On Mon, Feb 01, 2010 at 03:05:37PM -0700, Nick Bender wrote:
quoted text
> On Mon, Feb 1, 2010 at 2:46 PM, Bob Beck <beck@ualberta.ca> wrote:
> > On 1 February 2010 14:09, Donald Allen <donaldcallen@gmail.com> wrote:
> >> I have not responded to this thread because I was angered by it and
> >> did not want to respond in anger. That has passed. But this thread is
> >> unfortunately all too typical of a pattern of ridicule and downright
> >> nastiness that occurs much too often on the OpenBSD lists.
> >
> > ....
> >
> > Well I certainly didn't get that impression from this thread, Sorry
> > you did..  Happy Trails.
> >
> >
> 
> Ditto. Thought this thread was fairly productive:
> 
> - question raised
> - clarification sought
> - clarification provided
> - solution given
> - bug found
> - patch proposed and debated
> 
> > You could enforce minimum levels
> > of civility, as many such communities do, without impeding the flow of
> > technical information a it, but you choose not to.
> 
> Civility is in the eye of the moderator. I prefer my debate unfiltered...

There was some belittling of Allen for asking about UBC. I don't think
it added anything. Not even humor. Beck's initial response was a good
one, clarifying and offering something to try, but at least one person
jumped in with unhelpful comments. There were also informative and
interesting replies, and in fact these made of the bulk of the thread.
While this thread was relatively mild compared to some I think Allen has
a point. There's just no need to escalate what should have been a purely
technical discussion into an ad hominem attack.

-- 
Darrin Chandler            |  Phoenix BSD User Group  |  MetaBUG
dwchandler@stilyagin.com   |  http://phxbug.org/      |  http://metabug.org/
http://www.stilyagin.com/  |  Daemons in the Desert   |  Global BUG Federation