On Nov 7, 2007, at 4:03 PM, John Masters wrote:
That's pretty much the equivalent of what most "I'm leaving the list"messages amount to. No one cares, we all just shake our heads and say,"There goes a very troubled person."Do not presume to psychoanalyse me. I see the Debian Users list as an invaluable source of information and advice, to which I attempt in my own small way to contribute. Posts requesting opinions as to which is the best software/hardware/distro inevitably invite flame wars which fill my inbox with dross.
I didn't psychoanalyze you -- I told you what people think of such behavior in public. I leave psychoanalysis to the pros. :-)
As far as your comments about posts requesting opinions as to which is the best software to use for a particular purpose -- you're absolutely right -- they always lead to dumb arguments and the same old flamefests.
My point to you is that no matter how hard you try (or voice your opinion that you don't like it) -- those stupid arguments will continue to happen. Example: If you can find an example of a Unix list where the tired old vi vs emacs thread HASN'T happened, I'd be impressed.
What point is there in fighting it? It's just tilting after windmills to try to stop flamefests on a non-moderated mailing list. It's far easier to just delete the thread and move on. :-)
Standard Unix flamefests: S/N ratio of lists drops by some measurable amount. Complaints about flamefests, S/N ratio drops by a further amount.
(Me being dumb enough to reply to you and try to explain it... S/N ratio of list drops even further. GRIN...)
It's a never-ending flamefest/complaint/explanation that flamfests won't go away/new flamefest cycle. Almost as natural as the Sun rising and setting.
I find the complaints about the flamefests to also be "dross" in my inbox, see? And I was dumb enough to point it out... which you replied by saying you didn't like people psychoanalyzing you? Heh.
Quite the useless thread now... sorry, I'm done. I fell into the same trap you did... complaining about something neither one of us can change.
-- Nate Duehr nate@natetech.com