On 9/23/2012 9:20 AM, Christofer C. Bell wrote: > Stan, I feel your question is sincere and I will answer it sincerely. > Below is your original post, quoted in its entirety:
I'm going to snip a lot and try to respond to specific points as we've taken up so much list space with this tread already. > This post is perfectly fine with 2 exceptions: > > "This may be a bit harsh, but it's the glaring truth: your employer > should fire you and hire someone qualified to do your job." This is called hyperbole, here prompted by incredulity. This is colorful, creative clue batting, and yes, harsh. I'm obviously not calling on his employer, whoever that is, to fire him. > "You are either: > > 1. Horribly lazy > 2. Incompetent" Again, clue batting/head lopping. One or both of these is likely true, simply based on the information he gave, and the fact he asked the question here > You even appropriately expressed your frustration in another way in > your post. "The answer you seek is only one click deep from the > Debian home page, under the 'Support' heading on the right side of the > page." And note my frustration wasn't with answering the question. I always give people the answer (usually in far too much detail) and usually without the hyperbole and cluebatting. My frustration was with the fact that, again, someone of the OP's apparent caliber, based on the caliber of the system being used, should have been able to easily find the answer. It's not necessary to live and breath this stuff as I do in order to find such answers, without resorting to a mailing list. > The only thing you can conclude > from his question is that he didn't know the difference between amd64 > and ia64. That's it. You can draw no other conclusions about his > experience, knowledge, or intentions. Well, I did. Maybe I just key on subtleties that others don't. Note two critical words in the last line of the OP's post. On 9/20/2012 2:44 AM, Mauro wrote: > Hello. > I have a HP proliant DL580 G5 server with 4 Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU E7330 > @ 2.40GHz processors. > What architecture port I've to install, IA64 or AMD64? > If the OP doesn't know to look for the word "Ports" > or "Architectures" on the front page then it's not outside the bounds > of reason that he'd not find the answer, on his own, to the question > he asked here. He knew which words. See above. > You made the unreasonable (in my opinion) assumption that the OP is an > idiot. I didn't make this assumption. I didn't use the word "idiot". I said he was lazy or incompetent. Incompetency is not equal to idiocy: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idiot http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Competence_%28human_resources%29 > There is no factual ground in the OP's original (or any > subsequent) post to conclude that he is, in fact, an idiot. If I agree. See above. > someone comes onto this list being a jerk in their original post then > I have no issue with folks like you taking them to task. While I > don't think this list should be a free for all full of flames, I don't > feel it at all inappropriate to tell those to take a piss on everyone > to piss off. (I love those for whom their post opens with "Debian > sucks! The sound doesn't work! PulseAudio! Lennart! Lennart! > Lennart! Debian sucks!" and then go on to ask "can someone help me > get PulseAudio working?") What I take exception to are instances > where someone asks an innocent and reasonable question (and for me the > bar here is *very* low) and then someone comes along and hits them > with both barrels. I ignore all those posts. The *ONLY REASON* I replied to the OP's post is because he stated he has a quad socket DL580 w/quad core CPUs. "Large" systems are one of my areas of expertise. When I saw the question attached to this box I "went ballistic". I've already stated why. Everyone I know, or have ever known, that has worked on such hardware, already knows this stuff. And if not could easily find it. Which is the reason behind the lazy/incompetent remarks. > To be honest, it wasn't even your post that motivated me to comment. > I generally let one-offs like that slide. I just don't care enough. > What incenses me, however, is that when you're called on it, you take > neither of the most sensible courses of action: 1. apologize or 2. > shut up. If I felt I'd done something "wrong" I'd have apologized. If only a couple of people had attacked me/my post, I'd have not responded. When a half dozen or more attacked, I defended. Simple as that. To say nothing at that point is tantamount to admitting fault--"ducking". > You took door number 3. vociferously defend your initial > attack and complain that you're the victim. I *never* claimed I was a "victim". Quite the opposite. Stating that the Lilliputians are gang tackling me drives that point home. Have you read Gulliver's Travels? Tens of thousands of Lilliputians could gang tackle Gulliver and he'd simply stand up and brush them off. > When I'm called out for > such anti-social behavior (and I believe everyone's been guilty of it > at one time or another), I generally take door number 2. Why? > Because when I'm a jerk out of the blue to someone who doesn't deserve > it, I have the good graces to be embarrassed about it when I'm called > out and I prefer to lay low for awhile so my indiscretion can be > forgotten. Sure, if you feel you've made an indiscretion. I guess that makes me a sociopath. ;) > So, there it is. There was nothing in your original post that so > compelled me to go to battle. I read it, thought "ouch, harsh," on > behalf of the person to whom you were responding and then thought > nothing more of it. However, when it became obvious that I wasn't > alone in being offended by it, that others were speaking up and you > were taking door number 3 (as above) then I felt I, too, should let > those people, and you, know that they are not alone in being offended > by the conduct you displayed. Exactly, you "pig piled", i.e. just another "me too" post. And there's nothing necessarily wrong with a *little* pig piling. But when a half dozen people swing the reactive cluebat my way the point is made. When another dozen or two jump on the pile it simply clogs the list with OT, while adding nothing worthwhile. Similar to something like a Gnome vs KDE thread--the first few posts hit all the highlights, then we get another 100 useless me too posts. > You are, Stan, obviously a man possessed of brilliance. I have been > continually impressed by the detailed, insightful, and informative > responses you have provided by way of unpaid volunteer support on this > list. Thank you for the kind words. I don't pitch in here on debian-user as much as I used to. My specialty is kernel space and drivers, storage, filesystems. We don't seem to get quite as many questions on these of late. Or at least it seems that way. Maybe I just haven' been paying close attention lately. > You (I believe) asked me sincerely what my thoughts were/are on > this on-going discussion and why I felt compelled to "contribute" (air > quotes intended) to it. I have answered sincerely, and I hope this > reply to your question is taken in the spirit intended: that of open > communication. I did. And your response was so taken. I appreciate the fact that you, and others, are able to settle back and have a rational discussion after "tempers have flared". I'm direct, often blunt, opinionated, arrogant, and sometimes abrasive. I admit these character "flaws" and make no apologies for them. That's who I am. I guess I was made to counterbalance all of the sugar coating and political correctness afoot in the world these days. ;) I think most people know when I swing the cluebat that I'm not trying to belittle the person on the receiving end, but simply forcefully driving home a point. If I actually intended to hurt someone's feelings I'd reply off list. That makes it personal. And this is exactly why I never do such a thing--because it's *never* personal. I have an incredibly thick skin when it comes to online interaction. I guess my biggest fault, in mailing list context, is not realizing, or simply not considering, that not everyone else does. If anyone needs some virtual grafts I've plenty of layers to spare. ;) -- Stan -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/50613ecd.2020...@hardwarefreak.com
