Litmus test

[DoktorZ]

I agree with SQ that abuse is somewhat subjective.

WLB, you opened by claiming that intent and abuse share an "orthogonal" relationship. I'm not sure I know what that means, but I think it means that intent becomes less relevant the more severe the abuse becomes (e.g., murder).

In any case, as SQ pointed out, these forums don't have objective measures for "dickishness" because these measures probably aren't very easy to establish. Or, more precisely, establishing them would require a lot of time and effort, and probably be subject to diminishing returns.

Finally, you suggest that we should determine abuse by intent. Good luck with that. Intent is extremely difficult to determine even in court cases, and it's often completely subjective (based on a heartfelt testimony or, worse, jailhouse conversions to evangelical Christianity or Islam). This is why people like Ann Coulter can go around slandering people, and then say, "Oh, I was just kidding." We can't read anyone's mind, so intent is really not viable to determine "dickishness." Even if we could, policing people's internal intent isn't very appealing to me.

In any case, abuse on an online forum can only be judged by what appears in print on the screen. That's the only evidence relevant in this courtroom. So, if someone is saying "X user is a dick and deserves to die," that's abuse. End of. The question is whether we care enough to moderate it.

Otherwise, I think it's generally good advice not to be abusive to theists if, in particular, what you dislike about their behavior is its abusive aspects.

Z