On 08/21/2013 11:13 PM, Barry Leiba wrote: > The general point is that the new people whom we want > to draw in as productive participants will be watching how we treat > each other and deciding whether they want to wade into that pool.
Yes, that is a factor that merits attention. But not the only nor an always-overriding one. For example brevity matters, technical correctness wins, humour is important and can be cruel. I can't myself think of a good justification for sarcasm, (well, maybe [1]:-) but I can understand that sometimes people make mistakes. And sometimes the same people make the same mistakes many times. We're not here to make them better though. Calling 'em on it is a good way to handle it I think. Generalising to the point where we are all expected to be politically correct clones would not. (Yes, I'm exaggerating what you're saying there:-) S. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Father_Ted_characters and search for sarcastic:-)
