Re: Rules of discourse for the mailing lists
I have strong reservations about the ideas that are being floated
about in this thread.
debian-devel is supposed to be a technical mailing list for
technically competent people. It is also very high volume and with a
high number of subscribers.
Bruce says:
> This was essentially that other people
> on the lists had to be treated with respect and that profanity was not
> allowed.
Profanity I can live without - who gives a **** about it anyway ?
However, `treating others with respect' is far to vague to be a useful
guideline. Does that mean I can't say that I have severe reservations
about someone's competence in one field or any ?
I remember one notable occasion when a person I have a great deal of
respect for was prevented from posting to the mailing lists for
calling another developer an `idiot'. I remember wondering whether it
would be a defence that they were an `idiot', and if not what the
critic in question should have said instead.
Ioannis's suggestions are his usual flowery prose without much content
(sorry, Ioannis - your prose is very beautiful, but I don't think the
place for such things is on this mailing list). I think that if we're
going to have some rules they should be to the point.
Then we have Greg Vence quoting the old chestnuts:
> 1) There are no dumb questions and no dumb answers.
> 2) None of us is perfect.
> 3) This is the place to bomb out and take risks.
> 4) It's ok to say, "I don't know."
> 5) You have the right not to participate in a discussion.
> 6) Keep asking until you really understand.
> 7) If you don't agree, say so, and explain your thoughts.
> 8) Teasing, put-downs and sarcasm are not allowed.
> 9) Don't critisize people -- agree or disagree with their ideas.
> 10) It's good to have a mind of your own.
It is a _very_ bad idea to promulgate these as rules for behaviour on
the net, particularly in forums used by very busy and knowledgeable
people to further their projects. They will lead people who follow
them to inappropriate behaviour.
These are appropriate rules for situations where people are dedicating
their time to teaching reasonably small numbers of people at once.
They are not appropriate to situations where potentially very large
numbers of people might ask questions rather than (for example)
referring to documentation or using their brains.
Two final points:
1. Shouldn't this discussion be on debian-policy ?
2. How much of the traffic on debian-{devel,policy} is
non-developers ? If a significant amount, perhaps we should
consider closing the list to posting from non-developers, to keep
volume down.
Ian.
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