On Thu, Mar 11, 2004 at 03:20:45PM -0600, John Goerzen wrote:
> True, but -- I don't think that either of those subject lines are really
> slanderous.
The question isn't whether it's libellous; it's whether it's a productive
way of having a conversation.
> For instance, the "Why Anthony Towns is wrong" should
> probably have read "Why Anthony Towns' *Argument* is wrong" -- which
> simply uses Anthony's name to identify which argument is being referred
> to.
And that's utterly inappropriate and unnecessary. If you want to identify
a particular theory and criticise it, do so. English is pretty expressive,
and can easily handle that, eg by saying "Why saying `Debian includes
non-free' is wrong, even when talking about the Debian Project". It's
not only less likely to annoy me (who in this case was the person Thomas
needed to convince), it's also clearer (I've made a lot of arguments
on this list recently), and will remain an accurate and comprehensible
summary even if Thomas is successful in persuading me of his viewpoint.
> "Thou shalt not be excessively annoying, and thou shalt not be
> excessively easily annoyed."
So, I can only assume from this that you think I'm excessively easily
annoyed.
Cheers,
aj
--
Anthony Towns <aj@humbug.org.au> <http://azure.humbug.org.au/~aj/>
I don't speak for anyone save myself. GPG signed mail preferred.
Linux.conf.au 2004 -- Because we could.
http://conf.linux.org.au/ -- Jan 12-17, 2004
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