Hi,

Jason Johnson wrote:
> What what does the rest of the group think about what happened?
>
> The way I personally saw it was:  One person leans over to another one
> and wispers in his ear "hey man, are you trolling with this or
> something?" 

That is a distortion of the facts. Read what he said. He said that I was 
a "troll". That is entirely different.

Had he said what you are suggesting I'd likely have simply said that he 
was mistaken, and might even have done so to him privately.


> and the person smiles, walks over to CNN and repeats
> everything the person said and gives their scathing rebuttal.
>   

It is a factual rebuttal to their ad hominem personal attack. If I had 
conducted a "scathing rebuttal" it wouldn't have been fit to show even 
on CNN!


> In my opinion, I don't see any grounds for it being an issue of "self
> defense" because no threat was made, and no slander was done sinse it
> was sent to the person in private.
>
> I find it questional behavior. 

Then it sounds like you support ad hominem attacks.


> If the person has been sending this
> sort of thing over and over then I can see giving a warning of "hey,
> if you send me another message I'm forwarding it to the mail list to
> let others know what you're doing", but to do it instantly at the
> first very minor offense (it's questionable in my mind if it was an
> offense at all) seems quite over the top to me.
>   

I have a zero tolerance to ad hominem attacks especially online. I shout 
out that when I'm being bullied so that the bully will stop. If that 
fails to work there are often other remedies.


> Ironically, such behavior is more likely to "bully" and scare people
> away from talking to you in general, which is what ad hominem is all
> about, no? :)
>   

Nonsense. If you don't use ad hominem personal attacks there is nothing 
to fear. The record shows that.

Ad hominem personal attacks are simply inappropriate behavior in 
technical groups and in most of life. They are simply unwise and rarely 
justified (and in those rare cases only when they have factual basis 
behind them).

Basically you are saying that one can't defend oneself from them giving 
the bullies a pass. The person who did the ad hominem personal attack is 
the one responsible for any consequences. The victim is guilty of 
speaking up in your eyes. Dam the person attacked and give a pass to the 
bully making ad hominem personal attacks.

Coming to the attackers defense would be appropriate IF I had called him 
names, or misrepresented the facts. That isn't the case. I was 
professional pointing out the personal attack, asking for it to stop 
which he did as the record of our subsequent conversations show, and 
offering suggestions on how to avoid ad hominem personal attacks.

Saying that one shouldn't defend against bullies is just plain wrong 
leaving the person attacked without a means to defend themselves. 
Society recognizes this and permits the exceptions to privacy that I've 
indicated numerous times.

Your main objection seems to be what society allows. Your main objection 
seems to be that someone can't defend themselves when attacked. Too bad. 
I stand for the right of everyone to defend themselves when bullied and 
when attacked personally with ad hominem attacks such as being called a 
troll.

All the best,

Peter