A question of LJ ethics
Sep. 5th, 2005 07:56 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
chickenfeetI'd appreciate my esteemed friends comments on this.
Person X makes a f-locked post.
Person Y (in this case me) responds causing offence to person X though third party enquiries suggest it's no more than me being my, admittedly, robust self.
Person X deletes me from friends list but leaves the f-locked post and my response up. This allows allows random ad hominem attacks on person Y (me) but blocks me from replying. Polite back channel enquiries are ignored.
Is this ethical?
Person X makes a f-locked post.
Person Y (in this case me) responds causing offence to person X though third party enquiries suggest it's no more than me being my, admittedly, robust self.
Person X deletes me from friends list but leaves the f-locked post and my response up. This allows allows random ad hominem attacks on person Y (me) but blocks me from replying. Polite back channel enquiries are ignored.
Is this ethical?
no subject
Date: 2005-09-06 09:27 am (UTC)Deleting someone from one's friends' list because s/he has offended one = unethical.* If you're going to post and invite comments then you should, IMO, be prepared for the fact that some of those comments to disagree with what you've proposed. If you can't take the heat, what on earth are you doing in the kitchen?
*on the other hand, defriending someone because they've disclosed the contents of friends' only posts to third parties = reasonable.
Ad hominem attacks aren't unethical IMO, providing the person against whom they're made has the opportunity to defend him/herself. There was/is a private mailing list where there were the most viscious of ad hominem attacks but they were acceptable because everyone was allowed to bite back and no one was ever permitted to complain to external bodies because to disclose the contents of posts made to the list would be grounds for being thrown off the list. Complaints to the list owner/IT bod would have been met with dirision - if you can't cope with a bit of a personal attack then you shouldn't be participating in discussions on the list.
no subject
Date: 2005-09-06 12:06 pm (UTC)If it's a one-off, I think just mentioning, as a warning, that it's been found offensive should be enough. Repeated instances might be a different matter. Because then it gets into the issue of whether it's ethical, or at least good manners, to post in someone's lj material they have indicated that they find offensive. (And I'd perceive a difference between 'offensive' and 'vigorous debate', though everybody draws the line differently on that one, I suspect.)