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Miles Fidelman wrote:
Tim Bray wrote:
The below
from Tom Petch captures my opinion. I have sympathy with
more or less all the notes from all the factions in this
discussion, which instantly stops when they say or imply
“… and that’s why it’s OK to be rude.” I just don’t think
that’s ever OK in the context of an open-to-all mailing
list representing the public face of something that claims
to be a standards organization. That includes when
discouraging a dumb idea that is being proposed for the
seventeenth time.
I
think that that exemplifies a universal truth that is
often missed and
is perhaps the core of this discussion.
First, criticise the behaviour never the person.
Second, own it; not 'that is stupid' but 'I think that
...' ideally with
logical reasons, never with emotional ones.
It took me a long time to realise how much nicer the world
is when I
remember this and, even now, I sometimes need to remind
myself (as in
opposing the adoption of an I-D which I am about to do).
I would
sacrifice all the spell-checkers in the world for a
reasonableness
checker along these lines.
It does occur to me, though, that some places - like Quora - are
just full of people who ask really dumb questions (including
homework questions, without context). We're starting to see things
like that on LinkedIn, and they've long been the bane of various
tech support email lists (along with developer lists).
Maybe it takes the periodic "RTFM," "go do your homework," and "how
to ask good questions" ("come back when you can provide some details
on what you tried") - to cut down on such stuff. You know,
backpressure.
Not to excuse obnoxious behavior, but sometimes it takes a modicum
of brusqueness and/or snark to tamp down on the noise level.
Just a thought.
Miles
--
In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice.
In practice, there is. .... Yogi Berra
Theory is when you know everything but nothing works.
Practice is when everything works but no one knows why.
In our lab, theory and practice are combined:
nothing works and no one knows why. ... unknown
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