Re: ROBERT DEWER, Chill out...

[donahue@acf2.nyu.edu (Adam Donahue)]

I have to jump in and say that, knowing Robert Dewar personally (he is a professor
of mine), what might appear as "rudeness" in e-mail is merely matter-of-factness.
Just because he doesn't happen to dot every sentence with a string of smilies does
not mean he's on the rampage.  It's all about tone people;  tone is not conveyed well
via ASCII!  (Was I yelling just then, or just making a point?  See what I mean?)  I
have only known the man to be most polite and good-humored in person, and I highly
doubt he makes a sudden transformation when reading e-mail!  :-)

Adam

Thornton (thornton@AVICOM.NET) wrote:
: Robert,
: There's no doubt you're highly educated & intelligent in regards to the
: topics discussed on this newsgroups, but I second the motion that you're
: also quite rude.
: 
: Robert Dewar wrote:
: >
: > <<It's nothing you did.  It's Professor Dewar's attitude.  It seems that
: > he considers this newsgroup to be his personal fiefdom and if someone
: > does something that gets in his way, his habit is to send them rude,
: > pompous e-mails (please note the plural). >>
: >
: > Just so people know, I have indeed been sending emails to people who have
: > almost certainly been cross-posting on the troll posts to CLA without
: > realizing it. 99% of the time I get a polite reply saying something
: > like "oops, sorry, I did not realize this was cross-posted", but I
: > guess Charles is in the 1% (he also did not realize he was cross-posting,
: > but takes the attitude that he is entitled to, which is of course true,
: > anyone can say anything).
: >
: > Actually I am quite surprised that so many people react positively to
: > such messages, and it definitely helps keep accidental noise down. You
: > can't tell people what do do, and you will always get some noisy minority
: > who wlil post no matter what, but it helps quite a bit if the reasonable
: > majority takes a little bit more care not to accidentally post.
: >
: > These cross-posted trolls come and go of course, but it sure seems like
: > CLA has been beset with them recently, and once again the noise-to-signal
: > ratio is getting a bit high.
: >
: > (I guess Charles is a bit frustrated, he threatened to complain to me
: > to my employers at Ada Core Technologies :-) :-)
: >
: > Well at least we get some signal, I am happy to finally get at least
: > ONE reply (from Stephe) on how to handle that interesting error message
: >
: > <<When you point out to this arrogant, conceited pillock that you don't
: > appreciate unsolicited e-mails and will happily take the argument
: > further, he then sends another stream of personal insults, finishing
: > with an announcement that he has put you on his mailer rejection list.>>
: >
: > P.S. If anyone wants to know how to get on my mailer rejection list, it's
: > an easy algorithm (in fact I could probably automate it!) If I get a message
: > with obsenities or rude language, then you go on the list. It is not that
: > this offends me, it is just that I take this as a signal that the
: > probability of further intelligent discussion has dropped to zero :-)
: >
: > An entertaining thread title (should be DEWAR of course, but I don't
: > want to disturb those who want to use their thread following mailers
: > to follow this thread :-)
: 
: --
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:    //// / // :    : ---
:   // /   /  /`    '--
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: "Mind is the Master power that moulds and makes,
:  And Man is Mind, and evermore he takes
:  The tool of Thought, and, shaping what he wills,
:  Brings forth a thousand joys, a thousand ills;-
:  He thinks in secret, and it comes to pass:
:  Environment is but his looking-glass."

-- 



Adam Donahue / mailto:adam@cyber-guru.com