Aggressive language on python-list

[rurpy at yahoo.com]

On 10/16/2012 02:17 PM, Prasad, Ramit wrote:> Steven D'Aprano wrote:
>> On Tue, 16 Oct 2012 09:27:48 -0700, rurpy wrote about trolls and dicks:
>> 
>> > The best advise is to ignore such posts and encourage others to do the
>> > same.
>> 
>> If you ignore such posts, how will the poster know they are unacceptable?
>> 
>> How should somebody distinguish between "I am being shunned for acting
>> like a dick", and "I have not received any responses because nobody has
>> anything to add"?
>> 
>> If I believe that your behaviour ("giving lousy advice") is causing great
>> harm to this community, and *I don't say anything*, how will you know to
>> change your behaviour? How will others know that I do not agree with your
>> advice?
> 
> I agree completely. I was about to say that I was fine with meeting
> known trolls with silence, but what happens when new or infrequent 
> readers see the troll's writing with no one objecting? Are they to
> ignore the troll or assume that the list condones the troll's words?

You do not give enough credit to people.  The vast majority 
of people are capable of recognizing offensive posts and 
recognizing that non-response to them is intentional.  I 
think it is absurd to think that most normal people will
see such posts and conclude that all Python programmers 
agree with them.  (No time to look it up but I vaguely
recall a long series of anti-semitic posts here that were 
largely ignored.  I've seen no evidence that there are 
people who brand the Python community as anti-semitic.)