No, I'm not! If I was really telling you what you can or cannot do then I would need to have some power over you -- e.g. the ability to revoke your account, abusing authority, etc. However, I have no power or authority over you. Well, maybe I should say that the only power I have over you is that which you give to me. An obvious example of this is when we let a troll get the best of us.

I can only offer advice. Any time it looks like I am telling you what you can or cannot do is as I indicated before: in the context of "if you want to achieve goal Z then you will need to do X and Y" (where "will" is obviously based on my evaluation of the situation).

Please express your design for my "betterment" in terms that mean I do not have to refer everything I write to you for approval before posting.

I think herveus summed things up really well, so lets revisit his post:

My sense, from a number of years of experience, is that you are prone to being needlessly contentious. You elect confrontational language on slight provocation. You do normally include substantive technical content, but it's effectiveness is lessened by the static around it.

So, some things to look for:

• Are you attacking the theory/idea/code (good) or the person (bad)?
• How emotionally involved are you (normally a bad thing)?
• Is that post you are about to publish heavy on [potentially] inflammatory content and light on relevant technical details?
• Do you feel like you have to get the last word in? Or that you have to prove you are right?
• Does letting go feel like a huge if not impossible challenge?
• How many levels deep has the thread gone (deeper is usually bad)?

The other thing you can do is brush up on the Netiquette Guidelines. Additionally, the second link I listed is for the online version of Virginia Shea's highly regarded book on Netiquette. Maybe try giving that a once over (or at least hit the summary).

At the end of the day it really comes down to whether you are willing to admit that you do get too emotionally involved in many of these heated debates/discussions and that you want to do something about that. It's certainly not easy -- and you can see that in some of my posts, where I have fought some of the same demons. Letting go can be really, really hard. And admitting it's a problem can be equally hard. One thing that helped me was starting the Do Not Feed the Trolls!!! thread. It's a great reminder of the importance of letting things go and that I do not have to get the last word in! I just wish I could say that I planned it that way!! :-)

As I indicated above, I think there is one technical measure for success that you have at your disposal -- how deep do these heated debate threads go? Try toning things down and just letting things go when you get too emotionally involved and then compare how many levels deep your threads go to the threads that predate any changes. I expect there will be a noticeable difference.

Good luck and best wishes!

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