A New Respect

[Intrepid]

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[g0n]

Intrepid,

I think you and I get along OK in the CB, so in an attempt to provide a reasonably objective contribution and try to smooth over what has become an unfortunate situation, perhaps I could make a couple of comments:

• Yes, there are occasionally what I would consider to be incidents of bad manners on PM. You and I are both guilty of that too; no one is perfect, and there are times when all of us type something into the CB that we then regret.
• There are people on Perlmonks whose manners perhaps generally leave something to be desired. I mention no names. But I have to keep reminding myself that this is essentially a programming site, and technical people are often (in the real world as well as virtually) a little abrupt with each other. Those of us who are prone to take offence at this should try to remember where we are.
• There has been at least one occasion where someone borged you, and I thought at the time it was appropriate. IIRC you were being what I considered to be needlessly personal and voluble in your response to a new user asking questions that are documented in perldoc. That's something that does provoke some disapproval from others in the CB - me included.
• Friendly criticism: you hold strong views, which is perfectly OK, but you do sometimes tend to provoke an argument (also OK - discussion of wide ranging subjects makes the CB interesting) and then express your views in lots of rapidly submitted, substantial blocks of text. Although you may not be aware of it, from this side it conveys the impression of holding forth, or what I would call 'going off on one'.

Not that I want to convey the impression that it's all your own fault. Far from it, there does seem to have developed a 'Intrepids going off on one, lets borg him before he builds up a head of steam' approach. While I have some sympathy with it at times (it can be difficult to get a word in edgeways once you really get going), it does seem to be edging increasingly in the direction of victimisation. For what it's worth, there does appear to be an element of mischievous schoolboy humour in it.

The relationship between you and some of the site grandees does seem to have degenerated into a downward spiral. Many another person would have given up and left the site in that situation, and it's to your credit that you have the strength of character not to have gone off in a huff.

BUT, your response to it does come across as rather more confrontational than is really necessary. In particular, your habit of documenting who you're ignoring on your homenode. Personally, I'm not interested who you are ignoring and why, and I think many others would agree. By documenting this, you are making a pointed public statement of your opinions of particular people, which could be considered rather rude.

It's worth bearing in mind that the way we construct our role in any relationship is through a dynamic, ongoing process of negotiation; we conform to the others expectations to a certain extent, and we help to construct the relationship by contributing a proportion of our own expectations.

For the future I'd like to suggest the following:

Intrepid: I understand your point of view, but continuing to be confrontational will just perpetuate the problem. A few homenode edits might show a willingness to compromise.

power users: While I can see an element of mischevious humour in borging Intrepid when the CB messages from him start to flow thick, fast and strongly opinionated, it is unfair to treat him differently from anyone else - whatever has happened in the past.

[Anonymous Monk]

and it's to your credit that you have the strength of character not to have gone off in a huff

Intrepid was borged for a day. Instead of taking his forced cooling off period from chat, he created cannotsilence and returned to the chatterbox to continue.

it is unfair to treat him differently from anyone else - whatever has happened in the past.

But he is different, as evidenced by this thread. He just won't quit or start over. The purpose of perlmonks is to have fun enjoying perl, not picking pointless fights.

[tirwhan]

-- for this post. While I agree with most of what you said (and, for the record, what I've seen of the proceedings show Intrepid behaving in a rude, utterly childish and irrational manner IMO), the fact that you posted this as AnonyMonk puts it into the realm of sniping and will only serve to further strengthen Intrepid's persecution complex. I thought g0n's post was a good attempt at bridge-building, more forgiving than I would have been but then sometimes you have to do that.

[jZed]

I was hesitant to reply to this, but I think you deserve a direct indication of how I will respond to various behaviours.

If you don't want me to support you getting permanently banned from PerlMonks, then don't keep doing things which violate clearly stated rules such as inventing new user-names when you are borged and publishing CB logs offsite without permission of those quoted.

If you don't want me to support you getting borged, then don't swear at other monks in the CB. (A part of yesterday's log and something that I've personaly witnessed twice previously and that I see you conveniently omitted from your postings.)

If you don't want me to use the CB to criticize your behaviour, then don't insult and berate newcomers for their lack of knowledge of perl or of PerlMonks and don't publish voluminous put-downs of monks you dislike or ignore.

If you want me to respect you, then do as I have seen you do on many occasions - help people with technical questions, give advice to lovelorn monks, send good wishes to fellow monks in bad health or career binds, share interesting tidbits you've garnered in your studies of world culture, throw a bad pun or bon mot into the conversation at the right time ...

Intrepid, somewhere in there is a guy I like and respect, but if you insist on hiding him, you are the one who will have to live with the consequences.

[ysth]

don't keep doing things which violate clearly stated rules such as inventing new user-names when you are borged and

It's not clear to me that there is such a clearly stated rule.

[virtualsue]

Is that the only criticism you have of his comments? I gave jZed a ++ for them, because I think he summarized the situation very well, and in a reasonably humane fashion.

There is a clearly stated rule about creating multiple nicks without consulting the powers that be. The rule says that you don't do that. It's pretty bleeping obvious that if one of the gods IMO correctly removed someone's ability to use a site facility for a period of time, and that person then then creates new accounts in order to flout that restriction, then that person has broken a (clearly stated) site rule. Unless, of course, that person also received permission to create new nicks from the same people who banned him.

[shotgunefx]

I thought you weren't supposed to do it period (ala metaperl)

[Your Mother]

Secondly, the demoralizing aspects of being at Perlmonks are worse than most people experienced even in the least pleasant high school experience many could recount.

No one here at perlmonks ever forced me to show up 7 hours a day 180 days out of the year. Neither has anyone here ever pulled a knife on me, sucker-punched me in the hall, shot a friend of mine, or threatened to fail me for not selling raffle tickets.

You're not winning any converts with this stuff; you're just driving uninvolved parties like myself to look-up the CB instructions for "/ignore" for the first time since I've been here.

[xdg]

I just prefer "/chatteroff".

[friedo]

Dude, it's a website. Relax. Go outside and get some fresh air. It's nothing worth getting this worked up over.

[Anonymous Monk]

Perhaps, to the OP, it is worth getting worked up. Perhaps the OP has some valid points that would better be addressed, rather than trivialized or ignored.

[chromatic]

You have the time and energy to maintain a public list of people you don't like on your homenode with a short essay for almost every one, a list of every time in recent history you have taken offense to how other people treat you, and multiple vague and rambling essays about something or other, and you still wonder why people don't know what to think of you or how to treat you?

May I respectfully suggest you consult a mental health professional neutral and trusted third party? At the risk of performing a long-distance psychological diagnosis, I cannot understand with your thoughts or motivations and believe you might do well to talk them over with someone neutral in person.

Update: rephrased to remove potentially loaded terms.

[eric256]

If you don't want to be called a troll, then don't make personal hate lists (your ignore lists), logs of "bad" behaviour i.e. chat logs, or large ranting posts like this with no basis and worse, no possible good outcome.

You appear to be suffereing from the exact same things that you accuse demerphq and tye of. Ironicaly I seldom find them on the same side of arguments so it greatly amused me that you put them in the same group. This is no defense of them, but i would think you are going to get negative reactions from anyone you publicly put on your hate list, and in addition to that by putting it down in writing like that you make it obvious to everone that you never intend on making amends in any way so why should they be nice to you?

You do your own brand of name calling in this post and your home node and yet that is the very thing you claim to be fighting agianst, did i miss something?

Violence begets violence, hate begets hate.

[Anonymous Monk]

Both of the guys you are criticising have made massive contributions to the site. They are the main admins. They are the main developers. Almost every new feature for the past few years has been coded by one or the other. They are both regularly helpful to people in the CB. And I've never seen them say anything like what I've seen you do:

Intrepid: username removed;, you are one of the lowest fuck-faced scumbags I have ever encountered online - your talking-behind-the -back sliminess and putrescent immature arrogance just cause massive retchation

Which was what caused demerphq to borg you the other day. (Funny how you leave that part out of your rant.) I've regularly witnessed you make rude, offensive, or threatening comments in the CB. You've been known to all out attack people in the CB for misunderstanding something you asked, or giving you an answer you dont feel is correct.

I was lurking when much of the recent events happened. Your characteriation of it just doesn't match what I saw. From what I saw you carried a much bigger responsibility for what happened than you are willing to admit. Which in my eyes makes you a liar.

To me the situation is simple, who is more important for the sites wellbeing? Two guys who regularly contribute their time and skills to the good of everybody or a disruptive offensive liar like you?

IMO the answer is clear. If you can't live within the rules then YOU should go away.

Edit by castaway: username removed.

[spiritway]

It seems that what you're complaining about is that there are cliques here at Perl Monks. That's true. Certain people tend to hang around together, especially on the cb. I've found that almost every time I've made a comment on the cb, I've been ignored. So - I stopped using the cb. It sounds like you're getting borged for some reason, which sucks, but we're all pretty much at the mercy of the people who have that power. Alas, we have "Hobson's choice" - take it or leave it. The value I get from Perl Monks far outweighs the seeming rudeness of some folks on the cb, so I take the good and ignore the bad. Despite its imperfections, PM has so much to offer.

[wazoox]

I asked several times for quick help (not worth a new node) on the CB, and I always got answers, and I also chatted with some about all and nothing and never saw anything special in the CB. Really. Perhaps some timezones are better than others.

[spiritway]

Hi, [id://wazoox]. I believe you - everyone hates me, and they all like you ;-). Who knows what the problem was? Maybe I was coming across as a jerk, or everyone was hung over, or whatever. It could have been the timezones, as you suggest - that particular time might have been for closed cliques, and I was an intruder. It's not that important, really - I just used /chatteroff, and the problem went away. Despite this, Perl Monks has been a great place to be, giving me information, ideas, insights, and even a good laugh now and then from the wry humor people can have here.

[davis]

Patient: "Doctor, it hurts when I stick this spoon in my eye!"

Complaining about the chatterbox is similar to complaining to a TV company that a program that no-one forced you to watch offended you so deeply that you felt compelled to watch to the end so you could absorb the full horror.

You don't get on with (quite) a few members of the chatterbox. The chatterbox is optional. To quote Bill Hicks: "I think I see a way outta this!".

Update Minor semantic fix.

[liverpole]

Inteprid, you acknowledge in your "first letter" that you are overly sensitive, and that is certainly evident from all you've written about your struggles here.  It's true that nobody gets along with everyone; just as it makes the world more interesting that we each have our own personality, so, too, can it be a source of conflict, frustration, and anger.

Might I suggest that you take a short rest from Perlmonks, when you get so worked up about it?  It's not to say you're wrong in all of your opinions, but if it is SUCH a source of hostility for you, perhaps some time away will give you a fresh perspective.

Or another good way to deal with frustrations you have, especially if they anger you to the extent that you feel the need to meticulously record every one of them, might be to step back, take a deep breath or ten, and practice letting go.  It very well could be the "attack" you perceived in one case wasn't meant the way you took it.  Sometimes reacting with overt sensitivity causes your judgement to be biased towards seeing emnity that isn't really present.   And even if you are justified in feeling singled out, isn't sometimes the best way to deal with an attack to simply ignore it, and devote your energies toward more positive, worthwhile pursuits?

[Aristotle]

Why do you abuse yourself so?

[Marza]

Do you do this for attention? Why?

Is this just a continuation of this?

You really need to step away from the computer and go outside and look at that big blue thing up top. You know the thing that has the bright light that rises and lowers every day.

I never saw anyone borged before. Good job!

[pboin]

Intrepid:

I've suggested you take a break and adjust your priorities, so have several other monks. You've even gotten a suggestion to get some neutral counselling. You really should consider taking that advice.

I'm not mocking you, I'm giving you the best advice I can. It appears (to me) that you're borderline obsessed with this stuff. Let it go, persue something that brings you joy for a few days and see what happens...

[acid06]

I don't have much too say about it since I don't usually hang around that much in the chatterbox.

But there was this one where I was overly active, talking about something (which I don't really remember, maybe something YAML related) which sparkled some strong views from many other monks. One of those was Intrepid. He seemed very unreasonable while discussing things and someone private messaged me saying that he was a troll and I should ignore him. I didn't actually understand that by ignoring him, he meant /ignoreing him, but it seemed fairly reasonable to just ignore whatever he was saying about that subject.

I think these demonstrations of unreasonable behaviour is what created this "bad aura" around Intrepid. However, I don't really agree with people making a campaign to "silence" him (i.e. everyone should /ignore him). And I don't really know about this "borging" thing, since I wasn't around when the incident happened (although I don't talk much, I usually read the chatterbox).

Either way, there's something here that some people here seems to not quite understand.
PerlMonks isn't merely a web site. PerlMonks is *the* Perl website.
PerlMonks + some selected mailing lists is pretty much the entirePerl community.

If this guy tries to find a job somewhere PerlMonks aware he might even suffer in the RealWorld(tm) from all of this.

[Anonymous Monk]

Either way, there's something here that some people here seems to not quite understand. PerlMonks isn't merely a web site. PerlMonks is *the* Perl website. PerlMonks + some selected mailing lists is pretty much the entirePerl community.

If this guy tries to find a job somewhere PerlMonks aware he might even suffer in the RealWorld(tm) from all of this.

Then he should stop trying to get the rest of the known universe to cap his ass. I don't think his decision to be principled also means he has to be a fuck about it.

---

Considered by planetscape: Reap: Anonymous troll /vulgar language.
Unconsidered by planetscape: keep (and edit) votes prevented reaping

Considered by frodo72: is it at least possible to edit vulgar words?
Unconsidered by davido: Vote was keep=14, edit=10, reap=3. No mandate. Old node. Future considerations will not be considered.

[Plankton]

<Nelson Muntz Voice> Ha Ha! </Nelson Muntz Voice>

[Anonymous Monk]

You have the ability to be a really nice person. Not just when you want to be, just 'cause you can be. Unfortunately, you don't seem to want to bend for people as they bend for you.

There's no king here. Yeah, there are administrators, but it's not the same. If you feel that making the "bad people" leave will be some sorta success, or "fixing" them will make things better, you got another thing coming.

This place is great 'cause of the people here. Not necessarily people like tye or demerphq, but right down to every single person who's spent more than 5 minutes to pitch in. It's like an orgy potluck. You remove the people, and everything goes down hill. They... we perlmonks. It's not the site. It's the community. You can't easily seperate the two. It's all the wrong suggestions that get corrected, all the innovation, the slapstick, the joy and the pain.

It cannot be bent to a new shape violently without creating a new thing that. It doesn't work that way, when everything here is voluntary.

I've seen the interactions between everyone here. It's almost like the workplace. Yeah, people may not like each other at times, but they don't go around flaming each other or picking fights. Frankly, you get very abrasive with people very quickly and escalate it, more so now than ever. Just let it go. No one goes around flaming you before this entire escalation. There’s no commodity to fight over.

[Joost]

Intrepid,

I haven't been following permonks much in the last months, but in my experience, the chatterbox is the most volatile part of the site. It's where people give quick - and sometimes unwarranted - responses to remarks and questions.

Like it or not, the politeness and thought that is used in most of the postings on this site is concieved by me and probably many others as less important in a chat environment, because the chatbox is fleeting, not archived, prone to sillyness and socializing etc. etc.

Also, keep in mind that since the chatterbox isn't archived, it's very hard for anybody who "wasn't there" to form his or her opinion on behaviour in there.

I'm not sure what you want to achieve with this post. I also , if I'm honest, don't really care who you like or dislike. If people on this site annoy you, ignore them, switch of the chatterbox, whatever. If you want a feature added to the code that would help you do so, propose it. I would probably support it, since I can think of a few people I would like to forget :)

Joost.

[shmem]

Your valuation of respect seems to be quite low, at least looking at you respecting other people. Denouncing other people on your home node as showing

aggravating degrees of cluelessness, ignorant behavior (including the chosing of a deliberately offensive user nickname), repeatedly asking about things without paying attention to the answers they've already been offered, etc

- no matter in what context - isn't respectful behaviour: it's calling them names. Please stop that.