[wplug] Trivialities... Re: A gentle reminder on posting etiquette

[Jonathan Billings]

Brian Sammon wrote:
>> And that's why it's now part of the standard set of announcements that
>> are made before every meeting.  Yes, it's a little sad that one troll
>> made us do this, but that's what happens sometimes.
> 
> Am I reading this correctly?  After a long discussion about figuring out why 
> people don't come to WPLUG anymore, Ian drops by to explain why he stopped 
> going to WPLUG anymore, and he gets called a troll for his troubles?
> 
> I hate to think that this may have just confirmed his suspicions about us.

Oooh, don't you love how you can misread a message, and turn it into a 
personal attack?

At CMU, we had this unofficial policy called the RPP, the "Reasonable 
Person Policy", which translates into, "Be a reasonable person, and 
assume others are reasonable too."  I tend to use this as a personal 
philosophy when working with others.

Now, had I wondered the same thing that Brian had, I would have thought 
to myself, "Why would Patrick call a poster a troll?  I believe Patrick 
is a Reasonable person.  How could he possibly think this would improve 
the poster's opinion of the meetings, and of the group as a whole?"

People aren't always reasonable, but at least I hope that they try to 
get their ideas in order before posting them publicly to the mailing 
list.  So, at least in my mind, I'm interpreting Patrick's message as 
referring to the troll in the "Internet definition", someone who is 
disruptive or provocative.  This is a good description of someone who 
disrupted WPLUG meetings by answering phone calls during talks, and 
provoked a response from the general attendance.

-- 
Jonathan Billings <billings at negate.org>