KCLUG?!?!?!

[Aaron Norton]

Just to clear everyone up a little. I was never flaming the person that
built the site. If in fact he is a newbie, then I think he deserves a round
of applause for his efforts.

I was questioning the KCLUG group as a whole. Someone should have stepped
forward and said "Hey, I see you built our website using frontpage. How
about I show you how to use another product so we are not advocating
Microsoft."

I was not part of this group at that time or I would have offered some
assistance. I am not an artist and am horrible at design, but I can do the
code if someone tells me what they want.

I'm sure someone is thinking "OK so why don't you go ahead and fix it since
you are the person that started this whole thing anyway?" The reason I will
not is because after this thread is over I will probably unsubscribe from
your mailing list. If nobody will help a newbie build the website that is to
represent your group, how good can your meetings be.

I would rather drive 1 1/2 hours to go to a meeting where people help each
other out.

In conclusion, if you want to say I was flaming anyone, say I was flaming
the group as a whole. I would never flame a newbie for putting forth the
effort that other members of this group would not.

------Original Message------
From: Sam Clippinger <samc at silence.org>
To: kclug at kclug.org
Sent: January 18, 2000 8:56:20 PM GMT
Subject: Re: kclug - KCLUG?!?!?!

When last we left our heroes, Christofer C. Bell had just said:
> Can someone please spell out to me, in simple language so I can
> understand, how it's "flaming" someone to post a disagreement?

I consider it a "flame" when the disagreement crosses the line into
irrationality.  Statements such as "All Linux CDs should be blue!  Red
sucks!"
provide no meaningful content and are purely inflammatory.  When you can
imagine asking a poster "But why do you think this?" and their answer can
only
be "Umm... Because!", _that_ is a flame.

I also consider it a "flame" when the post is intended to hurt its recipient
on a personal level instead of making them say "Oh, yeah I guess you're
right."
The latter is a rational, intelligent dialog that reaches a logical
conclusion.
The former is simply hate mail.

Conversations, disagreements and even arguments attack the other person's
_position_.  Flames attack the other _person_.

As I stated before, I had no problem with the _content_ of the thread and I
even agreed with the posters.  I took exception, however, to the _language_
that was used.  Consider the following two paragraphs:
"Well, that's a great effort!  Maybe at the next meeting we could sit
down and demonstrate some good Linux HTML editors so that, in the future,
our
pages can be written using them and we won't appear to endorse Microsoft
products." (fictional; did not appear on the mailing list)
"You are supposedly supporting the Open Source Revolution, but you
are using the most closed companies products to achieve this goal." "Repeat
after me: Don't use Microsoft for anything that matters." (nonfiction; two
separate posts contained these quotes)

The first paragraph illustrates a disagreement.  The second illustrates
flames.
Though I'm positive the authors were not angrily typing those words or
feeling
at all militant about their positions, everyone with an email address knows
there is a huge difference between the way words are _intended_ and the way
they
are _received_.  Had those words been directed at me, either in person or in
email, I would have laughed in agreement and continued on to the next
message.
But because they were intended to tear down the accomplishment of someone
who
had obviously done the best they could, I was offended.

For fairness' sake, consider the following paragraph as well:
"You decide to participate, but the first contribution you make to the
community gets STOMPED ON by some asshole who has NOTHING BETTER TO DO than
attack your choice of TEXT EDITORS!" "<CLUE LEVEL=100%>" "Why will ANYONE
trust ANYTHING you say if their first impression of you was belittling?"

That last paragraph was also a flame, and a rather hot one at that.  As you
may recall, I wrote those words.  The fact that a few others appeared to
agree
with my words didn't make them right, it just made them popular.  I'm not
apologizing; I'm pointing out that I realized what I was doing as I typed
that.
It was a strong response to a couple of mildly-harsh statements, but as I
stated
at the top of the post, my words were intended for every Linux "advocate"
who
thinks the best way to convert Windows users to Linux is to make fun of
them,
berate them and taunt them until they suddenly "see the light".  I read
about
so many of those people on the Linux news sites that my patience with them
is
a little thin.

I hope that helps, though I imagine you still disagree with me. :)

-sam

NOTE: Differentiating between an off-topic post and a rant is left as an
exercise for the reader.

*********************************************
Aaron Norton       Systems Programmer II
Sprint             Network Systems Management
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