Newsgroups: news.admin Path: utzoo!sq!msb From: msb@sq.sq.com (Mark Brader) Subject: Re: The Dynamics of Debate on USENET Message-ID: <1989Sep28.212956.19441@sq.sq.com> Reply-To: msb@sq.com (Mark Brader) Organization: SoftQuad Inc., Toronto References: <35033@apple.Apple.COM> <46115@bbn.COM> <35037@apple.Apple.COM> Date: Thu, 28 Sep 89 21:29:56 GMT Chuq Von Rospach (chuq@Apple.COM) writes: > ... you don't, for instance, get into the matter > of the marital status of your opponents mother when arguing about whether > emacs or vi is a better editor. You stick to emacs and vi. > ... > o Discuss the posting, not the poster. This is precisely the reason why, when I post a followup, it rarely includes a line saying who wrote the article. I do include it when I want to point out that the person is a noted authority, or if it makes my own article more readable for some reason, but rarely otherwise. I commend this practice to other people who want their articles not to be mistaken for flames. (When I do include such a line, it never includes the quoted-article's- Message-ID noise. If someone wants that, they can look at the References.) I don't understand why Chuq started this topic in news.admin rather than news.misc, but as there are sure to be other followups wending their way here even as I type, I'm not going to even suggest moving it. -- Mark Brader "The three dots '...' here suppress a lot SoftQuad Inc., Toronto of detail -- maybe I should have used utzoo!sq!msb, msb@sq.com four dots." -- Knuth This article is in the public domain.