I understand that the rule in all fora except The Pit is “No personal attacks - attack the argument, not the poster,” but how about when you attack a group with which a poster has self-identified? In this thread in post #23, a poster posted that they did not wash their hands often. I attacked people who don’t wash their hands as a group, not the poster, in my subsequent post. I didn’t consider that a personal attack, but on further consideration, I may have been wrong.
Comments?
There have been plenty of posts attacking smokers, for instance, in the pit.
Yes, but that is not a rule violation in The Pit. I was posting outside of The Pit in my example.
The OP is talking about forums other than the Pit.
Ofd course, featherlou’s post wasn’t there when I wrote mine :smack:
I would tend to go with the safer of the two. If I said I was a Shriner for instance, and someone said “Shriners are stupid and childish” I think that may constitute a personal attack. However, if no one had made the claim and my statement was a generic comment, and then followed by a “Hey, I’m a Shriner!” post that would be different. It’s an interesting question you’ve raised though. I can see where the Poster in the other thread may have taken it that way.
I think the answer is very clearly: it depends. It depends on the group – members of a political party? serial killers? sexual predators? people who hate asparagus? And it depends on the nature of the comment itself.
Note: comments that ascribe a common set of traits to a group of people is stereotyping.
Thanks for clearing that up. 
I’m actually not really sure what you’re saying; are you saying that if someone posts that they are a member of a controversial group like serial killers (let’s not go down the sexual predator path), and I were to post that I hate all serial killers and they should all be shot on sight, would that constitute a personal attack? Or are you saying that if someone posts that they are a member of a controversial group, they should expect any flak they get?
I’m trying to avoid being pinned down, because I think there’s no way of setting a general rule. Person X says that they do something or support some organization. Person Y disagrees, and says everyone who does that is a nut case. The question is: does that constitute a personal insult and hence a violation of the rules?
I’m saying that we don’t know until we see the specifics.
Example of a situation where the statement is clearly a personal insult:
Person X: “I support the President on this issue.”
Person Y: “Everyone who supports the President on this issue is deranged and fascist.”
Example of a situation where the statement is clearly not a personal insult:
Person X: “I love pizza with anchovies.”
Person Y: “Anyone who puts anchovies on their pizza is sick, sick, sick.”
Another situation where there was no personal insult intended is the one cited by Nic2004, where a group is insulted first and then someone speaks up as being a member of the group.
I repeat, though: blanket statements about a group of people is generally stereotyping. Surely not EVERY one who supports that issue is a fascist, nor is EVERY Shriner stupid. (I dunno about the people who like anchovies on pizza, though.) Generally speaking, a blanket statement about every member of some group, is false.
I like anchovies on pizza, so we have at least one data point in favor of your hypothesis, Dex. :d
Although I’m sure we can all agree that all people who hate asparagus are stupid.
Well, not sure about that. I haven’t heard any of their CD’s, or songs on the radio, so who knows? 
Oh, sorry, don’t mind me. It’s Monday, and the brain is recovering…
Hokay. I can live with that.
After we kicked this around the Moderator staff room, a bit, Dex asked me to post part of my comments, so I’m opening this thread long enough to do that.
If the topic is hot enough to carry over to the Pit (I have not seen it there), I’ll post there, as well.
I think there have been a couple of times when I admonished a poster for insulting a group. On the other hand, I think I based the reprimand on a general feeling of disruption rather than an explicit violation of the “no insults” rule. In some respects, it would be de rigeur that someone who declared “I belong to Group A” would immediately evoke a smart-assed reply of “Group A is dumb.”
We let general remarks deriding groups stand (as long as they do not wander into that murky forest of “hate speech”), so it is hard to see where we could make an official prohibition of this activity without starting further down the path of developing and organizing our rules by sections, sub-sections, paragraphs, and clauses.
Re-closing the thread. If it resumes in the Pit, I will post there, (although I will not defend any particular position against all comers; it is a decidedly gray area).
tomndebb had posted his comment in the wrong thread, so ignore his mention of closing the thread…
Yeesh, can’t you folks keep all your repetitive arguments in the same thread? You’d think this was GD or something.
Yeah, after the moderator discussion I had thought that we were addressing the similar issue in Is it okay to insult like this? .
Not that my word carries any weight, but a thought: The tradition at the SDMB is to attack the idea, not the person, correct? Well, aren’t many groups defined by their ideas? In that case, the line between attacking the group and attacking the ideas can be very fine indeed. How is it different, for instance, to say “scientology is wacky”, versus “scientologists are wacky”?
There is often a fine line between “your ideas are completely crackers” and “you are completely crackers”, but nonetheless it is a line that we cherish.
Yes, but what I’m saying is, it’s not clear which side of that line a group is on. We insult the ideas but not the person, because if a person changes their ideas, they’re still the same person. But if a group is defined by its ideas (as many of them are), then a person who changes their ideas is no longer a member of that group. The group and the ideas are inherently tied together more closely than are the person and the ideas.
Well put, Chronos, which is exactly why we’re sort of fuzzy on trying to define this more specifically. Obviously, an insult directed at a group that is defined by ethnicity, race, disability, gender, age, etc would fall on one side of the line. Those groups aren’t defined by their ideas.
Religion is a bit stickier, since some religions (notably, the Christian branches) are defined by their ideas, while others are often tied to (or have high correlation with) some ethnicity – e.g., Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, etc.) Not to mention the wacko religions (like Scientology or Invisible Pink Unicornism or Fred’s Gas and Communion Station…)
[sub]An interesting hijack or thought for Great Debates: does this explain why criticism of Christianity is tolerated more than criticism of other religions? Because the other religions are often tied to an ethnicity, that makes it harder to distinguish valid criticism from racism?[/sub]