On Sun, Jun 12, 2011 at 07:39:12AM +0900, David M. wrote:
I wouldn’t judge someone for, say, top-posting, like you did here. But if I
pointed out that you really shouldn’t top-post, and you should quote the
relevant parts rather than the entire email, I would hope you wouldn’t respond
with “Quit being so unprofessional! It’s my right to top-post! Anyone should
be able to see in five minutes that top-posting is correct! If you tell me
again, I’ll sue!”
It occurs to me his “take action” might involve reporting people to ISPs
for disagreeing with him, or something asinine like that.
But he’s far from harmless. We’re spending our time and energy dealing with
him, instead of people who actually have real problems and are willing to work
with us to solve them.
On the other hand, I got quick responses on a problem I brought up today
and, even though they ultimately didn’t help with what I was trying to
do
(get Sequel running), they were well-meaning and knowledgeable. The
only
reason they didn’t help is, I suspect, the stupidity of the platform on
which I’m trying to get things working.
I think the bigger danger than being too busy to help someone is someone
saying “Wow, a troll is running this mailing list. I won’t even ask.”
My biggest concern at this point is that, in the midst of getting
annoyed
at Ilias, otherwise productive people seem to have shorter fuses with
each other on this list than usual, too. I caught myself making a
snarky
comment about code formatting yesterday – but, sadly, did not catch
myself before sending the email.
On Saturday, June 11, 2011 05:55:20 PM Chad P. wrote:
On Sun, Jun 12, 2011 at 07:39:12AM +0900, David M. wrote:
I wouldn’t judge someone for, say, top-posting, like you did here. But if
I pointed out that you really shouldn’t top-post, and you should quote
the relevant parts rather than the entire email, I would hope you
wouldn’t respond with “Quit being so unprofessional! It’s my right to
top-post! Anyone should be able to see in five minutes that top-posting
is correct! If you tell me again, I’ll sue!”
It occurs to me his “take action” might involve reporting people to ISPs
for disagreeing with him, or something asinine like that.
That’s not reasonable. He almost always says this immediately after
citing
(and sometimes linking to) defamation laws. As poor as his communication
skills may be, I find it hard to believe that he didn’t at least intend
to
give the impression of a legal threat, which is functionally equivalent
to
actually delivering a legal threat.
So, his comments about “taking action” are duck-typed as legal threats.
But he’s far from harmless. We’re spending our time and energy dealing
with him, instead of people who actually have real problems and are
willing to work with us to solve them.
[…]
I think the bigger danger than being too busy to help someone is someone
saying “Wow, a troll is running this mailing list. I won’t even ask.”
That’s a good point.
Of course, we also have to balance it against the impression that
trolling is
tolerated. Worse, it’s not obvious to an outsider that Ilias’ blockers
are
not, in fact, serious problems with Ruby (especially bad if the entire
community ignores serious blockers), but are a result of his own
possibly-
deliberate misunderstanding.
I’m not sure what the balance is here. I’m starting to see the case for
ignoring him until he goes away.