civil discussion on fedora lists

[Matthew Miller]

On Sat, Oct 18, 2014 at 01:14:52PM +0200, Reindl Harald wrote:
> >Ha Ha. I heard exactly that from my English teacher several weeks ago.
> >For myself, this is cultural difference too. I would never use such
> >wording in my native language. (Disclaimer: I'm not targeting the
> >original thread, but disagreement in general)
> +1
> nobody i know in real life talks that way, really nobody, never

In addition to being a possible difference in culture or language,
there's another important difference: email provides very a limited
form of communication, with none of the nuance of an in-person
conversation. It is extra-easy to misinterpret, and impossible to gauge
the reaction of other parties until they actively respond. And, often,
discussions here don't have the supporting framework of trust built in
a real-life friendship — the other person is just words on the screen.

So, it's valuable to work extra hard at a collaborative communication
style, even if it doesn't come naturally. And, really, this is a
learned behavior in any culture — it's not something humans are
necessarily good at automatically. But we _can_ be, and I want Fedora
to be a shining example of it.

-- 
Matthew Miller
<mattdm at fedoraproject.org>
Fedora Project Leader