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In defense of civility

by Russ (Deacon)
on Jun 23, 2000 at 08:58 UTC ( [id://19549]=monkdiscuss: print w/replies, xml ) Need Help??

(Counterpoint to In defense of criticism by jjhorner)

A lot of newer (and not so newer) monks seem to be suppressing their empathy when giving criticism in this site.

Lately, a lot of posts have been made which are too close to insulting and brusque than I, and many others (I believe), believe warranted.

Everyone, please, take a moment to consider how your response will be interpreted. Don't be only negative because you know the author is wrong, or has forgotten some important (at least to you) element, or has chosen a particular method. Your response may not be (and is usually not) meant to inflame. But, be sure you make valid points that may be helpful.

In short, don't forget the people, with real feelings, who wrote that code you are about to criticize. Don't forget the struggle to attain real programming skill, and the enthusiasm they probably had when posting this new thing just discovered. Make your criticism meaningful, not uselessly negative,

Russ

Replies are listed 'Best First'.
RE: In defense of civility
by jjhorner (Hermit) on Jun 23, 2000 at 16:52 UTC

    Every coin has two sides. I believe that for our community to work as expected, we should thicken our skins to criticism, AND soften our hearts to those seeking knowledge.

    As mdillon will tell you, I'm a big fan of pointing out that joining a society involves some loss of personal freedom, whether that freedom be in the manner/tone with which we express ourselves, in our ability to walk where we want, in our ability to do what we want, or in our ability to enjoy what we want.

    The key to living in a society is in the way in which we choose which of our freedoms to suppress. If a society requests that you give up a freedom you hold dear, perhaps you shouldn't be a member of that society. If Perl Monks asks that you give up yelling, or cursing, and you hold those freedoms dear, perhaps you should reevaluate your membership of this community.

    At this point, all we ask is that you behave civilly toward your fellow monks (or nuns, as the case may be). I don't want to become the moral voice for this group (I'm woefully underqualified), so let's all police ourselves.

    J. J. Horner
    Linux, Perl, Apache, Stronghold, Unix
    jhorner@knoxlug.org http://www.knoxlug.org/
    
RE: In defense of civility
by flyfishin (Monk) on Jun 24, 2000 at 00:18 UTC
    Nicely put. I wish I could give it all my votes for the day. If you do feel that someone's post is based on laziness or stupidity or some lacking trait then simply post a link to the appropriate perldoc. Heck, most posts could use a link to perldocs, that way some of us can learn more about what's in the perldocs or simply have our memory refreshed. If someone gets enough posts that point them to perldocs then they might get the idea that they should do a little more research before posting, myself included. I don't mean to imply that all posts deserve a simple RTFM reply with a link. Obviously some posts deserve more attention than that.

    UPDATE
    Does this include vnpandey too? :)
(zdog) RE: In defense of civility
by zdog (Priest) on Jun 26, 2000 at 10:21 UTC
    Right on! People should critique and not critisize what someone else writes. The person should attempt to correct the person rather than make them feel bad for making a mistake. After all, isn't that what we learn from?

    However, if a person attempts to correct someone and suggest improvements to let's say code, then the person receiving the critique should learn to not take it as an insult but rather thank the person for taking the time to help make their code better.

    -- zdog (Zenon Zabinski)
       Go Bells!! '¿'

RE: In defense of civility
by Russ (Deacon) on Jun 23, 2000 at 09:11 UTC
RE: In defense of civility
by BigJoe (Curate) on Jun 25, 2000 at 23:29 UTC
    I have been very lucky in this sense. I have noticed that there has been some replys to posts that just say your doing it wrong. I really appriciated when I posted some of my code and KM warned me of security problems and such with them and KM also have me a place to start looking for the answer. KM also gave me some tips that I use all the time now.

    --BigJoe

    There are a lot more people that have helped me out here that I should be thanking but my post would go on forever.

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