Xah Lee, 2007-03-29
(The following article is originally cross-posted on 2007-04-16 to the folowing newsgroups: comp.lang.perl.misc, comp.lang.python, comp.lang.lisp, comp.lang.java.programmer, comp.lang.functional.)
Dear tech geekers,
In a couple of posts in the past year i have crossed-posted (e.g. recently What are OOP's Jargons and Complexities, Is laziness a programer's virtue?, On Java's Interface (the meaning of interface in computer programing), there are a some controversy, and lots of off-topic and careless follow ups.
I think a few things today's tech geekers should remind themselves:
• If you deem something off-topic to “your” newsgroup, and want to tech-geek by changing the “follow-up group”, start with yourself. Please do not cross-post yourself, and tweak the follow-up, and proudly proclaim that you changed the follow-up as a benign gesture.
• Please remind yourself what is on-topic and off-topic. Unless you are the auhority of a online forum, otherwise, Meta-talk, and policing, are off-topic in general, and only tends to worsen the forum's quality. This issue is cleared up in online communications as early as early 1990s.
• The facility of cross-posting is a good thing as a progress of communication technology, and the action of cross-posting is a good thing with respect to communication. What the common tech-geekers's sensitivity to cross-posting are due to this collective's lack of understanding of social aspects of communication. Cross-posting isn't a problem. The problem is the power-struggling male nature and defensiveness in propergating the tongues of a tech geeker's own.
Tech-geeker's behavior towards cross-posting over the years did nothing to enhance the content quality of newsgroups, but engendered among computing language factions incommunicado, and aided in the proliferation of unnecessary re-invention (e.g. the likes of Perl, PHP, Python, Ruby that are essentially the same) and stagnation (e.g. the lisp camp with their above-it attitude).
If you are a programer of X and is learning Y or wondering about Y, please do cross-post it. If your article is relevant to X, Y, and Z, please cross post it. If you are really anti-cross-posting, please use a online forum that is more specialized with controlled communication, such as mailing lists, developer's blogs, and website-based forums.
I hope that the computing newsgroups will revive to its ancient nature of verdant cross communication of quality content, as opposed to today's rampant messages focused on politics, mutual sneering, closed-mindedness, and careless postings.
References:
Netiquette Guidelines, 1995, by S Hambridge. (RFC 1855) http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc1855
PS Yes, you are a motherfucking FUCK.
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