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The most obvious example is my use of "IDiot" as a shorthand for Intelligent Design Creationist. On the other hand, I frequently use insulting words to describe stupid people. Nor do I condone accusing someone of racism or sexism without very good evidence. They're talking mostly about racist and sexist comments since that's their main concern on Freethought Blogs, for now.įor the record, I do not condone those kind of insults. They are social equivalents of physical assaults.I know where they're coming from. Abusive names (like “stupid”, “moron”, “asshole”, “jerk”, “douchebag”, “idiot”, “motherfucker”, “dick”, “cunt”, “nigger”, “Feminazi”, “shitbag”, “mental midget”, “twat”, “fuckwad”, “retard”, “homo”, “fag”, “tranny”, “bitch”, “nutcase”, “crazy”, etc.) are emotional expressions meant solely to hurt other people. Use words which clearly specify what specific thing makes a person or institution’s ideas, beliefs, behaviors, attitudes, etc. But when you do things like this, stick to substantiatable charges. You may critique an individual’s standards of evidence or question their commitment to reason over faith. You may substantiate charges that someone’s personal behavior deserves moral disrepute where that’s relevant. You may charge that people’s ideas are false, harmful, irrationally derived, etc. This means not calling them abusive names or making insulting insinuations about them which according to my judgment unnecessarily demean them as a person or which I take to be intended to demean them as a person. Here's the one rule that I want to discuss it's from Daniel Fincke's post but Ophelia quotes it approvingly. And here's Daniel's post: Making My Comments Rules Explicit: “Don’t Bully People With Insulting Names” and “Make Personal Charges Against Others Only In Egregious Cases”. Here's Ophelia's post: A camel with a hammer offers a tap upside the head. Ophelia recently linked to another Freethought blog called Camels with Hammers written by Daniel Fincke. Ophelia Benson has put up several posts recently on the use of insulting terms in blog conversations.