Jaakko,
Let me see if I can bring clarity to maybe what some of us are thinking.
At least, this is what I'm thinking.
Several of your e-mails have been written as though someone has given you
affront. Yet I personally have been reading all of the e-mails, and I
really didn't see a clear instance where someone offered you an affront.
Now obviously I'm not you and I can't totally share your perceptions, maybe
I skimmed a key section of "that one fatal post," but really I haven't seen
anything that I'd call "belligerent" directed at you. In fact, I seem to
recall one person offering a post with soothing words, to clarify that no
ill intent was meant.
This leads me to hypothesize that maybe you've been having a flame war with
someone in private e-mail. Generally speaking, if a flame war is a
personal problem between two people and has little relevance to other
ongoing public discussions, the Usenet ettiquete is to deal with the matter
in private e-mail. This spares others from having to listen to it, since
it really isn't their business anyways. It also keeps other people from
being sucked in and prevents the whole affair from snowballing into a
disgusting public scene with many bad, hurtful feelings spread all around.
Although this isn't Usenet I think we're all mostly Usenet-bred as far as
ettiquete, which is why I suspect Jordan Crandall suggested that people
take these kinds of issues to private e-mail (if such there are.) I don't
believe Jordan meant to deprive you of your critical voice, but rather to
help you and others out of a possibly unnecessary and counterproductive
situation.
On the other hand, I have only my hypothesis to go on. If my hypothesis
about a private flame war is incorrect, then I think some of us are a bit
baffled about what your motives are. As a critical tactic, do you advocate
yelling "Fight!" in a barroom, just to see who will start throwing punches?
If so, I think you'll find that this crowd is too nonviolent to offer much
of an experiment for you. On the other hand, if you're merely concerned in
the abstract that all voices be heard, whether "crazy" by some definition
or not, I don't think that is a problem in this forum. We're all
listening, we're all responding, we're not terribly judgemental, and I
haven't seen anyone being ushered off the stage.
I sincerely hope you reach peaceful resolution to whatever the problem is.
In this regard we are with you, not against you.
Cheers,
Brandon J. Van Every <vanevery@blarg.net> DEC Commodity Graphics
http://www.blarg.net/~vanevery Windows NT Alpha OpenGL
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The anvil upon which you hammer another's words is as hard or as soft
as you care to make it. Wherein lies insight?
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