Re: OT

[Celejar <celejar@gmail.com>]

On Sun, 25 Feb 2007 18:36:59 -0500
John - <JohnRChamplin@columbus.rr.com> wrote:

> On (24 and 25/02/07) mainly the same four or five folks  wrote:
> 
> > Quite a lot of off-topic opinionated political nonsense.
> 
> Look, guys -- you know who you are -- I (and others, most likely)
> don't mind OT topics from time to time, and I/we can pretty easily
> delete without reading, should I/we wish to do so. A certain amount is
> tolerable, and I/we grant some slack because self-expression can be a
> learning experience.

Without taking sides on the issue of whether OT has gone too far or
whether we should just expect people to use filters and 'ignore
thread', I just want to point out that some of the OT'ers are among the
most knowledgable and prolifically helpful of the posters on this list
(I obviously have no basis for judgement about lurkers), e.g Roberto
(my bias: he's apparently religious and anti-abortion, so I have a
natural sympathy with him :)), and we should take that into account
when criticizing them. 

> But: a fair number of posts reveal that the authors have quite a
> shallow grasp of politics.  Worse, many are written from an adolescent
> ego-centered intent to prevail, even though there's no worthwhile
> content added.

Certainly true (although I wonder whether we agree which are the guilty
authors). I often wonder which is worse, politicians commenting on
technical issues, or engineers commenting on politics ...

> Think of it this way: would you like to have to wade through the views
> of AOL members eager to vindicate their opinions about open source
> software?
> 
> So give us a break, and instead of political drivel, get back to your
> usual smart and insightful comments about Debian?  Please?

Celejar