Mail Archives: cygwin/2001/06/25/12:11:44
Ken,
I don't know about you, but I am a denizen of several lists on a variety of
topics, and they all seem to be getting progressively more uncivil. I think
in part there is a culture clash since these lists invariably contain a mix
of newbies and old salts (I think I'm the latter, with 25+ years of
programming experience). This tends to cause a mismatch of expectations
about decorum and what is and is not an appropriate question or answer.
In my better moments I write private letters to certain offenders,
explaining why their posts are inappropriate and suggesting ways they can
be better participants, largely by helping themselves on their own.
At other times I tell people publicly that if their logic and expectations
are so vastly flawed, perhaps they're in the wrong business. Well, I've
never quite said that, but if I were to generalize, the two things that bug
me most are people using public fora as their _first_ recourse when faced
with a bump in the road and the incredible lack of clear thinking ability.
Youngsters who are utterly uncritical about their brilliant ideas are right
up there on my annoyance list, but I don't like to quash nascent
creativity. I usually give those people public history lessons and suggest
that they find some giant on whose shoulders they might well stand.
The Yahoo groups "extremeprogramming" list is hands-down the worst I've
seen for nonsense, religion and general BS. I had to unsubscribe from that
one in an effort to manage my blood pressure.
Randall Schulz
Mountain View, CA USA
At 08:11 2001-06-25, you wrote:
> > So, I will be sending this "cgf does not want..." message on a regular
> basis.
> > Hopefully, it will show up enough that people who search the archives or
> > read email here will get the hint.
>
>Just make it your sig. Nobody will pay any attention to it anyway.
>
>Is it just me, or is the tone of this list getting increasingly curt and
>unpleasant?
>
>Ken Collins
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