On 6/14/22 02:34, Barry Leiba wrote:
I don’t think it’s that much subjective and vague, in that we really
do all know what we’re getting at here, what sorts of language is
meant to insult and anger people and perhaps drive them away.
Except that I don't think we really do all know what we're getting at here.
I don't really even think that people's language is the biggest part of
the problem, and especially don't think that bad eggs are the cause of
that problem. I think the behavior that people complain about is
largely a consequence of the work that we've taken on, and (more
importantly, because there's more potential to fix this) the conditions
and conventions we've adopted to do that work.
If people are impatient in their criticism, too frequently short with
one another, if out of frustration they lose precision in their
criticism of proposals and instead start to criticize their proponents,
why is that? Saying it's bad people, or greybeards, or personality
defects, is a cheap shot. It's easy to say that but it doesn't look
very deep.
We're asking a lot of ourselves, and our adopted tasks are not made
easier by the ways that we work, and the volume of work that we take
on. We're too impatient because we take on too much work under
difficult conditions, and we take on too much work because we fail to
take the time to understand what's really important for the Internet and
what's not.
Keith
