🚀 go-pugleaf

Greetings from Arval!  Sir John wrote:

> There is a natural growth of all organizations, and all participants
> within organizations, from innocence to knowledge to cynicism in the
> modern sense.  At the best of times, one can capture the knowledge yet
> remain innocent, and approach new subjects with joy.  Rec.org.sca as a
> newsgroup has recently become as contentious as other good newsgroups,
> and is losing the polite edge as well. ...the Rialto went from the second
> stage to the third somewhere when people argued that we are more a debate
> or an academic squabble than a meeting...

I think, Sir John, you may have misread the changes.  I think that the only
real change in the Rialto over the years it has existed is that it has
become larger and more public.  The wider we cast our net, the greater the
variety of fish we catch.  One-in-a-thousand has little noticeable effect
when the population is in the hundreds, but the nature of netnews is that
one-in-a-thousand stands out prominently among thousands.

Most approach these discussions in the same spirit as always: friendly,
polite, informative, and without taking themselves more seriously than
necessary.  It is not at all surprising that there are some exceptions.
Some people will be offensive, others will be offended.  And some, in good
faith, will find that this medium is not to their liking.  However, before
you leave us, Good Sir John (who deserves that epithet more than most I can
call to mind), I recommend to you the judicious use of KILL files and the
"n" key; they can to wonders for your blood-pressure.

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Arval Benicoeur                                       mittle@watson.ibm.com