On Mon, Dec 13, 1999 at 10:55:40PM -0500, Thor Lancelot Simon wrote:
> Oh, I don't know, because some of us don't have 40 spare hours per
> week to understand why Greg is so goddamned concerned about *everything*.

Then perhaps it would be appropriate to figure out why that is?

For starters, I'll note that in many of those exchanges there
were more people on each side of the discussion than Greg alone. I'll come
back to that point.

Let me set something straight first - I know Greg from offline. I worked with
him for a bit less than a year in 1993-4. From that, I know that he does have
longstanding unix experience that is worth not ignoring. From that, I know
that he's not a troll, or childish troublemaker - he doesn't speak up in order
to cause trouble, he speaks up because something bothers him.

If Greg's messages turn into flame wars, I reach several conclusions:

The issue must be a significant one. Otherwise, why do people pick up the
topic?
There's some mis-communication going on, otherwise people would either reach a
consensus, or at least agree to disagree.
In this recent one, I think I may have been the only person to 'take Greg's
side', but in previous threads I've seen many people on both sides of an
issue. This tells me that it's not Greg trying to keep a thread going, but
multiple people expressing their opinions - on an issue that perhaps caught
Greg's attention first.

I'd make a guess that part of the issue is in Greg's style of writing. I think
he tries to summarize long discussions and experimentation and distill them
down into 'in my experience' type statements. If others reading this agree,
would the solution be more concrete step-by-step examples - rather than the
more abstract statements?

If one wants to killfile everyone who communicates in a different way than
one does, realize now that there are lots of different ways to present ideas,
and the Internet is a biiiigggg place.

Killfiles are for spammers and maybe people with CAPS LOCK DISEASE - not for
people who disagree with you (in a reasonable way) or communicate differently.

-- 
David Maxwell, david@vex.net|david@maxwell.net -->
(About an Amiga rendering landscapes) It's not thinking, it's being artistic!
					      - Jamie Woods