You're Right -- It was HARSH

Judy Perry jperryl at ecs.fullerton.edu
Mon Dec 12 21:04:18 EST 2005


Jim,

You're right.  It was waaaay harsh.  I absolutely should NOT have worded
things the way I did.

Richard:

I unequivocably apologize.

All:

It was strident even by my crabbiness standard.  My only defense, if it is
such, is that I find myself increasingly burdened and stressed out by
caring for a disabled former neighbor and her entirely dysfunctional
family (including an ex-husband who lives with her; he has a girlfriend
who, in turn, until rather recently, had a husband...; the 12-y.o.
daughter is flunking all her classes, runs wild, is very selfish and has
serious food issues).  The woman's disability is both mental and physical.
And financial.  Former addicts... whose other 'best friend' just landed in
the hospital for two weeks in a drug and alcohol-induced coma and serious
organ failure.

And, so I find myself at the wee hours end of the day trying to 'relax' by
reading email when I'm entirely annoyed with the world.

So, here is what I was trying to say in  my usually less than elegant way:

I don't think that setting up three or four or five (or ???) more
separate rev-lists is going to change things markedly on the use list.
Sure, the ueber-geeks just want to read clever code solutions and leave
the stupid newbie questions to waste someone _else's_ time and
productivity.  The clueless newbie's don't want to wade through obtuse
coding challenges to figure out how to put a button on a card and they
really don't want to be made to feel stupid.

It's nice to think that we can compartmentalize things neatly so as to
filter out all the stuff we don't want to be bothered with, but I don't
think compartmentalizing communications structures will really accomplish
this.

For instance, nobody (no, not even me!) gets up in the morning thinking,
"Wow!  I wonder what all the other grumpy people are thinking today?
Better go read my 'naughty-stool at rev' mail!"  Similarly, they don't look
at their to-do list and find that #3 is "Go start incredible flamefest
about company Y's business practices."

The things that some find objectionable are nearly always related to:

*The docs/available help material
*Enterprise/professional users versus everybody else.
*Rev's business strategy
*General GUI/computers & ethical/philosophical issues

But I don't recall many that _started out_ that way; more often, they
percolated out of technical/use issues and/or cross-polinated from two or
more such issues.

Look at this thread -- it morphed out of Rev v. Something Else: The Clock
(redux).  Having another mail list wouldn't have prevented it.

Judy
(going back to sit on the naughty stool...)

On Mon, 12 Dec 2005, Jim Ault wrote:

> Well, Judy, all I can say is that this is a bit harsh, and it was a welcome
> relief that Richard posted this URL, and I feel quite appropriate for this
> list.  Now those who watch only this list can choose to add the other list
> or lists.  On my end, the cheering made my wife wonder what was happening.
> Establishing separate lists like this is very good.  Now we have a link to
> use in the future if new subscribers begin such a thread yet again..




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