# Why is this insulting? Warning in Great Debates **URL:** \ **Category:** About This Message Board\ **Created:** [September 11, 2012, 8:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-this-insulting-warning-in-great-debates/634383 "2012-09-11T08:51:02Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![tapu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/49beb7/32.png) [@tapu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tapu)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2012, 2:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-this-insulting-warning-in-great-debates/634383/41 "2012-09-11T14:42:00Z")
> [@martu](#): > > Words like bigot, racist, obese, coward do not have negative connotations to me, why should they? They are […] English words that I find useful. They may not have negative connotations to you, but they have negative denotations independent of you. Their meanings are inherently negative. Maybe you just need a dictionary. ---
**Author:** ![bucketybuck](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/898d66/32.png) [@bucketybuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bucketybuck)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2012, 2:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-this-insulting-warning-in-great-debates/634383/42 "2012-09-11T14:42:02Z")
> [@Inner\_Stickler](#): > > I don’t see why you can’t say charming and delightful with great hair. I do. ☹ ---
**Author:** ![IvoryTowerDenizen](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ivorytowerdenizen/32/17937_2.png) [@IvoryTowerDenizen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/IvoryTowerDenizen)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2012, 3:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-this-insulting-warning-in-great-debates/634383/43 "2012-09-11T15:06:33Z")
> [@martu](#): > > Thanks I can see the distinction between the argument and argumentee, but again fail to see why calling someone selfish _if they are indeed selfish,_ is an insult. Did you read my previous post defining the word insult and explaining it? That might help- you may have to let go with the world-view you have on this and realize that your view might be wrong and not jive with accepted definitions and usages. ---
**Author:** ![Autolycus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/22d042/32.png) [@Autolycus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Autolycus)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2012, 3:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-this-insulting-warning-in-great-debates/634383/44 "2012-09-11T15:17:54Z")
> [@Marley23](#): > > Everybody understands it’s your opinion. That doesn’t change anything. Well that’s just your opinion, dude. ---
**Author:** ![handsomeharry](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e9c0ed/32.png) [@handsomeharry](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/handsomeharry)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2012, 3:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-this-insulting-warning-in-great-debates/634383/45 "2012-09-11T15:31:30Z")
> [@martu](#): > > Neither of you have told me why it is an insult only stated that it is, can you help me out here by telling me the why? They’re not insults. They are badges of great honor, to be used only with people whom you admire. ---
**Author:** ![cerberus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/71e660/32.png) [@cerberus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cerberus)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2012, 3:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-this-insulting-warning-in-great-debates/634383/46 "2012-09-11T15:33:56Z")
The idea is simple: outside of the pit, address ideas, not the poster. ---
**Author:** ![Loach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/loach/32/350_2.png) [@Loach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loach)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2012, 3:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-this-insulting-warning-in-great-debates/634383/47 "2012-09-11T15:46:15Z")
Allowing name calling makes for lousy debates. The forum is there to debate issues and point out flaws in arguments. It is not to point out flaws in personalities. If you were allowed to call any one a poopyhead then the whole forum would collapse under an avalanche of stupidity and insults. Much like most of the Internet. ---
**Author:** ![Ruby\_Slippers](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/94ad74/32.png) [@Ruby\_Slippers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ruby_Slippers)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2012, 3:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-this-insulting-warning-in-great-debates/634383/48 "2012-09-11T15:52:35Z")
If the poster you’re addressing is from the southern United States, you could always just say, “Well, bless your heart.” They’ll understand. ---
**Author:** ![martu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e0b2c6/32.png) [@martu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/martu)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2012, 4:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-this-insulting-warning-in-great-debates/634383/49 "2012-09-11T16:13:54Z")
> [@Loach](#): > > Allowing name calling makes for lousy debates. The forum is there to debate issues and point out flaws in arguments. It is not to point out flaws in personalities. If you were allowed to call any one a poopyhead then the whole forum would collapse under an avalanche of stupidity and insults. Much like most of the Internet. I see your point but to me an accurate description is not name calling, but saying poopyhead is. But I have conceded that to most people it is and that matters here on the board. Apology posted on the original thread. > [@Ruby\_Slippers](#): > > If the poster you’re addressing is from the southern United States, you could always just say, “Well, bless your heart.” They’ll understand. You could get a warning for that you know. ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2012, 4:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-this-insulting-warning-in-great-debates/634383/50 "2012-09-11T16:16:34Z")
> [@martu](#): > > I see your point but to me an accurate description is not name calling But the person you are speaking to probably won’t think it’s accurate. ---
**Author:** ![martu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e0b2c6/32.png) [@martu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/martu)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2012, 4:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-this-insulting-warning-in-great-debates/634383/51 "2012-09-11T16:34:00Z")
> [@Marley23](#): > > But the person you are speaking to probably won’t think it’s accurate. Well then one of is wrong and the other is right, either way no insult intended and between us maybe we can work out who is the wrong one? ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2012, 4:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-this-insulting-warning-in-great-debates/634383/52 "2012-09-11T16:35:57Z")
It doesn’t matter whether the insult was intended or not. I thought you said earlier that you understand, but now you seem to be backtracking. ---
**Author:** ![martu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e0b2c6/32.png) [@martu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/martu)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2012, 4:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-this-insulting-warning-in-great-debates/634383/53 "2012-09-11T16:39:01Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > It doesn’t matter whether the insult was intended or not. I thought you said earlier that you understand, but now you seem to be backtracking. I understand yes that some, probably most, people can be insulted by descriptive terms but not me is all I meant. I really shouldn’t have carried on the conversation with **Marley23** happy to drop this now and I will try to be more careful with my language. ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2012, 4:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-this-insulting-warning-in-great-debates/634383/54 "2012-09-11T16:48:00Z")
> [@martu](#): > > Well then one of is wrong and the other is right, either way no insult intended and between us maybe we can work out who is the wrong one? Right, but in the meantime the discussion has shifted from a debate about the ideas to an argument about whether or not the person is really a bigot or a coward. We don’t want that. I understand that you didn’t intend to be insulting, but that’s how most people would feel about being described that way, and we want Great Debates and other forums to be focused on discussions of ideas and news. Arguments about whether or not a person is a bigot or a coward or some other negative thing belong in the Pit. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2012, 4:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-this-insulting-warning-in-great-debates/634383/55 "2012-09-11T16:53:15Z")
> [@Marley23](#): > > Right, but in the meantime the discussion has shifted from a debate about the ideas to an argument about whether or not the person is really a bigot or a coward. We don’t want that. In general, I see what you’re saying. But imagine, for purely hypothetical purposes (warning, not at all hypothetical), we’ve got a Great Debates thread in which the question is whether a person who opposes Same-Sex Marriage is necessarily a bigot. This seems to me an entirely worthy conversation for great debates, with legit, principled positions on both sides, and with a real effect on the conversation about SSM (to the extent that any GD thread has a real effect). It’s legit for folks to say, “Yes, opposition to SSM necessarily means the opposer is a bigot.” And if someone comes into the thread and says, “No, because I oppose SSM, but I’m not a bigot,” the simple, straightforward, on-point rebuttal would be to say: “I disagree: I think that, for these reasons, you are a bigot.” Requiring people to tap-dance around that word seems odd. But, because the discussion is about bigotry, not about cowardice, calling them a coward is off-point and warnable. If the thread were on whether draft-dodgers were necessarily cowards, and I came into the thread and said, “I refused to sign up for the draft, and I’m not a coward,” I think it’d be entirely on-point for someone in the thread to say: “I disagree: I think that, for these reasons, you are a coward.” It’d be weird to ask them to tap-dance around the word in that case. But if they called me a bigot in that thread, it’d be warnable, because it’d be off-topic. Is my reasoning flawed here? ---
**Author:** ![aldiboronti](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9fc348/32.png) [@aldiboronti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aldiboronti)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2012, 5:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-this-insulting-warning-in-great-debates/634383/56 "2012-09-11T17:13:02Z")
If the OP is really of the opinion that to call a man a coward is not an insult he should be thankful that the age of the duel is now past. Unless he were a crack shot with a pistol or an expert swordsman his life would have been a brief one. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2012, 5:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-this-insulting-warning-in-great-debates/634383/57 "2012-09-11T17:20:18Z")
There’s nothing wrong with your reasoning, **Left Hand of Dorkness**. The problem is that this type of hypothetical could apply to a ton of threads in GD and we don’t want to start carving out exceptions to our rules on insults because it’ll make the rules harder to understand and enforce. Posters are allowed to insult groups of people like Democrats or Republicans or religious people or atheists regardless of whether or not some Dopers are included in those groups, for example. There’s no end to the number of descriptions or generalizations people might be offended by. Even if someone responds to one of those comments by saying “_I’m_ not a bigot/idiot/coward/etc.,” we want to keep the discussion focused around the ideas and the issues and not the best way to describe a specific poster. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2012, 5:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-this-insulting-warning-in-great-debates/634383/58 "2012-09-11T17:21:10Z")
> [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > Is my reasoning flawed here? It sounds like a “He started it” defense to me. ---
**Author:** ![kayaker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kayaker/32/441_2.png) [@kayaker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kayaker)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2012, 5:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-this-insulting-warning-in-great-debates/634383/59 "2012-09-11T17:39:43Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > It sounds like a “He started it” defense to me. Well, that does leave open the “I’m tellin mom” rejoinder. ---
**Author:** ![IvoryTowerDenizen](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ivorytowerdenizen/32/17937_2.png) [@IvoryTowerDenizen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/IvoryTowerDenizen)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2012, 5:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-this-insulting-warning-in-great-debates/634383/60 "2012-09-11T17:41:06Z")
> [@martu](#): > > I see your point but to me an accurate description is not name calling, but saying poopyhead is. But I have conceded that to most people it is and that matters here on the board. Apology posted on the original thread. Again, you’re getting caught up on accuracy of the comment. It’s not about libel (which is a falsehood that denigrates someone). It’s about a characterization that a reasonable person might be offended by. An insult is offensive by definition, if it true or not. Name calling is a type of insult. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-this-insulting-warning-in-great-debates/634383.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-this-insulting-warning-in-great-debates/634383.md?page=4)