Westley Martínez <aniko...@gmail.com> writes: > I'm kind of new to the whole mailing list thing, but they seem to be a > lot more lenient than internet forums about most things.
Note that a mailing list *is* an internet forum: it is a forum for discussion, conducted on the internet. Mailing lists have been internet forums long before any web application came along. > I've noticed that sometimes Off-topic posts can get a little out of > hand. I guess it's not really a big deal, but it bothers me, and the > trolls just love to feed on it. Yes, these are hazards of an unmoderated discussion forum like this. The overall quality of discussion here, and the signal-to-noise ratio, makes it very worthwhile I think. > I mean, as programmers, we should devote our time to improving > computer systems. On this mailing list, we're programmers, nothing > else, and so we shouldn't mingle other things into the list. What counts as “mingle other things in”? What sparked this latest outcry was a flippant remark at the expense of an ancient text and the Zen of Python. That outcry was, I have argued, not reasonable. I am firmly committed to allowing flippant remarks which are not at the expense of people. It's highly inappropriate to ask that such remarks not be made simply because some people might take undue offense. Are they off-topic? Maybe, but there's no compulsion to respond to them since flippant remarks, by definition, aren't meant seriously. Are they not funny? That doesn't matter. If the obligation is that people should not make unfunny jokes, we'd all be guilty. Are they poking fun at something? That *definitely* shouldn't matter; if a thing (not a person) is worth defending, then do so or not as you choose. If you like it but can't defend it adequately, that's your problem not anyone else's. If the ridicule works because it's true, then the target thing is perhaps not worth defending. We draw the line, IMO rightly so, at personal attacks on people or groups of people. I have many times spoken out against those in this forum. But books and ideas, no matter who likes them, are fair game for flippant remarks in this and any forum, and I resist efforts to quash such expression. -- \ “What I have to do is see, at any rate, that I do not lend | `\ myself to the wrong which I condemn.” —Henry Thoreau, _Civil | _o__) Disobedience_ | Ben Finney -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
