On Thu, Jul 18, 2013 at 09:30:08AM -0400, Theodore Ts'o wrote: > The reason why I started the kernel summit over ten years ago > was because there were certain topics that are much better discussed > in person, and that over time, if we don't have sufficient face to > face interactions, the quality of e-mail discussions can start to > become frayed. > > One of the reasons is that e-mail is just not as expressive a medium > as face-to-face conversations. As a result, when people feel that > they aren't being heard, because they aren't getting those critical > non-verbal cues, they start escalating. They start using stronger > words, such as F*CK. They start doing exactly what they claim to > abhor to their verbal opponents in the debate, which is describing > their fellow kernel developers using demeaning terms. They start > using loaded, and over-reaching words, like "abuse", which ultimately > ends up hurting their own case. > > I suspect this is happening because it's easy when a body feels that > their message of say, "could we please treat each other with more > respect", isn't getting heard, it's very easy and very tempting to > resort to "Linus is an AB-UUUUUUUU-SER!". Let's shift this discussion away from the terms "abuse" and "professionalism" to "respect" and "civility". I agree that calling Linus an abuser is not conducive to moving this conversation forward. I agree not to use f*ck in my emails anymore, and, as Ted suggests, we'll see how polite requests get handled. > May I make the polite suggestion (and we'll see how well polite > requests get honored via e-mail), that we take this discussion > off-line, and wait to try to discuss this in person at the Kernel > Summit? I concur. Let's discuss this at KS. Sarah Sharp -- To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe stable" in the body of a message to majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html