[MUD-Dev] To flame or not to flame (was: Usability and ...)

[Caliban Tiresias Darklock]

On Mon, 22 Sep 1997 14:02:50 PST8PDT, Ola Fosheim Gr=F8stad
<olag at ifi.uio.no> wrote:

>What really annoys me is the inability of a thread to stay focused on
>one issue.  It often ends up with someone taking an example too
>literally, or making the worst assumption possible about an unclear
>sentence, or forgetting the original premises for the discussion.

And such crimes are as often as not committed by the person who started
the thread... sometimes because he was baited, or other times just
because another incidental topic cropped up that proved more interesting
at the time. We all have several common points of interest.

>Still worse is that these offsprings, by their agressive nature,
>attracts so much attention that the original topic drowns completely.
>Quite often these offsprings manouver themselves to the same old dead
>end flame topics.

Yeah... I try to find as much common ground as possible to agree with in
posts that seem to be wandering, because sometimes that helps to keep
things from degenerating *too* much. Sort of a reassurance that I don't
disagree with everything you say just because you said it. Maybe it's
effective, maybe it isn't, but it's not like it hurts anything.

>As programmers we invest a lot of time and effort in a particular
>design, so we have a tendency of wanting to defend that design when
>someone are critical. Not because the design is a good one, but
>because we don't like the idea of having wasted so much time and
>effort! :-)=20

Programmers are like parents, and the programs we write are our
children. Yeah, his ears stick out too far, but keep your damn mouth
shut, that's my boy there. ;)

>Unfortunatly most designs programmers end up with is way
>less than perfect, simply because our desire to ease the
>implementation process.  Add to this the tendency of replying while
>reading a message and you are on your way to a flamewar (or a boring
>me-too).

I don't expect anyone to look at the sorts of things I'm suggesting and
go "Gee! I did that wrong! I'll go fix it!"... I mean, if anyone *does*
look at what I'm saying and go 'oops', I figure they'll just silently
sneak off and fix it or decide it isn't worth the trouble. Where the
things I bring up really have application is in the planning process,
before you've written much in the way of code. Consequently, while it
would be a serious pain in the patoot to hack into an in-development
server, I think there are probably some people on this list who either
aren't really working on a server yet or are just getting started; these
people, I think, could benefit from consideration (not necessarily
implementation) of some of those suggestions.=20

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 You see me now, a veteran of a thousand psychic wars. I've been=20
 living on the edge so long, where the winds of limbo roar. And=20
 I'm young enough to get involved, too old to see, all the scars=20
 are on the inside; I'm not sure that there's anything left of me
               -- Blue Oyster Cult, "Veteran of the Psychic Wars"
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