Re: letter to Tim

Colin Pink (colin@cpink.demon.co.uk)
Fri, 06 Aug 1999 08:34:29 +0100

>Aside from my own reaction, I was commenting under the influence of all
>the people who privately wrote me to ask why things had become so
>unpleasant lately.  Because beneath the casual chat of musicians and movies 
>is an undertow of nastiness -- or a tone resembling nastiness.
>
>>     Boisterousness is not QUITE the same thing as destructiveness.
>>     And laughter at teatime does not ALWAYS lead to tears  
>>     before bedtime.
>
>Indeed.  In this context, the statement makes as much sense to me as 
>any other random series of words, because I was not talking about laughter 
>at teatime.  Rather, I was trying to avoid having people scared away in the
>belief that they'd face public ridicule for making a harmless comment.
>

I couldn't agree with you more Tim.  Virtually every post I've seen from
Scottie has a sneering tone which is unpleasant.  Maybe he thinks he is
being funny but I for one ain't laughing.  His posts come across as a
form of intellectual bullying.  And I detect a distinctly nervous tone
in the posts of those people who reply to his mail along the lines of
'oh your such a funny crabby guy'.  It reminded me a bit of how certain
people would try to pacify the bully in the playground.

Ideally a mail list should be a welcoming place where people can
exchange ideas without being ridiculed.  I've seen other lists
degenerate into places where everyone ends up flaming everyone else and
it gets very ugly and puts people off joining and causes people to
leave.