[OT] Mathematical reasoning vs ad hominem and personal attacks

[Timon Gehr]

On 17.12.19 15:02, Patrick Schluter wrote:
>>>>
>>> You are wrong.
>> Please no ad hominem attacks!
> 
> That's not an ad hominem. That's just a statement of opinion. It would 
> be ad hominem if something about you was the justification of the 
> wrongness. You're wrong because your name is too long or because you 
> have a big nose etc.

Although some people do count disagreeing with mathematically wrong 
statements as a personal attack:

https://github.com/pandas-dev/pandas/issues/9422#issuecomment-343550192

I think this is not a useful way to run a community.

Note that the provided "proof" is not entirely right, the mathematical 
justification for sum([])=0 is actually this: 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_monoid#Morphisms