Re: [PATCH] Documentation/CommunityGuidelines

[Michael Haggerty <mhagger@alum.mit.edu>]

On 06/11/2013 08:16 PM, Ramkumar Ramachandra wrote:
> This is an exercise.  I can easily be more tactful (as evidenced by
> other threads), but I'm choosing not to be.  I want you to focus on
> the argument, and not the tone.

I stopped reading your email here.  I've read enough tactless emails
over the last few days, but to be asked to read an email that was
*intentionally* written tactlessly is too detrimental to my quality of life.

In German there is an expression "Der Ton macht die Musik": "the tone
makes the music", by which they mean that the *way* something is said is
at least as important as what is said.  The tone *is* an integral part
of the message and (1) the writer will be much more effective by making
the tone agree with the literal words of the message and (2) for this
particular reader, the effort of accommodating writers who are unwilling
to do so has become too exhausting.

I naively thought that I might be able to help calm the situation, but I
have concluded that nothing I can say or do will have that effect.
Therefore I bow out of this part of the conversation and hope either
that it will fizzle out or that perhaps a deus ex machina will appear.

Michael

-- 
Michael Haggerty
mhagger@alum.mit.edu
http://softwareswirl.blogspot.com/