* Martin P. Hellwig:
<cut all>
Well at least you are well written and more subtle than Xah Lee.
Though I find him also quite amusing, I do like a good flame-war every
now and again, and in that perspective I solute you.
The technical discussion is now at point where one poster maintains that
references don't exist in Python, and another poster, in support, maintains that
"refers to" in the language spec doesn't mean "refers to" but instead means
"refers to", whatever's that meant to mean.
As a technical discussion it's meaningless drivel.
And as an argument in that technical discussion your allegation of trolling is
just yet another fallacy, and meaningless.
But in a social context, declaring support or placing oneself within a group, or
for that matter "Poisoning the well", it can make sense.
This group has an extraordinary high level of flaming and personal attacks, and
it's the only group I've seen where there are threads (I think I've seen 3,
within the last two months, not participating in them) with the regulars
reitererating how "friendly" the group is, how difficult it is to get flamed
here. In other groups it's not necessary for the regulars to point out how
friendly the group is. But then, in other groups personal attacks are rare.
And so when you mention Xah Lee I'm now wondering what is cause, and what is
effect.
I was informed that he'd done extensive cross-posting, and his own web site
seems to confirm that his ISP at one time reacted to a complaint about such
cross-posting. I've also seen directly that he has employed pretty foul language
in characterizing Python in an article, and even without that language negative
loaded characterizations without any evidence to back them up (like, for
example, yours above) must be considered intentional flame bait. But did it
start that way for Xah Lee?
I'm not going to check the archives. It's enough, wrt. the point I'm making
about some regulars of the group, that even with such evidence of active
trolling at hand -- ISP reaction to cross-posting, needless foul language,
unsubstantiated characterizations -- based on my experience here I think it's
just as likely that it started out by Xah Lee being flamed, perhaps repeatedly,
with personal attacks and by group action. Or perhaps it didn't, but at this
point it would not surprise me in the slightest.
Cheers & hth.,
- Alf
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