From: David Litchman <Davel23_at_rcn.com>
Date: Tue, 15 Jun 2004 10:30:11 -0400

At 02:33 PM 6/15/2004 +0100, you wrote:
>Hi guys,
>
>I'd like to make a few points here if I could.
>
>1. Please believe that I'm not defending someone whose rood, or
>vulgar. There's no need for it, though I've seen the F word in a post
>or 2 in the past, and wouldn't consider it beyond the realms of
>possibility that I might use it myself. I think that freedom of
>expression is more important than vulgarity. Some people's limited
>vocabulary means that they have limited ways of expressing themselves,
>and therefore normal rules don't necessarily appertain.

I disagree. This is someone who is coming to us looking for help with some
VERY basic operations. I have no problem helping people with procedures
which to most of us are blatantly obvious, but when the person being helped
not only cannot understand what he's being told, and then takes an attitude
that his incompetence is our fault, well that's just being impolite. This
person has somehow gotten the idea that we are here to serve him, and
throws a tantrum when things don't turn out the way he wants. That's not
freedom of expression, that's just plain arrogance.


>2. I'd hate to think we were banning someone for the non-sin of not
>being particularly articulate, or for whom spelling and punctuation is
>a problem. I'm not the world's greatest speller myself, and I'd hate
>to have my punctuation put under the microscope: I also have very mild
>dyslexia.

If he was being banned for being inarticulate, he would have been gone
after his first post. He has demonstrated a repeated lack of basic list
etiquette, and yet has been given more than a few chances by many of the
regulars on the list. And what has come of it? "hey blow me."
[sic]. Frankly, if that's not a bannable offense, I don't know what is.


>3. Some people don't find it easy to follow instructions, had it not
>been for Aman's amazingly good instructions for installing rb and
>getting it talking, I doubt my own ability to have got it working.

Again, it's not an issue of his inability to follow instructions, it's his
attitude that his complete lack of ability to follow instructions is our
fault, and that he has no responsibility to make any effort to help himself
in this situation. He has clearly been handed everything in life by his
parents, and now wants us to be his mommy and daddy and make Rockbox work
for him. Sorry, real life don't work that way, and neither does this
mailing list.


>4. I submitted a request a couple of days ago for help with flashing
>my players, and explained that I couldn't understand the instructions
>in the manual. There was no implied criticism of the manual there,
>merely my lack of ability.

Yes, but you at least made an effort to make yourself understood, rather
than take the attitude that you should be able to post whatever crap you
felt like and have your every whim served by the list.

>5. I'm not a developer either, I'm an inexperienced and incompetent
>user. I need help, and although I don't dispute for a moment that the
>list may be primarily for developers, I hope it's OK for users to be
>here and ask questions too. I wonder if it was a developer who came
>up with the idea of having rockbox speak, or whether it was as a
>result of a suggestion from another user, whether visually impaired or
>not. I understood that this was the general discussion list for all
>things pertaining to rockbox, hence why I joined.

Once again, entirely a matter of attitude. No one who works on Rockbox
makes any money from it, it's a labor of love. That means that users do
not have any inalienable right to help with using it, as they might if they
paid something for it. So when you're looking for something for free, it
generally pays to polite. If you're not, then the best you can expect is
nothing in return, the worst you can expect (at least where this list is
concerned) is to be banned. Which is kind of a shame, something tells me
this kid could use a good spanking.


>6. Again I'd say that there's no excuse for insulting other members,
>for being rude to each other, and for any vulgarity that doesn't
>clearly arise from a lack of communication ability. I just want to
>sound a note of caution to the calls for a ban.

This is not a first amendment issue we're debating here, it's whether or
not a spoiled brat has the right to act like a smug jackass on an
otherwise-mostly-cordial mailing list.


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Received on 2004-06-15