good bye -> Fwd: list-moderation -> Re: KDE without gnome-shell?

[Tim]

Allegedly, on or about 07 November 2013, Robert Holtzman sent:
> To you it's rude, to me blunt. This will never be resolved as it's a
> matter of individual taste, enviroment, upbringing, etc. You seem to
> have a thinner skin than I do. 

In general, what we saw was his bluntness.  And I can be quite blunt,
too.  When the situation warrants it.  Besides, I run a business, and
being direct is often the best way to make sure things are done right,
but that's an entirely different thing than being an asshole to people.

But much more often than was tolerable, he went well beyond bluntness,
and was outrightly rude and well on the attack.  That's what got him
where he was (the attacking, more than the rudeness).

There is one hell of a difference between saying to someone, don't
chmod /var/www/html to rwxrwxrwx because it's a dumb thing to do
(bluntness), or to RTFM, than to start hurling insults around and
attacking people.  I dare say that his rudeness goes beyond the usual
handbags at ten paces we may see, such as when it comes to what some
people say about lovers of KDE or Gnome.  Otherwise there'd be a lot
more moderated people on here.  But there aren't, so it goes to show the
level that he went to, to trigger it.

I am an Australian, being thin skinned is not a national characteristic.
We are the kind of country where a person can call the leader of the
country a dickhead directly to their face, get caught doing it on
national television, and nobody even raises an eyebrow (perhaps they'll
raise a glass, but that's about all).  Conversely, start a conversation
that's essentially picking a fight, and you get one rather quickly.  In
general, people get what they deserve, is the sentiment.

He was given the choice to play ball, but didn't.  He would rather
leave, and continuing being what he is, rather than join the spirit of
the community.  It was always his choice.

I used to work with people with behavioural problems.  If they didn't
curb their own behaviour, someone else would do it for them.  Complete
strangers would be likely to give them a (deserved) hiding, the system
takes more confronting steps (e.g. jail), so they do *need* to control
themselves to be a part of society.  Hopefully, people learn it at a
young age, and they generally learn it by being corrected, not just
getting it right by themselves.  That's what we did, we didn't put up
with crap, we stopped it and educated them about what they ought to be
doing.  Some hopeless people in the same place would just stand back and
let them hang themselves, metaphorically, even make endless excuses for
them.  With the results that the miscreant carries on behaving badly,
almost forever more, and a horde of victims pile up as collateral
damage.  *That* is an intolerable situation, but one that we can
completely control (stopping other people being on the receiving end).

I see very little difference between that environment and this
situation.  Being "blunt," a person was being a jerk, causes lots of
grief for lots of people, gets a certain level of restraint put on them,
still carries on like a jerk, and a few enablers make excuses and try to
undo any attempt to restrain the offending behaviour.  And that doesn't
help anybody.

He was not the messiah, and he didn't deserve royal treatment.  The fact
that he could help, sometimes, and did know things, doesn't make it all
right to be a jerk.  He can learn to control himself, come back, and not
get moderated.  He's even been told that, more than once, just in case
the idea doesn't occur to him by itself.  But I think we all know that
he just isn't going to do that.

It ain't our fault he got in trouble, it ain't our fault he left, it's
*all* his.  Recognise that.  Apportion the blame where it truly lays.

-- 
[tim at localhost ~]$ uname -rsvp
Linux 3.9.10-100.fc17.x86_64 #1 SMP Sun Jul 14 01:31:27 UTC 2013 x86_64

All mail to my mailbox is automatically deleted, there is no point
trying to privately email me, I will only read messages posted to the
public lists.

George Orwell's '1984' was supposed to be a warning against tyranny, not
a set of instructions for supposedly democratic governments.