> -----Original Message-----
> From: Adam Clarke [mailto:Adam.Clarke@...]
> Sent: Viernes 11 de Mayo de 2001 9:58
>
> > And now we have the holier-than-thou snooty remark from Helen:
>
> Helen,
>
> <Insert meaningful glance>
>
> Cheers
> Adam (not happy)

I won't insist in this thread since we don't need to discuss it for another
full month. The IBDI list was born from the previous SaveInterbase list. As
more topics needed special attention, new lists were spawned in a natural
way: IB-Marketing (almost abandoned after July 2000), IB-Architect,
IBDH-Translators, IB-Priorities (in a good extent superseded by the FB lists
at SF), IB_Designer (it lost strength after July 2000) and the like.

This list is for discussing general IB/FB topics. Once a topic has spawned
weeks and it uses almost all bandwith of the list, it deserves its separated
repository. This list is for general information. If we keep it flooded with
specific but very long issues, people interested in general notifications
will use the unsub email address to abandon this list. On the contrary,
people that think the new topic is worth the time will join naturally the
new list. The dedicated list can live two months or half a year, but if it
carries 80 msgs per days, it's better to have it separate.

I was going to follow the unsub link from this list, too, because I got
bored and sick of the endless crap about the supposed bad quality of
everything that's been done to date since more than a year ago and the
nitpicking surrounding 3 millimeters more at the right of the web page, etc.
It's always easier to criticize everything than to contribute something
useful. Specially easier when we face arrogant newcomers, eager to be
appointed the undisputed leaders. It's always easier to offend others,
because you just write and don't care to review what you wrote. This is a
community. People should be able to post here without the fear to be called
incompetent, useless, ignorant, etc., just because they disagree on a logo's
color, size and position, for example. It's always easier to rule the others
because in this way, there's no competition and if there's competition,
those people can be called inepts and unprofessional and they can be hushed.
This is not the way a community works. The IB/FB community is so small but
diverse that making artificial separation is a disaster. A proposition was
made two weeks ago to clearly differentiate IB people from FB people. Thanks
to God, it failed. Also, when I'm a newcomer to some tech group, I find hard
to make strong assertions without really knowing what I'm writing about or
without any historical perspective.

We have been visited by a person that seems in urgent need for dedicated
care in a psychiatric hospital and maybe a small poor country where that
person could become a dictator in short period. Just review past postings
and you'll locate easily contradictory statements from the same person, for
example:
- Pavel's site is unprofessional and ugly.
- We don't need a professional looking site.
- We need a static site, no bells and whistles.
- The layout should be fine, the logo here, the font there, etc.
- We need an easy way for several people to contribute to the site.
- We don't need such crap like Zope and PhpNuke (and if I don't know about
them I don't care) even if they help collaboration from multiple people.
(Don't make silly propositions, I'm the king here, you're an ignorant.)
- The proposed Damian's site is crap because it's unprofessional. (Hey, if
you are contributing something for free, I will squash you because you're
useless and I will repeat you make pure crap 1000 times even if you don't
ask me.)
- I don't want to impose anything but don't touch my logos in any way (I'm
perfect, if you don't agree you're idiots that cannot understand my
perfection).
- I'm only with you a few days (but I have time to start and foster a flame
war for 3 weeks).

Enough for me. There are much more (and better) examples. Maybe everybody
(that person included) wants to help sincerely, but throwing crap over all
the people that disagree doesn't seem to be the best way. Throwing
provocative ideas is not the problem. They are needed to fuel discussion
sometimes. So I won't feel bad with such postings. However, dismissing and
calling crap everything not from oneself accounts for a "very special"
personality that may be responsible for community disintegration in the long
term, since people take sides and strong sides. Or do we need another flame
war in the style of Borland v/s FB after July 2000? I think that most
readers are sick of those issues. People are welcome to complain about
things that are bad or wrong, but there's a limit between tagging stinking
issues as unacceptable (as they should be, probably) and simply offending
people with metodological patience.

About moderation: being Helen the moderator, I remember that the readers
themselves shutdown a conversation here between Helen and a person (Maureen
O'Gara was the name?) that wrote an article about firebird, the IB fork,
etc. People complained and Helen had to stop the public dispute over the
contents of the article. The moderator was moderated by the public.
Moderation is the last step after a person has been warned. Banning or some
partial restriction follows. If you think something is not adequate, just
reply and explain, no need to offend a third of the members that reply to
your post. One thing is being hypocrite (all is good, dear sir); not needed.
Another thing is to be utmost arrogant, cynical and offensive; this is just
lack of common sense, basic education and politeness. Don't go to extremes.
In Spanish, there's a saying: "to be courteous doesn't imply to be coward".

While I can't say I put Marcus on my black list or that I hate him, I
simply stopped paying attention to his emails since they carried the seed
for more strong replies. Anger leads to anger. We react the same way or
worse when we are slapped. Now, going on personal answers, I'm very
surprised that you Adam seem to agree that the best way to push topics is
the offensive way. If I were to make my next post a practice of a lesson on
scatological English slang just to insult you, how would you feel? Pleased?
Happy? Would you thank me sincerely? Would you put me in your list of most
appreciated friends? Come on, even HW devices have sensors for out of range
parameters and to take measures. A conversation that gets stronger and
stronger over time does nobody a favor. I stopped my 3 years participation
on the Mers list just because saying "I don't agree with Borland" seemed
enough to be kicked from the list. On the other hand, if I offend 30% of the
readers (Rob included) with really nasty words and accusations, I will be
surprised if he doesn't kick me. There's always a threshold for the level of
a conversation, above that, measures should be taken to reestablish peace. I
don't expect all people to agree with the measures, just because we have our
basic right to disagree. Just as I disagreed with Rob's practices and others
were very pleased and thanked him. That's the world.

Let's enjoy our natural right to disagreement, but let's exercise it with
common sense, please. I'm utterly sick of self-appointed gurus that come to
offer us the salvation for our project. (Just send those pseudo-gurus to try
to tell Borland how to behave and see what answer they get. <g>) As an
active member of the firebird developers group, I will consider very
carefully each proposition that comes from the marketing side. Now, back to
coding mode.

C.
---------
Claudio Valderrama C.
Ingeniero en Informática - Consultor independiente
http://www.cvalde.com - http://firebird.sourceforge.net