase may be less effort than bickering over whether the problem is with the reader or writer. Or, consider WalkOutInsteadOfInsult or IveLeftToCode. ** ''Yes, just rephrase it a sixth or seventh time. Surely their behavior will change; they might even comprehend something that is clearly beyond their ability or desire to comprehend. Don't let five or six failures deter you. Don't concern yourself with the amount of time you're wasting for someone who isn't willing to put forth equal or greater effort understanding what you've written. Just, very diplomatically, rephrase it one more time. That will work.'' ** For the sake of argument, suppose this is the case and the other party is indeed "dense". Insults are not likely to change such behavior or make them better readers. Your choices are 1) continue to insult, 2) leave the discussion, 3) try to rephrase it yet again. If #3 isn't working and #1 isn't working (and making wiki unpleasant), then 2 looks like your best bet. ---- * Blunt: "Go read Doctor X's book so I don't have to spoonfeed your empty pinhead!" * Smoother: "I recommend you read Doctor X's book. I don't have the time right now to paraphrase it here." * Problem: Other person crows victory about BookStop and thumbs his nose at academia and ivory towers. Just you try and continue to remain smooth... ** But not remaining smooth doesn't solve anything. Perhaps consider WalkOutInsteadOfInsult or IveLeftToCode. ** ''Even if the person does such, why would the "blunt" approach change that?'' ---- Pure discussion (or rather disagreement): * ''Nor does moving elegant pages to LongerPageTitlesThatAreMoreComplexJustForTheSakeOfLookingLikeYouAreDoingSomethingUseful solve any problem'' * This issue does not belong here in my opinion. * ''Oh yes it does, Mr. Smoother. Smooth people (easy going types) try and smooth pages out into their long verbose smooth imprecise ridiculous page titles like ThisIsTheDijkstraBrainDamagePattern instead of BrainDamage. Just to be smooth.'' * I believe that to be an exaggeration. The actual suggestion was shorter. Other than that, "smooth" is not a bad thing in most people's opinion. If you susbscribe to CriticizeBluntly and believe name-calling works, then you will probably disagree with most of these suggestions anyhow. This topic is from the perspective of those who don't believe in the merit of name-calling. * ''And please prove, what pray tell are the benefits since the suggestion still contains the insulting (according to you, and others who lack humor) brain damage phrase? How is this any way better, when in sentences we need to be able to say the phrase BrainDamage alone.. not something like ThatBrainDamageThingThatWasWrappedWithOlivesAndCherriesAroundItToBeNicer. What is your problem with precision? Precision insults you? Even though the precision was not directed at you personally? As for the name calling - who was the person who said eff off and who was the one who called me arrogant in big bold text on the database pages? Who was the one who used phrases such as bull shit first? Who was the one who started name calling academic people as lowly and similar? I will ask once again: do you have a dictionary handy, to look up the word hypocrite? I am seriously asking.. do you know what the phrase means? This is not a rhetorical question.'' * Again, I feel this is off-topic to the sub-topic here and don't want to create a ThreadMess here arguing over all these side issues. * ''Why add redundant blabbering about how it is off topic to you, the smoother? Quit smoothing it over - fix it. Make a page for it then. I feel it belongs here to discuss the ridiculousness of a smoother. You don't feel it belongs here - so move it then. Adding more and more smooth redundant blabbering about how it doesn't fit here won't help. You should read what the problems with a smoother are - you are demonstrating them now. I'm being blunt with you telling you what your problems are. I'm sorry if it hurts.'' * This is not the place to complain about me specifically. And, most people prefer diplomacy over brash/blunt in my experience. * ''I'll ask once again: do you know what a hypocrite is? Do you realize that telling people to eff off and saying a page is bull shit is not diplomatic? Do you wish for people to take screenshots of where you have been blunt (in very incorrect ways.. bluntness can be wrong.. when it is right, it is a good thing.. when it is wrong, bluntness is bad).'' * I never claimed I am always diplomatic and admit that sometimes I lose my cool. However, I'm trying to cut down. I used to be more like you, but realized that the brash abrasive approach is not effective. I read HowToWinFriendsAndInfluencePeople and believe its principles to be mostly accurate (even if difficult to adhere to). If I become brash and abrasive at times, it is because I am letting my reptilian side slip through, not because I feel it works. (There are a small minority of people who use brash/abbrasive effectively. Steve Jobs is one of those. However, he has other traits and techniques that together make it effective. The brashness alone is not enough.) ''[I really like how you apply CriticizeDiplomatically in this dispute. It really strengthens your side.]'' * And I wonder what you mean by "good". Do you believe it encourages people to correct their alleged poor behavior, or that they "deserve" the punishment of being called names? * ''By good - I mean calling it like it is. In an imperative manner, instead of wrapping it with fancy icing like how OOP people do it or like how the upper management architects do it. At times, Top, I am very humble and in person I am extremely approachable. If I really was as arrogant as some anonymous people claim on NotNiceEnough, then I wouldn't release all my source code to the public - I'd make a fortune off it or keep it to myself for my own pride. When I am blunt is when I use precision - just like SlaveOrientedProgramming and the very precise QompLanguage, Imperative english, etc. I find being overly verbose and too nice and not precise enough (and not blunt enough) is a waste of time. Precision can be very effective and time saving. People who are not overly sensitive will not take precise blunt comments as offensive - they will respect them, understand them - and say '''thank you for being blunt, I found it a bit harsh.. but you are probably right in some respect (or all respects), or I'm sure you have a point'''. However, if the bluntness is invalid and incorrect, and is a simple ''eff off'' or similar - then this is obviously not so good, and not a good way to be blunt.'' * I believe that BeingRightNotExcuseForBeingRude. Rudeness makes people LESS receptive, not more. And many people don't like reading insults. It is not pleasant to them, like being seated next to a crying baby on the plane. I suspect you disagree with this. We use different assumptions about human behavior. But another problem with your style is that it violates OnceAndOnlyOnce. You repeat the same name calls. Do you believe repetition of the insult somehow "drums hit home"? And, AnarchyDoesntScale. If I retaliate by criticizing you over and over, it just escalates into a mess. You don't seem to like it when I repeatedly call you an "exaggerating drama-queen" or "mental masturbator", which I feel is accurate. GoldenRule. * ''You do not usually call me a mental masturbator. And, since you are calling them that - then that is an insult.. and you are a hypocrite. I do not equate bluntness with insults. As I stated, being precise and direct does '''not''' mean we resort to insults. Being blunt means being straightforward without worrying about the other person's ego. Insults are a '''bad''' form of bluntness. A good form of bluntness is '''not''' using insults - but being direct, correct, critical, rigorous, scientific, less opinion oriented, and more focused (where utmost possible). What bothers me though is that BluntDefinitionIsConfusing.'' * Because you guys don't sign many of your statements but share a similar view for some things, its often hard to know who is who. But anyhow, how does one tell the difference between "bluntness" and "insults" when it comes to "non-friendly" personal language? A "mental masturbator" with strong opinions is one who makes the human flaw of mistaking "elegant" designs for net superior designs. We need numeric metrics to avoid such bias. Humans are often not honest with themselves, and numbers help them face reality. I'm being blunt when I accuse them of that. Maybe there's a better way of saying this that fits your rather curious morality system? (And, I recommend you read SuperCrunchersBook. There's a BookStop for ya :-) **My rather curious morality system? '''You''' claimed that we should not be blunt or insulting. Now '''you''' are saying '''you''' are '''blunt''' by calling people '''mental masturbators''', and that this is '''okay'''? What the fudge? Top, self reflection. Top, where is your mirror? *** ''Unfortunately, there is no nicer-named topic such as "TheHumanFlawOfMistakingElegantDesignsForNetSuperiorDesigns". Sometimes the blunter version is so much more compact and memorable that it "sticks". And no, "brain damage" was not a case of this. (And, the elegancy is possibly subjective also). --top'' **And Top, you have no idea who some people that participate here are, do you? Many do not read excessive amounts of paper books. Many are not academics. Some read material from '''certain select''' academics. Academia is not something to be ''against''. One should just be very careful about which academia he studies. For example, one academic promotes XML for data storage (some PhD Professors), other academics do '''not''' promoting XML (FabianPascal). Academia is an imperfect clash. One should not agree with all academia - especially since many academic institutions are just out to get people jobs in the '''Oil industry''' and in the '''C++ industry'''. ** Regarding me being a mental masturbator. I've '''never''' attended a university or college as a student, and don't plan to since I am self taught and self motivated (but I may become a teacher one day, even though I hate many teachers.. again, I am a clash). Paul Graham calls schools prisons - and I mostly agree - but if schools were better I wouldn't agree (and if I can make them better, I will). I don't read books that are very '''product''' or fad oriented (learn PHP in 2 days!). I read dictionaries, encyclopedias, thesauruses, notes from intelligent people, books from certain people.. and occasionally peak into a book at the library if I have time. I'm more interested in practical theory, compilers, source code, dictionaries full of blunt and precise words, programming languages, easy to access PDF books that don't blabber on about some Ruby or PHP product garbage, etc. **''University-ness is not the metric I use. It's generally the lack of desire to focus on "user-side" metrics, but rather design-side metrics. I strongly believe that TheoreticalRigorCantReplaceEmpiricalRigor. If you don't, we just have a fundamental philosophical split.'' ---- '''Regarding HowToWinFriendsAndInfluencePeople...''' But really.. isn't marketing hype and making money all about making customers your friends, even if it is lies and hype that you are feeding them? Top, you do not have many friends on this wiki, nor does FabianPascal, nor did Dijkstra have many many friends (maybe some, select people). They have some very select friends and it is important not to have '''many friends''' but rather '''a good few friends'''. Influencing people through marketing hype and lies and gaining friends at dumbed down level is much easier than gaining a few good friends and good students/associates. * I've already described why I think I am not popular: because I challenge people's HobbyHorse and not really because of my socialization style. Also, those who are most protective of their HobbyHorse also tend to be the more blunt ones in general such that any discussion with them will result in a ThreadMess, and many people don't like threadmesses or those associated with them. In other words, '''fire-works follow me around'''. This is labeled as "trolling" by some, but that implies that I do it for the purpose of generating heat. I dismiss the idea that generating heat is the main reason I challenge HH's. The heat is a side-effect, NOT my goal. Thus, technically I am not a "troll". --top It is of some people's opinion that one should not agree with ''the masses'' and one should not make friends with ''the masses''. But that book may provide some good tips, regardless. ''For me it's also more important to have a few good friends than to make friends with ''the masses'' (actually I was a loner during school). I also prefer direct and clear statements. And I cannot really deal well with uncommitive evasive statements - I just don't get them (I'm happy to have a wife who states here likes and dislikes clearly und unmistakably).'' ''But this doesn't mean that I think this is the only or the correct approach. There is a need for people who unify ''the masses'', who smoothen topics until most can agree. Though obviously this doesn't work well for topics that have an inherent need for sharpness or precision. So everybody has to find his place here. -- GunnarZarncke'' ''I wonder whether CriticizeDiplomatically (or rather talk uncommitively) is a CulturalAssumption (an AmericanCulturalAssumption?). Here in Germany requests are made smoothly, but responses are expected to be direct and clear. If I want to buy/order something or need something from collegues it is usual to beg and ask "could you please?" I do not say directly what I want, but the request is nonetheless understood as an unconditional request. '''On the other hand''' the other one is expected to clearly say when he '''doesn't''' want to fulfill the request. This combination seems to be unusual. I have heard that e.g. Canadians and Turkish people don't like to decline requests ("Maybe" means "No") and then in Germany run into the problem of being expected to do lots of tasks they didn't explicitly declined.'' Candians do indeed often said ridiculous things such as ''maybe'' when they actually mean ''no'' (to be nice). American/Canadian culture can even seem a bit too nice (and hyped, and product oriented) from the view of other countries. Some American/Canadian people are not even proud about their own countries for this very reason. Some seem Europeans/Germans do even seem rude to americans/canadians through email forums, wikis, or telephone, due to the way they say "No" rather than imprecise terms such as "maybe, possibly". But when dealing with precise topics such as math, programming, we must be more precise and direct. ---- There seems to be a pattern to the criticisms of diplomacy. Contrast these algorithms: Diplomacy Algorithm: if diplomatic-approach-A does not work then if diplomatic-approach-B does not work // try B then if diplomatic-approach-C does not work // try C, etc.. then if diplomatic-approach-D does not work then if diplomatic-approach-E does not work then politely discontinue dialog. Apparent CriticizeBluntly critic algorithm: if diplomatic-approach-A does not work then criticize-bluntly. if diplomatic-approach-B does not work then criticize-bluntly. if diplomatic-approach-C does not work then criticize-bluntly. if diplomatic-approach-D does not work then criticize-bluntly. if diplomatic-approach-E does not work then criticize-bluntly. Whoever wrote this doesn't understand that those who consciously choose to CriticizeBluntly ''embrace'' it. The correct CriticizeBluntly algorithm is: if a person criticizes you bluntly then examine his argument, ask for any necessary explanation, and clinically determine whether the criticism is valid. If so, correct your behavior. If not, ignore it. Honesty to self is extremely important for CriticizeBluntly. if criticize-bluntly does not work then repeat, with further explanations or proof. Honesty to others is the foundation of CriticizeBluntly. if the person complains about rudeness, hurt feelings, or starts making demands for apologies then BAN the emotional ignoramus who shouldn't be getting involved in the discussions. The purpose of academic argument is seeking truth, not compromise or keeping people from pain. Truth can be painful. GetOverIt. We save CriticizeDiplomatically for where compromise or friendship is a goal. ''I disagree that there is ever a good reason to be consistently rude. Rudeness is only useful if used sparingly. Otherwise, it's ignored in the "calling wolf" sense. '''There is no consensus empirical evidence that rudeness works''', and its merely a manifestation of male aggression in my opinion. Also, I disagree with the characterization of certain accusations as "honesty". For example, "you are dumb" does not count in my book because it is not specific enough. Criticism has to be very specific in order to even have a chance to be observed.'' Often it is very specific - such as actual examples provided of where someone was arrogant, rude, or a hypocrite. Not very often people claim things like "you are dumb" on the wiki. That is very rare - if ever. However, some people are very sensitive to criticism and assume the criticism is just a "you are dumb idiot" intention. Even if it is healthy criticism, people reject the criticism! ''I disagree in general. Wiki is full of poor criticizers. Often things that are clear in their mind are not clearly stated in their writing. They assume that others think like them and are weighing the same evidence the same way, but that is not really the case. The "proper" way to help people see things your way takes a lot of details and patience, and may "blunters" simply don't have enough patience; '''falsely seeing bluntness as a shortcut'''. To be blunt, they are lazy.'' A lot of people assume all criticism must be destructive if any of the criticism goes against their belief system. Quite often it is constructive - even if harsh - because criticism by nature is not purely positive even when it is constructive. If communication, science, and discussion was always purely positive and kissy wissy - then we wouldn't have any rigor, critical analysis, math, or science. ''One does not have to lie to be diplomatic.'' You don't always lie to be diplomatic, but lies are still a very big part of diplomacy. So is withholding the truth. So is standing by, politely, while people teach hateful things, untruths, and lies to other people. So is holding your tongue when people commit immoral acts right under your nose. None of these is entirely honest. If you treat diplomacy like some sort of virtuous or golden ideal, you're just being as dishonest with yourself as much as you are with everyone else. ''I cannot speak for other diplomacy proponents, but I do not promote lying.'' In any case, I don't really care if CriticizeBluntly doesn't work for some people, or even for most people. In fact, '''I consider it a TEST.''' People who can't handle and benefit from CriticizeBluntly should just be banned from academia, science, and pretty much every field that seeks truth, because, frankly, being humbled and bludgeoned by reality is part of the job. If you can't handle it, if you can't benefit from it, then you've '''failed'''. ''One does not have to be rude to provide useful criticism. If you have a UseCase that demonstrates otherwise, I'd like to see it. (In fact, being rude can get you a nice "harassment" lawsuit and fired these days, for good or bad.)'' * Blunt <> rude or Blunt != rude. It may seem rude, at times, in some people's eyes.. but if someone absorbs it as pure rudeness, then they are missing the point. It's like if a math teacher corrects and slightly raises their voice at a student who claims 1 + 2 = 4. Is that rude? Not rude. Now, if the teacher hits the kid across the head or calls the kid an a-hole, then this is definitely rude and not just about bluntness. No, one doesn't need to be rude to offer useful criticism. But blunt, honest, thorough criticism is NOT rude - not even if it hurts. Kicking and screaming in public about the pain is rude. So is dishonesty, fallacy, not doing your homework before joining a discussion. In these ways, you're often rude. Ignorance is not an excuse. Nor is lying to yourself about the issue being 'hobby horses'. And rudeness begets rudeness. It is true that two wrongs don't make a right... people shouldn't be rude to you in response to your often rude behavior. They ''should'' just ban you for several days every time you say something stupid or poorly considered until you get in the habit of thinking and researching and educating yourself. I've seen forums that do this, where people get multi-day bans for posting ''as a fact'' something that can be confirmed to be in error or any argument with a fallacy in it, and it works well - people who can't handle it, leave, and good riddance to them. Rudeness, in the form of both veiled and direct insults, is a behavior people fall back on only because they're powerless to change your behavior or be rid of you. ''You are honestly suggesting that people be banned for not doing what '''you''' consider is the proper prerequisite work? But they can say the same about you: you are not simplifying your argument enough and want to them to speak your pet lingo so that YOU don't have to do any "homework". If you can clinically prove that a given book or reference is the shortest and simplest possible explanation, you may have an iron-clad gripe. But that's not likely to happen. '''The other party may instead want you banned for being a poor or lazy writer''' (via their standards) for essentially the same "sin" of "not doing your homework before joining a discussion" (from above). Thus, it gets bogged down in a BadReaderBadWriterAccusationLoop where both sides think the other is lazy.'' [I don't mean to be, er, blunt, but the problem is this: Top, it appears you have a great deal of interest in SoftwareDevelopment, SoftwareEngineering and ComputerScience. That's great; unfortunately, you know very little about these subjects, but it appears you '''think''' you're an expert. No, not even an expert; it appears you believe yourself to be an authority, especially in the area of database-driven business application development.] [In reality, you're like someone who's had a subscription to "Psychology Today" magazine and thinks he knows psychiatry, or who's read some of the Merck Manual and thinks he knows medicine. Or, perhaps most accurately, someone who's assembled a lot of flatpack Ikea furniture and thinks he knows mechanical engineering. Sometimes, we go to a '''lot''' of effort to provide you with carefully-crafted, carefully-written explanations. Typically, you dismiss them without appearing to have considered them, and you often seem not to have read them at all. I suspect it's because without the benefit (and context) of the education that we assume and that you're obviously lacking, our explanations come across to you as obtuse, technical gibberish. Trust me, they aren't. In many cases, we've been talking down to you and have provided more explanation and detail than would be due a typical beginner in our field, because at least we can assume the beginner is learning the crucial knowledge in a typical educational sequence. We can't assume that with you (indeed, it's obviously not the case), so you need more than just an explanation. You need to read '''and absorb and truly understand''' a number of textbooks. Otherwise, we're forced to write an entire textbook for you, or we yet again endure the frustration of watching you ignore or misinterpret a lengthy, carefully-crafted explanation intended for you and you alone.] [As a result, I've given up on you. You've posted some things recently that I take issue with, but I can't be bothered to debate with you any more. It never makes the slightest difference, and I have better things to do.] Your responses are NOT "well crafted". You mostly just repeat what you've already said in a similar style, appearing uninterested in taking a different approach. If I know much more than somebody about a topic I'm trying to explain about, I can usually use my superior knowledge to provide demonstrations and scenarios that illustrate my viewpoint. I often don't need to give them an entire programming lesson, but just need one or few specific scenario that illustrates the point at issue. I '''don't''' need to send them to programming class. However, it does take work and patience to reframe the issue into something non-programmers can relate to. Sometimes I don't have the time or patience and just call them a "dummy", like you do to me. However, it's usually a failure on '''my part''' to not work hard enough to make the issue clear. Name-calling is just my ugly reptile side spilling out. It's a lazy shortcut. There's '''almost always a path to a better explanation/demonstration''' regardless of whether I actually find it or not. You don't want to admit that you have an articulation problem to protect your ego and avoid thinking hard enough to find such path. Buck up and face it, Bub. You haven't made a good argument that there is no such path. And often the issues at hand are '''not really so academic after''' all upon further analysis. For example, in BagNeedScenarios you guys state: 'You ask why I cannot offer a "reasonably-easy-to-describe scenario" that "illustrates" an issue such as "scalability". It's an issue of ArgumentByLabToy. Unless you understand the math, you won't understand the significance of the example.' Then as we later see in "PageAnchor: inherently_slow", it's made clear that the scalability issue is not as you originally painted it. I did NOT dispute that "processing" bags may be "slower" than processing sets in many instances. The key issue was only marginally about bag processing after-all. (I'm a bit skeptical of it for common usage patterns, especially in the light of your penchant for exaggeration, but that's moot to the debate.) You wasted a "your are dumb" insult on nothing. You probably saw the word "scalability", and your mind went, "Aha, I know Toppie doesn't know shit about implementing bag processors, so I'll catch that sucker on that point, blam blam blam!" In the end, you butchered the wrong target. '''Your blunt criticism is aimed wrong.''' It appeared that you consciously or unconsciously wanted to frame it in terms of mathematics, perhaps out of habit, but in the end all that complaining about me being dumb about the math was ''irrelevant''. I believe you have difficulty framing academic concepts in terms of real-world benefits, and instead get mentally stuck into academic corners where you are more comfortable. Further, you fail to take into account WetWare. For example, I don't dispute that avoiding nulls in tables may result in a "more elegant" and perhaps more efficient database engines. (Although I do expect you may be exaggerating the case, that's moot to the immediate argument.) But you've made a piss-poor argument that such trumps any WetWare issues. Many find "thin tables" conceptually more difficult to grok and code for software development purposes. We have to think one way for the customer's view, usually "wide-table", and a different way for the internal thin tables. The context switching slows our brain down, and possibly more code as one has to translate back and forth between thin/wide. Your response seems to be that it's my burden to smash open people's heads and prove that WetWare is an issue by putting electrodes on their neurons, as if the default is that WetWare makes no difference. Most rational people would disagree with this view. Your obsession with "smart" compilers appears to make you biased against other factors outside of smart compilers. You see the world through compiler-oriented glasses. In short, your complaints about my academic background are usually just a red herring. My assessment of your motivation is that you are probably trying to re-frame the debates in terms of areas you are comfortable with, not necessarily the "real" issue, which is closer to WetWare and economics than you'd like. --top ''...and as with nearly any discussion involving top we end up with a TenSeven.'' There are one or two WikiZens who don't like me and retaliate via AdHominem's. ''There are far more Wikizens who consider arguing with you a complete waste of time and dismiss you with a well-deserved wave of the hand and an utterance of "Pfft."'' Another beautifully-written scientific survey of yours. Before I shut off my public email, I used to get many letters of support from those who've yet to grow a thicker skin, as I have over time. They asked me to keep up the fight on their behalf. Kill me with evidence, not insults. --top '''' ----------------- Here's an example for your consideration from BagNeedScenariosReWork: Re: "Your implied claim - that 'baginization' is offering an objective (and therefore rational) trade-off decision on risk, time, labor, cost, etc. - is utter bullshit. And '''that earns rudeness towards you''', you crank - you should be raked across coals, laughed at, treated as the 'butt' of a joke for presenting that sort of 'counter' without doing extensive research beforehand. If you want civilized discussion, you first need to play by the rules and present a reasonable argument." [Emphasis added] It appears to be a belief that some people "deserve rudeness". I allege that I'm arguing in good faith and that if I am as clearly and blatantly wrong as claimed, then careful logic and reasoning should be enough to squash my point of view. Either that, I'm inherently delusional, and even if so for the sake of argument, people with mental problems don't deserve rudeness either. There's no evidence that yelling at mental patients cures them. (Personally, I think the other side may have some mental problems in this case. They fly off the handle instead of carefully dissecting the alleged problems with my arguments. To be fair, sometimes I make outbursts also, but it's intended as catharsis, not punishment.) I believe the above to be cyber-bullying and believe that the wiki community should condemn such behavior. While I don't think they deserved to be banned, they should be clearly reminded that such behavior is unappreciated. Also note that the "extensive research" suggestion is a double standard, for I see no anti-bag "extensive research" (other than special-case efficiency issues, which work both ways). --top ---- See: AssumeGoodFaith, AssumeGoodFaithLimitations, CriticizeBluntly, RudenessFails CategoryCriticism, CategoryDiscussion