But the point is that if I had made the actual accusation, how could one refute it?
Maybe I've got a too-simplistic view of it, but my off-the-cuff answer would be "No, I'm no more a pedophile than you are and I challenge you to prove otherwise."
Of course, it someone had actually made that statement, it would be a personal attack.
What's really tough right now is that we're delving into some pretty unlikely scenarios when 95% of the calls I and chairfolk have to make are nowhere near that difficult. For example, to use the vitriol-laden example with me in it earlier. How often is that going to get posted only once? That's the verbiage of someone who's going to step over the "harassment" line in pretty short order, making whether the one post constitutes a personal attack a moot issue.
I'm going to back way off on my participation on this thread for a few days and would appreciate it if we could all keep the number of posts down in it. I literally spent the whole day just trying to catch up to the top of this thread, and only got to about 3 PM's and half a dozen of my emails. And there are currently 162 messages in my Inbox. This work pattern is obviously not workable. I had to cancel my plans for tomorrow because I'm going to need at least a full day just to get caught up.
