Isn't accusing a poster of being a "libeler" a personal attack?

About This Message Board
1

In the tread regarding the Dutchman who’d been given a medal by the Israeli government who returned it six members of his family by marriage were killed in a strike targeting a Hamas militant, Second Stone and Tomndeb got into a bit of an argument over some rather severe charges put forth by Christopher Hedges, a former reporter for the NYT now turned polemicist.

I put up a post pointing out that Hedges had history of making extreme charges that didn’t seem to be supported by logic and also that Hedges had had his integrity questioned since there did seem to be very credible evidence of hike being guilty of libel.

Here is my post: http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=17668312&postcount=223

Tom understandably referred to my post in his response to Second Stone, and Second Stone decided to make some rather vicious personal attacks on me, which seemed extremely odd in a thread where I’d been implicitly accused of being too sympathetic to the Palestinians.

I think most objective observers would agree this is a comment on my character not on my post.

Beyond that, The Second Stone was already mod noted earlier in the thread for making personal attacks against Magiver.

http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=17666168&postcount=187

It seems to me that he should receive at least a warning for continuing to engage in such behavior after being mod noted and also because it does seem to me that accusing someone of being a “libeler” is almost synonymous with accusing them of lying.

One last thing, I don’t want this to come across as accusatory against either Tom or the mods since The Second Stone in this thread is making much harsher personal attacks against Tom, accusing him of being a “genocide denier”.

2

I edited your first link to make it work, it wasn’t due to you having misplaced an extra letter there.

3

Ibn - I’m not going to discuss moderation, only the English language. “Libeler” is typically a pretty mild insult, FWIW. But I see in the thread that Second Stone drops it about 30 times, once with a reference to Goebbels. So I can see how it could get on your nerves.

Generally speaking though, (and IMHO), I think problem posters should be dealt with in the pit a couple of times, before requesting ATMB mod action. Not incidentally, it has never been a requirement that pit attacks be vitriolic. You can, if you choose, politely pit somebody. Examples, of course, are always appreciated. That’s not a recommendation to the mods, btw: it’s a recommendation to posters.

As you know Second Stone is currently being pitted in the somewhat ironically entitled,“tomndebb is a genocide denier” pit thread.

4

Oops, my mistake! Thanks for the edit!

5

Are you actually being accused of being a libeler there, or merely changing your mind because of something some unspecified libelers did or said?

I think that distinction probably makes a difference - or at least I believe it would in the case of ‘liar’ rules - for example (in a hypothetical scenario where someone appears to have changed their mind to apparently side with creationsts):

Acceptable (I think): “Creationists are a bunch of liars and now you’re saying you agree with them!” (because it doesn’t accuse anyone specific of being a liar)

Not acceptable: “You’re a liar like all the creationists you now seem to agree with”

6

I would say that calling someone a libeler is at least as strong as calling them a liar. A libeler is lying (in a publication) with the intention of causing harm. So at least the rules for liar should work.

That said, I am unsure the OP is actually being called a libeler or being accused of libel (the equivalent of accusing someone of lying, also against the rules.)

7

Ibn Warraq, just to be clear, you’re asking why Second Stone wasn’t reprimanded? I’m going to defer to the Great Debate moderators, because the standards for that forum are somewhat different from other forums. I just wanted to let you know that the thread has been seen and is being discussed, it might take some time for a decision.

8

Ibn-

I’ve reviewed the post in question, both at the time and again today. My initial - and ongoing - belief is that the post labelled others as libelers and not you. The Second Stone used the word ‘libeler’ to describe others commenting on an outside column. The rest of his post is a straightforward dissection of the arguments in the thread and would certainly fall under the ‘posts not posters’ concept.

9

Hasn’t Shodan been mod-noted/warned for his old* “the usual suspects” thing? You know:

Leftie: Blah-blah-blah-point XYZ
Shodan: I see the usual suspects are making their “Blah-blah-blah-point XYZ” argument again. This is stupid.
Mod: Mod Note/Warning for Shodan.

If so, then what TSS did is exactly the same thing**, IMO

*I haven’t seen him use it in a while, so he might have retired it.
**To the inevitable person decides to nitpick…“exact same thing” is a figure of speech and does not mean “precise to the subatomic level”.

10

No warnings for it, nor even Mod Notes that I recall.

I am a little more concerned with the apparent conflict between tomndebb’s earlier ruling that one may not repeatedly attack the truth of a poster’s allegations, because that amounts to an accusation of lying*, vs. his repeated use of the “you’re making it up” in response to The Second Stone.**

Is “You’re making it up” OK? Would it be OK used by a poster, several times over?

Regards,
Shodan

*I won’t bother with a cite. That is what he saidt.

**See above.

11

Actually, i would argue that, in the context of board rules, calling people “libelers” is worse than calling them “usual suspects.”

One important difference is that a libel is something that is both defamatory AND untrue.

So, calling someone a libeler is effectively calling them a liar—which is a no-no outside the Pit—while calling them a “usual suspect” implies a sort of herd mentality without necessarily being an accusation of lying.

12

You can “make things up” without lying. It’s often an act of laziness-- not actually checking if something is true or not and being so wedded to one’s own biases that one believes it must be true.

13

To be clear, this is the post in question, right? Where he directly calls a poster a libeler? I have bolded the bits in question.

14

He has not been warned for that. I couldn’t say about mod notes.

15

THere is no ambiguity there. And I agree that “libeler” is worse than “liar”.

16

I though he had been but since you and he agree, apparently I’m wrong.

(Shocking I know! Mark this day on your calendars! :wink: )

17

I assume you agree, therefore, that repeated use of the phrase in GD would be A-OK from a poster, or a mod posting as a poster. It would be interesting if a mod could confirm.

I am hoping for a clarification of an earlier thread I started. That one petered out without answering why ‘attacking the truth’ of a post was an accusation of lying, whereas saying of a post “that’s not true” is explicitly mentioned in the GD sticky as being “what GD is all about” and is therefore not ‘attacking the truth of a post’ and OK.

ISTM that “you are making it up” is much more an accusation of lying than an mere attack on the truth of a statement, but I am not a mod.

I am hoping therefore for a clear ruling from the mods - is “you’re making it up” OK in Great Debates coming from a poster? Yes or no?

Regards,
Shodan

18

I hope so. I use that phrase frequently and (I hope) accurately.

19

OK, that doesn’t seem nearly as ambiguous to me as it did in the quoted segment appearing in the OP. My post upthread is now moot, I think.

20

I think you’re being unfair to Tom. He only started using the phrase “making it up” because Stone had been accusing others of “making stuff up”.

Now personally I’d rather he just told Stone to knock it off, but I think Tom’s feeling was that if Stone wants to play the game, that’s how it’s played.