On Mon, Mar 05, 2007 at 06:52:14PM +0100, Wouter Verhelst wrote: > On Mon, Mar 05, 2007 at 01:41:09PM +0000, Matthew Garrett wrote: > > Josselin Mouette <joss@debian.org> wrote: > > > There is nothing like a moral right to mock people, just like there is > > > nothing like a moral right not to be mocked. > > > > Research[1] has shown that one of the primary factors deterring women > > from involvement in free software is the perceived hostility of many of > > the communities. Do candidates believe that mocking of other members of > > the project is acceptable[2], > > Generally, no. However, in any sufficiently large community it *will* > happen; and I do not think that flaming people because one feels mocked > is acceptable, either. For the record I don't think flaming mockery is acceptable. Sometimes mockery is used to make a reproach with some humour. I mean mockery in the "use some derision" sense, not the "insulting" sense. It offers to the mocked guy (or girl) to answer with a joke as well, but take the remark into account. Though it means that one shall have some humour sense, a bit of hindsight about oneself, and a fair amount of self-derision. For the record I prefer a lot to be mocked, it offers a decent exit: answering with a joke. Whereas direct criticism is often less easy to deal with: answers tend to be a long apology or excuses mail, and it's way more humiliating. And if you disagree with the criticism, it often degenerate in a flame, because you felt attacked, and it will generate a flame. With a mockery, you can answer with a new one, or ignore it, as since it's a mockery people don't _expect_ you to answer it either. I can understand that it's a personal and very subjective matter. Though I also think that bearing mockery is one of the many aspect of self-reassessment and that flaming the mocker is more a way to dodge the underlying question than anything else. And if you allow me to be a bit pedantic, political systems that disallowed pamphlets and other satirical tracts were not really regimes I would like to live under. -- ·O· Pierre Habouzit ··O madcoder@debian.org OOO http://www.madism.org
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