politeness

[Bart Silverstrim]

Rafael Barreto wrote:
> I am surprised about how umpolite and rude some answers can be.
> Sometimes I don't dare ask a question or express an opinion fearing
> that somebody can ridicule me or treat me in such a rude way as Mark
> Haney, the latin man, treated Karl. Great culture and little
> education. Mark, I recommend you to read "How to Win Friends and
> Influence People" by Dale Carnegie. Raf.

After many years and many lists, I've learned a few things about people 
with anonymity as a weapon online.
A) the Internet is a great way to find out what people are really like. 
Often, they're just dickheads.
B) lecturing faceless identities online won't change them.
C) You need to grow a thick skin; at some point, you're going to be 
insulted. If you can't take that you shouldn't be online participating 
in those groups. You also see this with driving. If you can't stand the 
world where everyone but you can't drive worth a damn, you really 
shouldn't be driving...it's just going to happen.
D) On the Internet people only know you by your writing persona. They 
can't tell a deadpan sarcastic remark. They can't tell if you're 
smiling. "Use smileys!". Not always, as was pointed out on this list 
recently...many sociopaths and a-holes use that as an easy way to cut 
verbally into someone and then back off with a "just kidding!" If your 
writing skills aren't "up to snuff", if you ask questions that you 
didn't bother to put effort into researching at all, if you choose words 
that aren't words and make you look like an ignorant American 
high-schooler "txting" their friends...you're going to get insulted at 
some point and/or treated like you're a moron at some point. It seems 
inevitable.
E) The Internet forums relating to Linux are populated by various geeks. 
Geeks, as if possessing a social disorder of some kind, will judge you 
not by color, not by social class, but by perceived intelligence. More 
often then not if you're not coming across as a newbie who is try to 
learn, you will be treated in a condescending manner at some point and 
geeks can get nasty about it. It's almost as if they feel treated like 
dirt most of the time in other aspects of life means they get an outlet 
to treat people online as dirt because it's one of the few places where 
they do, truly, have superior skills over those that step on them in the 
real world.

These are just my observations. I've had people make absolutely no sense 
  going off on me for some perceived slight, and when I tried to make 
amends they didn't feel any need to reconcile. That's fine, they're 
jerks. I've seen people carry on threads complaining about how long the 
threads are pointlessly dragging on...and they post to it to say so. Huh?

I've seen people baiting each other to get responses from them, people 
pop in specifically to be a nuisance, people become whipping boy for the 
forums and lists for awhile until they eventually grow silent and 
someone else wrestles away the crown.

I've also seen people like NoOp on this list make a hobby of solving 
people's problems with laser focus and bulldog persistence...does he 
have a day job? He and several other regulars work hard to help 
experienced and new alike figure out how to solve problems and people 
like them are the reason these lists keep alive despite the jerks, 
drive-by requests for help where you never see them again, and various 
other malcontents.

In other words...there's going to be impolite jerks and there's really 
nothing that can be done about them without killing the list.