Flamewar ( was: Sponsoring FreeBSD)

[Erik Osterholm]

On Wed, Jun 03, 2009 at 12:34:55AM +0200, Wojciech Puchar wrote:
> > Any person might look at people in the community and decide that they
> > don't want to be a part of that community after all.  That's why it
> 
> Just reread this and, ... don't you think it's quite like a good filter?
> 
> I don't talk about sponsors, but a new potential users.
> 
> If someone needs good unix, he/she will try it and join us. As i said 
> before if he/she agrees with maillist users personal opinions doesn't 
> matter at all. Rather if you can get answer to questions about FreeBSD.
> You can, even easier if some moderation would be present here.

Considering that the mailing list is one of the few places where
support exists, I don't know that I can agree with you.

Also, I don't think that an artificial filter or barrier-to-entry is
desirable, in general.  If a person needs good unix, but they don't
learn well by reading technical documentation, a good community can be
highly beneficial.  Personally, I wouldn't want to discriminate
against users for this.


> Some people may want both, but well you can't have everything. It's not 
> possible to everyone will agree with everyone on mailing list, and with 
> every potential new user.

I know that disagreeing is inevitable.  My position is that a pleasant
tone would be nice.  An example of a harsh tone (one which I haven't
seen on here) is telling someone to RTFM.  Another example (which I
have seen on here) is people who just enjoy arguing turning reasonable
threads into flamewars.


> This keeps the system's quality high.

I politely disagree.  I doubt that a harsh community does anything to
maintain a high-quality system.

Erik