openprojects python room is ruled by dangerous people

[Martijn Faassen]

Erno Kuusela <erno-news at erno.iki.fi> wrote:
> In article <agekj5$5lm$1 at newshost.accu.uu.nl>, m.faassen at vet.uu.nl
> (Martijn Faassen) writes:

> | They do kick you out a bit readily, I agree. I got somewhat annoyed
> | when I got kicked out while apologizing for spamming with a misfired
> | copy & paste buffer.

> it seems to be a part of the life cycle of an irc channel. first
> it is only a few people with an intimate atmosphere, then it starts
> attracting lots of people because of the friendly atmosphere, and
> in a while the intimate atmosphere gradually dissolves. then
> the "old timers" leave or start policing with an iron fist...

> it doesn't always go like that, but often.

Anyway, I like #python, but it might be nice to cut people a bit more
slack for their (perceived) stupidity; it doesn't cost anyone a lot, and
besides it's more fun -- if someone is really silly or stupid, it's 
frequently entertaining to watch, I find. And often the person is not
really stupid at all, and it just takes a while to connect to each other.
(old timers are expecting certain behaviors but a newbie may
have other ideas initially).

I find it even more amusing to tease old timers, myself. :) You can
really spark some of them off by making some heavy claims about the
superiority of the C++ language, say. Of course they commonly realize 
I am doing this, which makes it far less frustrating for everybody than
if some innocent newbie is involved.

Naturally there are genuinely frustrating or annoying people as well,
and those should be dealt with if cutting slack does not help.

Anyway, it doesn't have to go this way; I've been
involved in a MUD for about a decade, and while there have been cycles,
it's been around for a while now, so it must be a reasonably nice place.
But I imagine the social dynamics of MUDs are different from the
dynamics on IRC, and again matters are different on Usenet. comp.lang.python
seems to be scaling quite well, for instance.

Regards,

Martijn
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