If you carefully review the remarks made in this thread, you'll see that
I'm not the one who's attempting to force a particular behavior.
Frankly, the not-so-subtle attempts at persuasion are moving in quite
the opposite direction.
You are correct, both "sides" are trying to force a particular behaviour.
You are trying to get the group to behave in the way you want.
The group is trying to get you to behave in the way that most group
members already does.
I know who I think is beeing unreasonable.
If someone chooses to killfile me, that's their privilege. I certainly
regret that people would willingly choose to subject themselves to a
form of self-censorship. But if it helps to spare them frustration,
then it's probably a reasonable course of action.
Censorship is not allowing somone else to make a statement.
Self-censorship is deciding (for whatever reason) not to make a statement.
Choosing not to listen to someone elses statement has nothing to do with
censorship.
Please make no mistake, though: if someone posts a remark to this thread
that either reflects a misunderstanding or makes a personal attack, I
will more than likely respond. And, if I detect that someone is
attempting to censor my remarks, I will almost certainly respond. I've
repeatedly advised that if people don't like this thread or believe it's
off-topic, then their best course of action would be to ignore it.
The general rule is that topicality is always on topic. But the discussion
sprang from you (apparently) not accepting the answer ("ask somewhere
else") you got.
People have explained why they believe not redirecting offtopic questions
isn't their best course of action. (Then someone unaware of topicality
could answer and people would come back and the quality of clc would
degrade. People would post again since they didn't get an answer ... etc).
You could:
1. Explain why you think the questions should be on topic and why that
would be better for the group as a whole.
2. Explain why ignoring offtopic posts is better at preserving topicality
than redirecting those posts.
3. Accept things as they are.
You have as far as I know done neither. You have instead been claiming
that your way is better without explaining why it is better for the
members of this group.
Is that an order? Perhaps you didn't intend it to come across that way,
but you could have certainly phrased the idea in a more respectful tone.
No not an order. I said I "expect", that is given that you actually care
as much as your posts in this thread seems to indicate. The reason for the
"tone" is that when people complain about something and then fail to make
the obvious steps to change them I get a little impatient with them.
Or, that forming such a newsgroup would fall relatively low on my list
of life's priorites.
Then why does changing this newsgroup, a task that is probably harder
while achieving the same end result, appear to have a higher priority?
Would I like to see c.l.c have the same friendly atmosphere as
comp.lang.perl.misc? Yes, and I'd also like to have Liv Tyler show up
on my doorstep and say "I just dumped Royston Langdon, and I'm all yours
now, Big Boy", but that's simply not going to happen, now is it?
It has the same firiendly athmosphere, it's just that your insistence on
doing things your way means you fail to see the friendly side. clc isn't
unfriendly, it just refuses to discuss everything somehow related to C.
You can make clc be friendly to you by keeping on topic, and finding or
creating another forum for the questions that are offtopic here. If as you
say the topicality in clc is so horribly limiting people would flock
tou your new forum. As for Liv Tyler there is nothing (probably) you could
actively do to make that happen, so there is a difference between her and
clc.
I'm not complaining, but merely trying to encourage some of you to
display a bit more largesse when responding to others. And, if you look
at the civilized tone of my posts, especially compared to the vitriolic
remarks made by others, I believe you'll find your rather heavy-handed
attempt at psychoanalysis a bit misdirected.
Your actions fit my definition of "complaining".
The vitriol is cased by people having seen threads like this one too
many times before:
1. Person appear out of nowhere.
2. Person posts a question that's offtopic.
3. Person is told that it's offtopic (and often told where it would be on
topic)
4. Person starts complaining that he should be allowed to post it, instead
of taking the advice and look for answers elsewhere.
The redirections may seem rough, but beeing polite is hard when a person
obviously hasn't followed usual usenet etiquette by:
1. Reading the faq, which would let him know what is on topic
2. Reading the group, to see what the group is about, which would probably
make him aware of what is on topic, and what to expect if he's posting
offtopic.
And if you read some of the rest of the group you may notice that the
"style" of the group isn't to sugercoat anything. If a posted piece of
code has a flaw people don't say "That may not work as you expected" they
say "That's wrong", and if they're in a good mood they tell why it's
wrong. The same style shines through in the redirects. CLC is about
accuracy and correctness, and packing the message in politeness detracts
from accuracy.
