DSeid,
As promised, I slogged theough that entire thread.
I will post my opinion on it tomorrow, as the hour is late and i am tired. But I told your suggestion seriously, and I think i owe it to you to make my opinions based on the entiredty of the thread, and not just from the opinion of the OP in this thread. Context is indeed important.
Your slogging through is admirable but all I meant by context was the set of posts in question. Quoting the full post and posting the portion that Dissonance did had no difference in meaning and the posts in context were immediately next to each other. A claim that there was a meaning change is false and an accusation of intent to decieve is ludicrous.
Preceding and following ellipses are sometimes used here and sometimes not. With or without ellipses intentionally changing the meaning of a quote is forbidden. Honesty did indeed state what (s)he stated and confirmed its meaning in the thread immediately after the post: it was an accusation that Israeli interests might be threatening the French and Russians into suppressing data. Argue whether or not that is a fair thing to ask and if responding to that with something like “What next Jew Bankers?” is hypersensitivity, fine. But to accuse someone of deliberately misquoting you or distorting your meaning when that is your clear and admitted to in the thread meaning is scurrilous.
The point of contention was not that you were arguing your position was misrepresented, but the method you chose to argue it. You were claiming that rules were being broken. They were not. Now people may have been mischaracterizing your position or falsely slandering you with accusations of antisemitism, but that particular quote was not a rules violation.
To my reading, your paragraph as a whole was muddled and unclear just exactly what you meant by “For argument’s sake”. DSeid has made repeated requests - not just here, but in the original thread - for any other interpretation of what that statement actually meant other than how it was quoted by Dissonance.
And that’s really the point. All the rules about quotes being sacrosanct and using editing rules are in place to further honest debate. I don’t feel Dissonance was intentionally misrepresenting you position. However, you make the argument that you were only playing devil’s advocate and that leaving it out misrepresents your commitment to the claim. Except that wasn’t the only statement that suggested that Israel was behind the plot.
I don’t think omitting the “For argument’s sake” changed your position, because you were still defending the idea that the Russians and French were putting out claims of test results based upon intimidation and political manipulation rather than factual results. That was the claim that was being addressed, and whether or not you fully believed it or were only offering it as a possibility is really weak.
I think that anyone who was accusing you of being an antisemite would have done so even if Dissonance quoted your “For argument’s sake”. They reached that opinion based upon reading into your overall pattern of arguments in that thread, not through one selectively quoted statement by another poster.
I think DSeid gives a very clear answer in post 39, demonstrating the differences.
If one is only quoting a sentence or two, one is not required to use leading and trailing indications that sentences preceded and followed that statement. If one omits sentences in the middle, use of “…” or “[snip]” should be used to indicate that is not the full statement. Alternately, one could put one sentence in a quote box and put the next sentence in a different quote box, and then not use any indicators of omission within the quote boxes.
“For argument’s sake” was in the preceding sentence, which was fully omitted.
Not always. Sometimes the extracted quote is accurate, but the original statements were muddied and/or the intent not clear. Or the reader is accurately quoting but misunderstanding, not because of the omission, but for other reasons. Miscommunication happens for a lot of reasons.
And the original poster is free to argue that the selective quoting misrepresents their position, but not by repeated accusations in thread of rules violation - that’s what reporting the thread is for. Demonstrate how the argument is different.
The only misrepresentation Honesty claims is one of commitment to the argument. That, and the accusations of antisemitism that stem from the overall tone of the thread and not one extracted quote.
First, I never claimed that Dissonance broke the rules in that thread. I claimed Dissonance was misquoting, mischaracterizing, and being dishonest in quoting me. The specifics SDMB’s rules were never brought up until this thread; further, if memory serves, I specifically did not want moderators to get involved because I was more than capable of pointing out my post was being mischaracterized by Dissonance. That is, of course, until you told me to “back off”.
Second, I am telling you, as the poster of the quote, that I was being misrepresented. In fact, tomndebb, I was arguing just that until you told me to “back off”; your action made it impossible to defend myself against accusations of anti-Semitism. In my view, these accusations were brought up to troll the thread and filibuster any meaningful debate. Otherwise, why infer that I am anti-Israel, why infer that I believe in a Zionist conspiracy, or that “jew bankers” are out to get me? Did you miss any of this? These things have nothing to do with the topic at hand and serve to cast my position in the most negative or bad light.
This “misunderstanding” is precisely what’s being quoted, especially if you’re accusing someone of something, should be put in context. This is why continue to believe my post should’ve been quoted as suchnot like this.
Not true, I didn’t immediately accuse Dissonance of dishonesty. In fact, I tried to clear it up for him. I beg you to look at this exchange:
Basically, on top of being a raging anti-Semite, anti-Israel, and anti-Jewish, Dissonance is calling me a liar on the last sentence. Anyway, back to the point, you wrote that misunderstandings “are better handled by pointing out the way in which a response appears to have missed an important fact or idea.” I did exactly what you suggested and was told to back off. Since these posts were the precursor to me being labeled anti-Israel, I am very curious as to how you would’ve handled the particular exchange .
Thanks again for your response.
Irishman, this is not true. You will not find one post in that thread that I contended “rules were being broken”. My position was, and still is, my position was being mischaracterized.
Then let them say so without hiding behind selective quoting and decontextualization.
Is this what we are discussing here? The fact that “For argument’s sake” was part of the first sentence, which was omitted completely? It’s part of the same paragraph, and as I tried to parse Honesty’s words, I would contend that “For Arguments sake” applies to the entire paragraph, since that is what he is saying is “for argument’s sake”. Am I wrong?
Is it your contention that if Honesty wrote one long run-on sentence that you would see a problem with the ommission of “For argument’s sake”, but since he used a period instead of a comma, that removes any right he has to request that he be quoted fully and correctly?"
Really?
You actually believe that you want Moderators deciding whether any given poster has been quoted correctly or misquoted even when another poster follows standard editorial practices? Are you sure that you want Moderators to begin vetting posts in that way?
Even with Honesty’s attempts at clarification of his position and even with a few posters accepting his explanation in this thread, there are still posters who believe that the quote Dissonance provided was an accurate representation of Honesty’s thoughts. At what point do you wish Moderators to insert themselves into the discussion?
My position is that as long as Moderators are enforcing the actual rules, it is, indeed, up to the participants of a debate to wrangle out who has expressed or failed to express any given position. Dissonance did not break the actual rules regarding quotations as I have explained them, above. There are still posters arguing in this thread, even with re-posts of the complete original text and further attempts by Honesty and some others to explain his position, that Honesty’s post conveyed the same meaning as the specific point made by Dissonance’s quote. So it is hardly a case that the quote provided by Dissonance was “misquoting” Honesty.
At what point do you feel it is appropriate for a Mod to step in and declare a “winner” regarding posters’ opinions?
Indeed the quote “rules were being broken” does not exist. Accusations of the complete “peanut gallery”(uh oh, I didn’t use ellipses) repetitively intentionally misquoting and misrepresenting you including the one highlighted here, by referencing just one line of the post immediately above it in a quote box that was the sentence being commented on, yes. Multiple accusations of trolling against all who did not bow to the revealed truth that Arafat was poisoned by polonium, yes. You accused many people of doing things that broke the rules that you never snitch on but you never said they broke the rules, tru 'dat. You win this one I guess.
Really, are those ellipses required? But okay …
For the record Honesty in the thread and here I will state that your full post
Read to me then and reads to me now as clearly saying that if we acept that the French and Russian reports are real (your devil’s advocate position as you dispute that since they did not release the data sets just reports of the findings) then how do we know their findings are not the result of Israeli aligned threats. You affirmed that interpretation in the thread as cited in this thread already. Quoting that whole post I mock the absurdity of that statement and your taking the position that you will doubt negative findings on that basis. I personally would not have gone with satirizing it with a Jew Banker line, but it was how it came off.
Quoting the one line or the full post does not change it.
And not so surprisningly you STILL haven’t offered up what alternative meaning you now say you had in mind that was being misrepresented.
Well, First, I did not accuse you of accusing him of breaking the rules in my Mod Note. I told you that claiming he had misquoted you was not accurate. You have now raised the issue of the rules with your odd misinterpretation of the rules, so I am not sure why you are complaining that I am referring to breaking the rules when you raised the topic.
It is not my problem that you did not seem capable of defending yourself without falsely claiming that you have been misquoted. I have pointed out the actual rules and others have pointed out the ways in which Dissonance’s post was not a misquotation.
I am sorry that you seem incapable of understanding those points, but I doubt that I could persuade you of that fact at this point.
I do find it interesting that you have made such a big deal about my Mod Note when I was not even the Mod who issued the Warning. Jonathan Chance and I each saw your post at about the same time. He got to the Warning button a few seconds before I did, so I read over his post, deleted the comments I had provided that duplicated his comments, and then posted only a Note. I agree that my shot about your spelling was “immoderate,” but at that point, I was already irritated with the way in which you had been getting increasingly personal in your mischaracterization of Dissonance’s post as misquoting you. You were the one who started posting “strike one” “strike two” so when you just had to post “strike three,” I figured it behooved you to at least spell the words right.
Right. Claiming that he is deliberately misquoting you is not at all like accusing him of dishonesty.
It’s statements like these that cast doubt on your ability to interpret others’ motivations.
Suggesting that a poster has an anti-Israel stance is neither a claim of anti-Semitism nor an insult. As for Dissonance supposedly mocking you for thinking “that “jew bankers” are out to get me”, you just quoted what he actually said, which is nothing of the kind.
If that and your other alleged “smoking gun” quote are the best ammo you’ve got in claiming that you were accused of “being a raging anti-Semite, anti-Israel, and anti-Jewish”, I suggest that you are (at the very least) hugely overreacting.
Let’s pose a hypothetical here. What if I had posted the following in that thread:
“For the sake of argument, let’s assume Honesty sincerely believes that the Swiss report on Arafat is scientifically incontrovertible and that the French and Russian scientists are either incompetent or under intense pressure from someone or some agency to come up with negative results. What evidence is there that Honesty hasn’t been paid or pressured by the Palestinian Authority to downplay the French and Russian reports?”
If I’d posted that, I would have gotten (and deserved) major mockery. If someone had quoted just the last sentence in doing so, it would in my opinion have been entirely proper.
tomndebb, thank you for your replies thus far. I know modding is a thankless job. So thank you.
tomndebb, I’ll tell you a secret - as you can likely confirm yourself - I have a few people on this thread on ignore so if you are referencing other people’s post on why Dissonance was not a misquotation, please paste and copy it for discussion.
It seems like you’re saying that in order for me to say “I am being misquoted” that I need to clear it you or other moderators first to ensure that it’s true. Is this true? If someone misquoting and/or mischaracterization my position, I should have the right to point it out. I also highlighted the portion between Dissonance and I and asked how you would have handled that exchange, I would like your opinion.
I said I didn’t immediately accuse Dissonance of dishonesty. If you look at the exchange I highlighted for you, I went out of my way to explain that I did not believe Mr. Arafat was killed by Israel.
Why should he? YOU are the one ignoring them. Take them off ignore your own damn self.
[QUOTE=Honesty;17029326
I said I didn’t immediately accuse Dissonance of dishonesty. If you look at the exchange I highlighted for you, I went out of my way to explain that I did not believe Mr. Arafat was killed by Israel.
It occurred to me while rereading my post that even if I did hold such beliefs (i.e. there was a Zionist conspiracy to kill Mr. Arafat and shield the results from the world using powers of Jew bankers), it had nothing - and I do mean nothing - to do with the positive values of polonium found by the Russians and the Swiss. Bringing this up, in my view, is a trollish tactic specifically used filibuster any meaningful debate; indeed, tomndebb, I could not convince most of the posters that there was no control used in the Russian study*, so I don’t begrudge myself for not being able to convince them I am not an anti-Semite.
In the beginning of this thread, Irishman, made an excellent point that I previously overlooked. He wrote, that while the editing and circumstances were not optimal “. . . it should be reasonably clear what the original remarks were in context. And since you feel the unquoted elements were distorting the context, you are free to argue that the selective quoting distorted your meaning. How convincing other people find that argument is ultimately for them to decide.”
Unfortunately, it appears, that arguing that one is being misquoted is accusing someone of breaking the rules and requires clearance from the moderators. That should not be the case nor should moderators pick winners and losers in that regard. I never asked for any moderator to come in and cast judgement on Dissonance’s post, in fact, if memory serves, I specifically asked for non-intervention.
<shrug>. If there is a specific and salient point that tomndebb wants to point out from one of the posters, then he can quote it in part (or in full) and we can discuss it. While I don’t believe it is unreasonable to request a partial quote of what he was referring to, I would (and will not) not begrudge him if he chose not to provide it.
Just seemed like an odd favor to ask, since you have the solution right in front of you.
No. But it would help if you would actually have been misquoted, which you were not, although you steadfastly refuse to recognize that point.
You have the right to indicate that they have made an incorrect inference from what they quoted. You have the right to argue that their interpretation of your position would be changed by looking at a more complete selection of your statement.
You do not have the right to set up your own rules regarding what you will accept as a quotation and then declare that they have misquoted you.
I have no interest in trying to reshape your argument or that of Dissonance. Based on your statements, to date, insisting that you have been “misquoted,” I am not persuaded that you would understand any re-shaping I would provide, and if you failed to agree with me, it would appear that you would then persist on beating this dead horse for an additional couple of months.
I also have no interest in determining whether you or Dissonance are more correct. You have made the claim that two additional sentences would change the tenor of your comment. He has responded with his own explanation as to why he does not accept that claim. The two of you can continue to disagree with each other for the interminable future without my interference–as long as you do it civilly without accusations of dishonest behavior or trolling.
Honesty, I’ve read your complete exchange, and I’m STILL not clear on what exactly you think is significantly changed by leaving out “for argument’s sake.”
Fair enough. I may be letting descriptions from this thread characterize what occurred in that thread. Nevertheless, you were arguing that you were being misquoted. No, you were not. They may not have been quoting you in full, but they were not misquoting you.
Frankly, what I feel was far more detrimental was the paraphrasings and mockery rather than any partial quoting.
What he meant was “For argument’s sake” is unclear due to his mangled syntax. Be that as it may, I was pointing out an error in your statement. You claimed it was the same sentence, as if that made it important. I was pointing out that it was not, in fact, the same sentence. So if there were any import to it being the same sentence, then that import was removed.
I was not claiming that being the same sentence would make it more valid, only that you seemed to think it did make it more valid, so I was clarifying that it wasn’t the same sentence.
I still fail to see any real importance to omitting “for argument’s sake”. So Honesty was arguing the devil’s advocate position. The position he was arguing was still that same argument.
I’m not saying that thread was fair. I gave up on it and didn’t read it all. What I am saying is that Dissonance’s extracted quote was in compliance with the rules and with expected and commonly followed practice. Any misrepresentation of Honesty’s beliefs was a cummulative effect of lots of factors and was not affected by Dissonance’s presentation of the quote.
So, in other words “No, you do not have the right to argue you’ve been misquoted”. I don’t even know what you’re getting “setting up on your rules.” I pointed that if one is going to truncate someone’s paragraph - out of courtesy to your fellow posters - ellipses and <snips> should be used. That’s it, something CK Dexter Haven wrote nearly a decade ago. In case you were wondering, this would be the correct way (IMO) to quote my post. In your view, this post, and this post, and this postare all equivalent in meaning and in context. I wholeheartedly disagree.
I, too, am not interested in your determination of who is more correct or reshaping my argument, I am interested in how you would’ve handled the exchange differently. I asked you this multiple times in light of your quote that one should handle such disagreements “by pointing out the way in which a response appears to have missed an important fact or idea.” These are your words, not mine; I believe I met the threshold of your words and I am very curious how you would’ve handled the exchange differently than I did. If you don’t want to answer, that’s fine too, no harm, no foul.
Tomndebb, it is trollingand it is dishonest. My personal feelings on Israel, a Zionist conspiracy, or the mystical powers of Jew bankers to influence the outcome of world events has nothing to do with the topic at hand. If you’ve forgotten, the topic was on the polonium found on Mr. Arafat’s belongings and bones, it was not about my supposed anti-Semitic beliefs.
Topic at hand: The values of polonium found in Mr. Arafat’s bones and clothing.
Topic Morphed into : How I, the poster, believe that Israel was behind Mr. Arafat’s death
When you superimpose this with Dissonance’s fortuitous arrival in the thread and his inability to add or contribute anything except these accusations, it comes off as trolling to me. The accusations have *nothing * - and I do mean nothing - to do with the topic at hand. It be analogous to me jumping into every thread that Chief Pedant et al. open or participate in and talk about how racist they are or how they believe blacks are stupid. It’s stupid, childish, and trollish.
You know, I spent a fair amount of time posting in that thread, and I recall plenty of factual discussion about the significance (or lack of such) in the findings by one of three research teams of evidence of “polonium poisoning” of Arafat. DSeid in particular contributed a lot of factual rebuttal and other posters made valuable points as well that did not involve snickering at the OP’s beliefs.
The OP was evidently unhappy with the way his position was treated (and responded in part with jibes against critics). The discussion did not “morph” into unfair accusations against the OP. It contained elements of personal rancor (on both sides), but that doesn’t diminish the solid arguments made against the thread’s premise.
I have no problems with the moderation (even though early on, a bit of it was directed against me).