Discuss mailing list

[Peter Green <peter AT greenpete.co.uk>]

Alex, Julian,

I would ask that you don't try and sweep this matter away as if it were 
nothing at all, in a way that simply suits you.
It may be in your opinion somthing that the subscribers to list must deal 
with, but to me it is about respect and etiquette, creating a place of 
respect and comfort for people to join and drive the OpenNIC project forward.

If indeed you do want to attract others to the project you need to appreciate 
how they may feel.

What I found most distasteful was seeing a newcomer being blasted at the very 
start of their experience with the group! Would it not serve OpenNIC's goals 
better to be more tolerant of newcomers? 

I'm also now a little concerned that Julian himself hasn't replied to my 
point, but rather another lead member of the group. It feels like your 
ganging up a little (that may sound a over the top, but for the want of a 
better way of putting it...) to defend the establishment. 

You ask for respect in your sixth paragraph, so do I! You also ask for people 
not to be offended by words, I ask people not to be offensive.

Even if Jamyn had been out of line and not making valid points, I would still 
ask people not to be so aggressive in their response, but in fact Jamyn 
brought up good points.

You say OpenNIC will become great. I belive that is something achieved by 
great leaders, one's who do not blast people in a very public mailing list 
but show restraint and respect them selves, leading by example.

Don't get me wrong, I think people here are doing a great job and OpenNIC is 
a wonderful project, I just suggest a more balanced and tolerant approach to 
others would be nice and add value to the whole project.

On a mailing list, words are all we have. We don't see facial expression and 
body language, we don't know a lot about the person communicating with us, 
words are therefore extremely important and the choice of them more so.

Peter 


Alex Hanselka <alex AT opennicproject.org> wrote:

>Hi guys!
>
>Let me start by saying, lets all try to get over our distaste of certain 
>words. They are only powerful if you give them meaning. I hear much worse 
>and am called MUCH worse than the word used earlier on the this ML.  
>Basically, I would appreciate it if everyone were to not be upset by words, 
>especially when they aren't directly hateful towards some individual.  In 
>this case "All fuckin' talk" was used as an adjective, not a pejorative 
>against anyone.  Since we are all about free speech, I am not about to say 
>what words we can and cannot use on this mailing list. Even if I did, 
>someone else would start to host it anyway :).  We are all adults (or at 
>least mature enough) and can handle some "bad words."  Let's try to be 
>respectful though!
>
>Also, OpenNICs goal is to eventually be "mainstream use."  However, that is 
>a long road away, in my eyes.  While we are constantly working to improve 
>OpenNIC, but things take time. There are many projects that are more well 
>established as well.  We can look at projects like Fedora Linux for 
>instance, which is volunteer but funded by Red Hat, the largest Linux 
>distributor in the world.  Really, we can look at any of the major linux 
>distros which have a MASSIVE amount of support and usually a lot of monetary 
>support from various other organizations.  
>
>OpenNIC on the other hand has ZERO monetary support and a relatively small 
>volunteer base (Thats us!).  It is a lot easier to get things done when they 
>aren't expensive and you can afford to spend more time on it.  
>
>That being said, OpenNIC will eventually become great. However, things take 
>time and I encourage everyone not to be too impatient.  Feel free to prod 
>once in a while if you feel things aren't getting done, but also accept that 
>sometimes you're just going to have to take someones word that they are 
>working as hard as they can. 
>
>As for a Cert Authority for OpenNIC, that sounds like a good idea! However, 
>I'd ask that we wait a bit before we get too far into that. 
>
>Bottom line (also, TL;DR): Please be respectful, try not to be offended by 
>words, be patient with progress, and have fun.  While it would be nice to 
>have widespread adoption, I'd still like us to have fun doing this. If it 
>gets boring or becomes a chore, thats when a project falls apart.
>
>Please contact me with any issues you have. I assure you I *will* deal with 
>them to the best of my ability :)
>---
>Alex Hanselka
>alex AT opennicproject.org