META Culture of this place [was Re: for / while else doesn't make sense]

[Ned Batchelder]

On Tuesday, May 24, 2016 at 12:44:04 PM UTC-4, Steven D'Aprano wrote:
> On Tue, 24 May 2016 12:19 pm, Ned Batchelder wrote:
> 
> > Ugh, can we please stop with the "well, actually" pedantic tangents?
> 
> With respect, no.
> 
> This is a forum with a very tolerant approach to off-topic and only-
> slightly-on-topic discussions. If you want a forum that follows strict rules
> for what's allowed and what's not, you're in the wrong place.

I'm not looking for strict rules.  The discussions can be good.

> There are
> plenty of such forums available: Stackoverflow, /r/python, #python,
> Python-Dev, etc, all with their own idiosyncrasies. This is ours: we have a
> bunch of people here who enjoy extended discussions on computing matters
> which are sometimes only tangentially related to Python.

Can we compromise? Try to cast these discussions in a "yes" form rather 
than a "no" form?  This very thread got a bit contentious, primarily because
it seemed like people weren't trying to assume the best about the others in
the thread.  Having a discussion about the details of floating point is
fine, but do we want to get into fights over it?  Those can be avoided,
surely.

Once the tone gets to picking apart any detail, no matter how trivial, it's
just turned into a contest to see who can be more right.  When Christopher
said "8-bit ASCII," he wasn't claiming that ASCII was defined as an 8-bit
character encoding.  He was making a light-hearted comment about the use
of esoteric symbols.  You can accept that comment on those terms, rather
than replying, "No, it's 7-bit."  How many bits ASCII uses is completely
beside the point.  You don't need to correct people on every tangential
fact.

Yes, there are a bunch of people here who enjoy and participate in the
extended diversions.  But they can also become points of contention, which
I hope no one wants.  We've seen people vocally not enjoying them. And
beyond that, harder to gauge is how much they prevent people from entering
the conversation.

All I'm asking for is tempering it a bit.  I understand we don't want or
need strict rules.  But can we stay positive and friendly?

--Ned.