Re: First Call for votes: General resolution for the handling of the non-free section
On Thu, Mar 11, 2004 at 08:58:58AM -0500, Theodore Ts'o wrote:
> On Thu, Mar 11, 2004 at 07:24:49PM +1100, Craig Sanders wrote:
> > it is not up to you to tell me HOW i may say something.
> >
> > i'll use whatever words i feel are necessary to get my point across. if
> > you don't like some of the words that i choose to employ, then tough luck -
> > get a life.
>
> Craig,
>
> It is not up to Thomas alone to tell you how to say something, but the Debian
> development as a community may choose to set certain societal norms. And
> speaking in decently and civilly can be one of them. Thomas asked the
> mailing list as a whole if they thought your style of discourse was
> acceptable. A number of responsible have responded that they thought it was
> not acceptable. I will join that number.
and at least one responded that, like me, he found the kind of idiocy i was
complaining about to be far more offensive.
you are trying to make an absolute out of a subjective preference. i'm not
buying it.
> I will also say this; when you use that kind of language, your will fail to
> get your point across. When I saw your that e-mail full of curse words and
> general unpleasantness, I simply decided to delete without bothering to read
> it any further, because I had better things to do than to try to pick through
> that kind of nonesnse looking to see if you had a point. Regardless of
> whether or not we as a cummunity decide to say that sort of thing is beyond
> the pale (and I agree with Thomas's point that this sort of thing is exactly
> the kind of behaviour that tends to cause many people --- and
> disproportionate number of women --- to avoid certain on-line forums), you
> can not force me to READ what you write.
the word "fuck" is used in everyday conversation, and has been for as long as i
can remember. for anyone younger than my grandparent's generation, there is
nothing particularly offensive about it - it is an emphasis marker. i find it
extremely surprising that anyone actually gives a damn about it (oops! am i
allowed to say "damn" here? what about "WTF" or "STFU" - they didn't seem to
cause any stir...perhaps it is allowed to abbreviate "fuck" but not to actually
type it? if so, that is moronic).
what is actually offensive, on the other hand, is stupidity. idiocy,
especially of the trivial & pedantic variety that is so common on debian lists,
is far more offensive than any single word could ever possibly be.
> And as long as you write in that kind of uncivilized manner, it will be
> ultimately self-defeating, since some number of people will simply refuse to
> read what you post.
this will happen regardless of whether i choose to use words like "fuck" or
not. some people like sticking their heads in the sand and prefer comfortably
stupid illusions.
craig
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