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Postings from February 2000
This is so insane. Ok, I just joined the p5p list a few days back because I love perl and I'm interested in reading about where it will go in the future. Theoretically I may even have something to contribute. Feel free to flame me for posting before reading for a month, I'm sure someone will but ... This is the most hostile mailing list I've ever been on. I am extremely hesitant to write this because I suspect that someone is going to have a fit at me. I swear that if I didn't know better I would suspect that this list was largely populated by 13-17 year old boys. In fact, it strongly reminds me of my BBS'ing days back in high school. I can't imagine that this hasn't been posted before but let me try to take what is hopefully a novel tack and appeal to people's self-interest. Theoretically, everyone on this list is on it because they really like Perl and they want to see it grow even stronger (if you don't feel this way, you're probably on the wrong list). Let's take that as a given. So given that taken given, you all have a motivation for toning down the hostility. Frankly, the hostility level on this list made me consider unsubscribing within the first day. I can't imagine that I'm the only one who has felt that way and I bet others have acted on this feeling. Many others probably read this list but have vowed never to post for fear of the type of extreme mockery that seems to color a good chunk of the messages to this list. Given that, imagine what you all might have lost in potentially good ideas. I'm sure there are many intelligent, thoughtful people who could make fabulous p5porters who will never ever contribute because of the hostility on the list. They're already lost. Next time you start to post, try this mental exercise: Instead of concentrating on how 'right' you are, think about whether or not your message is likely to scare away someone who might otherwise be useful to you. After all, we'd all like to be lazier and do less work. One of the best ways to do that is to spread the work among a larger body of skilled people. Note that _not_ I'm targeting any one person here. This is a fairly pervasive problem not caused by any one person. If you think I mean you, then I probably do. If you think I don't mean you, you may be right but try and think about it anyway. Don't take it personally. -Dave P.S. I'm sure that all of the men on the list have _very_ big penises and all the women have _very_ big ovaries (is that the equivalent?). There's no need to try to prove it over and over again. /*================== www.urth.org We await the New Sun ==================*/