Re: Most discussion on comp.lang.python is about developing with Python
On Wed, 13 Nov 2013 15:35:56 -0500, bob gailer wrote: > I joined a week or so ago. > > The subject line was copied from the description of comp.lang.python aka > python-list@python.org. > > I am very disappointed to see so much energy and bandwidth going to > conversations that bash individuals. I'm sorry your initial impression is so negative. This Usenet news group, comp.lang.python, is the most civil and helpful news group I've followed in my long career of Usenet reading. Losing that would be sad. Perhaps the appearance of the group changes according to one's method of access. I read comp.lang.python using the slrn news-reading tool, which allows me to skip an entire thread with a single keystroke. Maybe that's what has kept me from noticing so many unpleasant posts. -- To email me, substitute nowhere->spamcop, invalid->net. -- https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: Most discussion on comp.lang.python is about developing with Python
On Wed, 13 Nov 2013 15:35:56 -0500, bob gailer wrote: > I joined a week or so ago. > > The subject line was copied from the description of comp.lang.python aka > python-list@python.org. > > I am very disappointed to see so much energy and bandwidth going to > conversations that bash individuals. > > Is there a moderator for this list? "list"? As you have already noted, the mailing list is bi-directionally gatewayed to a usenet group. The advantage of usenet is that anyone can read or post without having to sign up. That's also its disadvantage. -- https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: Most discussion on comp.lang.python is about developing with Python
Op 14-11-13 00:48, Steven D'Aprano schreef: > On Wed, 13 Nov 2013 15:35:56 -0500, bob gailer wrote: > >> Is there a moderator for this list? > > Sadly no. > > >> Is there some other place for discussions that are completely OT and >> also full of flames? > > Yes, there is private email. Unfortunately private email doesn't give the > culprits the audience that they desire. > >> Or would you be willing to stop the bashing? I don't see that it helps >> anyone, and could be very offputting to other newbies. > > That's what I have been saying for a long time. I believe that whatever > negative effect Nikos the help-vampire is having, it is long ago > overwhelmed by the negative of the anti-Nikos vigilantes. But the spoon feeders refuse to acknowledge their own role in this. > Fortunately, Nikos appears to pay absolutely no attention to any thread > which isn't about him. So if you avoid threads started by him, you'll > miss the worst of it. > > As a community, it is difficult to balance the conflicting needs here. If > we ignore Nikos completely, we appear unfriendly and indifferent to those > asking for help. If we answer his questions, we encourage him to post. It > is hard to find the right balance, if there even is a right balance, and > people can have differing ideas of what that right balance is. This balance is less hard as you seem to think. Anyone who has been in the care sector has probably been in contact with the difference between helping someone and saving someone. The first is trying to empower someone so that he can handle as many situations as posibible himself. The second is that you make the problems of the other person your own problems and you try to solve them for him. The purpose is to help, not to save. And those that try to save generally are not very popular because they effectively sabotage the attempts to help and set the expectations of the client too high. > But it is clear from the last few months that abusive, aggressive posts > don't help anyone -- they don't set a good tone for the group, they put > off newcomers, and they do absolutely nothing to discourage Nikos. Please > consider this a request to the community, ignore Nikos if you like, > answer his questions if you must, but please keep the abusive posts off- > list. They aren't helping. If you care for the community and want to avoid frustrating others as much as possible then don't spoon feed Nikos. It is equally clear from the last few month they don't help anyone either. They frustrate a significant number of members because it encourages Nikos in his destructive behaviour. Continuing to spoon feed Nikos will only make the frustration levels rise until they reach a level where someone will feel the need to vent. So if you can't resist wanting to help. Don't answer or do his work for him. Give him the information he needs to work it out himself, preferably refer him to the documentation. -- Antoon Pardon -- https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: Most discussion on comp.lang.python is about developing with Python
On Thu, 14 Nov 2013 10:29:03 +1100, Chris Angelico wrote: > On Thu, Nov 14, 2013 at 7:35 AM, bob gailer wrote: >> I am very disappointed to see so much energy and bandwidth going to >> conversations that bash individuals. >> >> > I agree, and there've been times when I've been part of the problem > (usually in the form of trying to help Nikos, which results in > stupidity, which leads to anger,. which leads to hate, to suffering, and > to the dark side). Don't forget the cookies! https://i.chzbgr.com/maxW500/4488083200/h464994D9/ -- Steven -- https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: Most discussion on comp.lang.python is about developing with Python
On 13Nov2013 23:48, Steven D'Aprano wrote: > As a community, it is difficult to balance the conflicting needs here. If > we ignore Nikos completely, we appear unfriendly and indifferent to those > asking for help. If we answer his questions, we encourage him to post. It > is hard to find the right balance, if there even is a right balance, and > people can have differing ideas of what that right balance is. For myself, I try to: - reply to interesting questions if I can help - ignore the non-technical content (flames etc) just trim it and ignore it try to set a good example in the reply without berating the flamer - on repeated flamage, try "please don't flame; try to stay technical; etc" but always with some accompanying techincal response - eventually give up and ignore threads or subthreads involving the person hurting my brain I think etiquette criticism that is a small aside in a technical response, if not done frequently, should be useful; it is a bit of push back without derailing the discussion. Etiquette criticism on its own, if on-list, I think derails the discussion and leads more readily to further bickering. And aggressive criticism is even more damaging that criticism alone. Trying not to feed the trolls, -- Cameron Simpson A Newbie: I was not asking the question to start any flames. [...] Nobody has to get to the low levels of argument and be rude to each other. Paul Tsai : Oh yes we do, grasshopper. It's a requisite for rec.moto. One must transcend the infinity of illussions before getting the real techno whiz answers to questions of such profundity as yours. John Stafford : No, he's right. After reading r.m. for a couple of years, I feel capable of being rude to ANYONE at ANY level of argument. In fact the higher they come, the harder they fall. -- https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: Most discussion on comp.lang.python is about developing with Python
On 11/13/2013 6:48 PM, Steven D'Aprano wrote: On Wed, 13 Nov 2013 15:35:56 -0500, bob gailer wrote: Or would you be willing to stop the bashing? I don't see that it helps anyone, and could be very offputting to other newbies. That's what I have been saying for a long time. I believe that whatever negative effect Nikos the help-vampire is having, it is long ago overwhelmed by the negative of the anti-Nikos vigilantes. I agree and privately asked one such vigilante to desist. Fortunately, Nikos appears to pay absolutely no attention to any thread which isn't about him. So if you avoid threads started by him, you'll miss the worst of it. Thunderbird now make this easy with R click, Ignore thread. I do this with non-Python threads and eventually with all that continue too long. So I have no idea how many Nikos threads are currently active other than the one I have not ignored yet. Sometimes ignorance *is* bliss ;-). The last straw for me was a day when half the posts were for various Nikos threads. And perhaps 2/3rds of those were *not* from Nikos. To me, this is way unbalanced. As a community, it is difficult to balance the conflicting needs here. If we ignore Nikos completely, we appear unfriendly and indifferent to those asking for help. I think at this point that off-topic posts should get one and only one answer: "This question is not about Python. Please take it somewhere else." If you see that already posted, move on. If we answer his questions, we encourage him to post. It is hard to find the right balance, if there even is a right balance, and people can have differing ideas of what that right balance is. I think that Python questions, like "How do I complile 3.4a4 on Centos", that might interest others, should get answer or two or three for the benefit of everyone. And then answers should stop unless one has more information to give. No more 'I already answered that'. Sensible people can see that the question was answered, so repeating the obvious adds nothing. But it is clear from the last few months that abusive, aggressive posts don't help anyone -- they don't set a good tone for the group, they put off newcomers, and they do absolutely nothing to discourage Nikos. Please consider this a request to the community, ignore Nikos if you like, answer his questions if you must, but please keep the abusive posts off- list. They aren't helping. I agree and second the request. Thanks for posting this. -- Terry Jan Reedy -- https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: Most discussion on comp.lang.python is about developing with Python
On Thu, 14 Nov 2013 10:47:35 +1000, alex23 wrote: > On 14/11/2013 9:48 AM, Steven D'Aprano wrote: >> I believe that whatever >> negative effect Nikos the help-vampire is having, it is long ago >> overwhelmed by the negative of the anti-Nikos vigilantes. > > I don't know, the anti-Nikos-vigilante vigilantes are beginning to give > them a run for their money, especially when their criticisms are just as > applicable to their own behaviour. Right, because shouting abuse at somebody is completely morally equivalent to not shouting abuse at somebody. I'll try to keep that in mind for the future. -- Steven -- https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: Most discussion on comp.lang.python is about developing with Python
On 11/13/2013 6:27 PM, Rhodri James wrote: On Wed, 13 Nov 2013 22:53:46 -, Terry Reedy wrote: On 11/13/2013 3:35 PM, bob gailer wrote: Is there a moderator for this list? Posts from new addresses go to moderators for spam deletion. There are a couple a day that are discarded. Posts with 'suspicious headers' also get checked. Non-suspicious posts from known people (perhaps 90%) do not get checked. We have not yet gotten into 'censorship' of trolling and flaming. I would prefer not being forced into considering it. This is true of python-list. comp.lang.python the Usenet newsgroup is not moderated. God alone knows what Googlegroups thinks it's doing. On 11/13/2013 6:50 PM, Steven D'Aprano wrote:> On Wed, 13 Nov 2013 1 > Terry, perhaps you are referring to the pyt...@python.org mailing list. Yes, I took 'list' to mean 'mailing list', not 'newsgroup'. > But this is also a newsgroup, Two newsgroups, comp.lang.python and gmane.comp.python.general, and (indirectly, I believe) a googlegroup. > and I believe that there is no moderator on that. No, not on any of them. However, as near as I can tell, gmane sends posts to python-list first and only displays and archives posts that go out to the list (and back to gmane, if they originate there, like this one). Gmane also has a spam filter and after-the-fact spam reporting. People on c.l.p and py g.g. benefit from filtering of spam originally sent to the list or gmane. About half of it originates from gmail acounts but I do not know (and have not checked) whether gmail posts come directly or via gg. -- Terry Jan Reedy -- https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: Most discussion on comp.lang.python is about developing with Python
On Thu, Nov 14, 2013 at 11:41 AM, Rick Johnson wrote: > "POWER CORRUPTS: ABSOLUTE POWER CORRUPTS ABSOLUTELY." http://xkcd.com/643/ ChrisA -- https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: Most discussion on comp.lang.python is about developing with Python
On 14/11/2013 9:48 AM, Steven D'Aprano wrote: I believe that whatever negative effect Nikos the help-vampire is having, it is long ago overwhelmed by the negative of the anti-Nikos vigilantes. I don't know, the anti-Nikos-vigilante vigilantes are beginning to give them a run for their money, especially when their criticisms are just as applicable to their own behaviour. -- https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: Most discussion on comp.lang.python is about developing with Python
Hello Bob, I understand your concern but you need to realize there is not much that can (or should) be done *IF* we want to live in societies that are free from oppression. The minute we start drawing lines in the sand and punishing people for exercising their freedom of speech, is when we start living under Fascism -- and trust me friend; trolls, spammers and flamers are nothing compared to overzealous nanny police forcing other people to live by rules they refuse to live by themselves. Is Bloomberg ringing a bell[*] WHERE DO WE DRAW THE LINE? You cannot create social rules in ANY society that do not infringe upon the personal freedom of others. We ALL have a right to express ourselves. HOWEVER, when we live in a free society we must accept that some people will be annoying; some will be rude; some will be friendly; some will be hostile; or any number of unpleasing emotional states. Learning to "tune out" what we find offensive and "tune in" what we find pleasing (or interesting) is part of being a member of any free society. SOMETIMES, YOU JUST GOTTA PUT YOUR "BIG BOY" PANTS ON. One aspect about online forums (unlike real life) is that you can avoid people (or opinions) you find offensive simply by choosing not to read their words. But, at the end of the day, ask yourself: "What can a troll, a flamer, or a spammer do to me anyway?" Answer is: only that which you allow them to do. Then ask yourself: "What could the gestapo[**] do to me?" "POWER CORRUPTS: ABSOLUTE POWER CORRUPTS ABSOLUTELY." PS: Funny thing about threads requesting "group moderation"... they have a tendency to digress into flame wars -- ain't life a beach? [*] That sanctimonious prick! [**] Does "gestapo" qualify as evoking Godwins Law? -- https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: Most discussion on comp.lang.python is about developing with Python
On Thursday, November 14, 2013 3:35:56 AM UTC+7, bob gailer wrote: > I joined a week or so ago. > > > > The subject line was copied from the description of comp.lang.python aka > > python-list@python.org. > > > > I am very disappointed to see so much energy and bandwidth going to > > conversations that bash individuals. > > > > Is there a moderator for this list? > > > > Is there some other place for discussions that are completely OT and > > also full of flames? > > > > Or would you be willing to stop the bashing? I don't see that it helps > > anyone, and could be very offputting to other newbies. > > > > I hope and pray that there will be a few simple answers. The last thing > > I want is to start another flame war. > > > > Thanks for hearing me. > > > > -- > > Bob Gailer > > 919-636-4239 > > Chapel Hill NC I just changed my profile to turn off email updates from this list. Too many posts were in response to the blatant troll postings. If I never get another comp.lang.python post in my mailbox it will be too soon. -- https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: Most discussion on comp.lang.python is about developing with Python
bob gailer writes: > I joined a week or so ago. Welcome! Please feel free to start a new thread of dicussion about the Python programming language. > I am very disappointed to see so much energy and bandwidth going to > conversations that bash individuals. As am I. Let's talk about Python more. Go for it! Start a new thread with an idea or question related to Python programming. -- \ “I hope if dogs ever take over the world, and they chose a | `\king, they don't just go by size, because I bet there are some | _o__) Chihuahuas with some good ideas.” —Jack Handey | Ben Finney -- https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: Most discussion on comp.lang.python is about developing with Python
On Wed, 13 Nov 2013 17:53:46 -0500, Terry Reedy wrote: >> Is there a moderator for this list? > > Posts from new addresses go to moderators for spam deletion. There are a > couple a day that are discarded. Posts with 'suspicious headers' also > get checked. Non-suspicious posts from known people (perhaps 90%) do not > get checked. We have not yet gotten into 'censorship' of trolling and > flaming. I would prefer not being forced into considering it. Terry, perhaps you are referring to the pyt...@python.org mailing list. But this is also a newsgroup, and I believe that there is no moderator on that. -- Steven -- https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: Most discussion on comp.lang.python is about developing with Python
On Wed, 13 Nov 2013 15:35:56 -0500, bob gailer wrote: > Is there a moderator for this list? Sadly no. > Is there some other place for discussions that are completely OT and > also full of flames? Yes, there is private email. Unfortunately private email doesn't give the culprits the audience that they desire. > Or would you be willing to stop the bashing? I don't see that it helps > anyone, and could be very offputting to other newbies. That's what I have been saying for a long time. I believe that whatever negative effect Nikos the help-vampire is having, it is long ago overwhelmed by the negative of the anti-Nikos vigilantes. Fortunately, Nikos appears to pay absolutely no attention to any thread which isn't about him. So if you avoid threads started by him, you'll miss the worst of it. As a community, it is difficult to balance the conflicting needs here. If we ignore Nikos completely, we appear unfriendly and indifferent to those asking for help. If we answer his questions, we encourage him to post. It is hard to find the right balance, if there even is a right balance, and people can have differing ideas of what that right balance is. But it is clear from the last few months that abusive, aggressive posts don't help anyone -- they don't set a good tone for the group, they put off newcomers, and they do absolutely nothing to discourage Nikos. Please consider this a request to the community, ignore Nikos if you like, answer his questions if you must, but please keep the abusive posts off- list. They aren't helping. -- Steven -- https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: Most discussion on comp.lang.python is about developing with Python
On Wed, 13 Nov 2013 22:53:46 -, Terry Reedy wrote: On 11/13/2013 3:35 PM, bob gailer wrote: Is there a moderator for this list? Posts from new addresses go to moderators for spam deletion. There are a couple a day that are discarded. Posts with 'suspicious headers' also get checked. Non-suspicious posts from known people (perhaps 90%) do not get checked. We have not yet gotten into 'censorship' of trolling and flaming. I would prefer not being forced into considering it. This is true of python-list. comp.lang.python the Usenet newsgroup is not moderated. God alone knows what Googlegroups thinks it's doing. -- Rhodri James *-* Wildebeest Herder to the Masses -- https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: Most discussion on comp.lang.python is about developing with Python
On Thu, Nov 14, 2013 at 7:35 AM, bob gailer wrote: > I am very disappointed to see so much energy and bandwidth going to > conversations that bash individuals. > I agree, and there've been times when I've been part of the problem (usually in the form of trying to help Nikos, which results in stupidity, which leads to anger,. which leads to hate, to suffering, and to the dark side). Fortunately, it's periodic - like a pendulum, the mass of posts swings around now and then. Some days it's all about Nikos, other days we're a lot more productive... sometimes we spend a day rambling on some off-topic but interesting point, but it always comes back to Python. ChrisA -- https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: Most discussion on comp.lang.python is about developing with Python
On 11/13/2013 3:35 PM, bob gailer wrote: I am very disappointed to see so much energy and bandwidth going to conversations that bash individuals. Me too. Is there a moderator for this list? Posts from new addresses go to moderators for spam deletion. There are a couple a day that are discarded. Posts with 'suspicious headers' also get checked. Non-suspicious posts from known people (perhaps 90%) do not get checked. We have not yet gotten into 'censorship' of trolling and flaming. I would prefer not being forced into considering it. Or would you be willing to stop the bashing? I don't see that it helps anyone, and could be very offputting to other newbies. I wish a few more old-timers would consider the effect of their posts on newcomers. -- Terry Jan Reedy -- https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Most discussion on comp.lang.python is about developing with Python
I joined a week or so ago. The subject line was copied from the description of comp.lang.python aka python-list@python.org. I am very disappointed to see so much energy and bandwidth going to conversations that bash individuals. Is there a moderator for this list? Is there some other place for discussions that are completely OT and also full of flames? Or would you be willing to stop the bashing? I don't see that it helps anyone, and could be very offputting to other newbies. I hope and pray that there will be a few simple answers. The last thing I want is to start another flame war. Thanks for hearing me. -- Bob Gailer 919-636-4239 Chapel Hill NC -- https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
