From: Michael M. Butler (butler@comp-lib.org)
Date: Sun Apr 21 2002 - 21:05:48 MDT
Eugene> Here we see more twitter. The idiotic gateway from the
SuperDuperMarkUp
Eugene> feels it's necessary to mask apostrophes in plain text rendition of
the
Eugene> markup.
David> The "idiotic gateway" is still under development. I've fixed the bug so
now
David> quotes will not be escaped when messages are sent out to the list.
David>
David> I'm extremely disappointed that Eugen has chosen the Extropian mailing
list
David> to insult and belittle another online community and their chosen style
of
David> communication. Especially a community that shares many goals, values
and
David> members, not to mention webserver and disk space, with the Extropians.
If
David> anyone else shares my disappointment please speak up.
I'll invite myself since I don't fit into the category you describe and don't
feel like being excluded. That is to say, I don't share your disappointment
(though I understand it; see below), and decline to be selected-out, but
thanks for the offer.
Strong language deprecating a technology is not the same thing as strong
language deprecating a person or persons. Or so it seems to me. "The idiotic
gateway" maps to "the silly 'bot" in my brain, not to "the gateway used only
by idiots". I agree that the word "idiotic" might be apt to push some peoples'
buttons. If I were doing QA on a project, I'd probably avoid using such
terminology in a bug report. So I understand your reaction: Clearly, anyone
who has spent considerable time developing the technology and trying to
promote its use might have a hard time maintaining that distinction, with
resultant umbrage; and I know that I've had similar problems in my own past.
When I remember to take time off before replying, I can sometimes improve my
aim, focus on substative matters and ignore backbiting (if that's what it is).
As my .sig says, sometimes I forget.
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