Re: Unasserted triples, Contexts and things that go bump in the night.

On Wed, 20 Mar 2002, Frank Manola wrote:

> Well *I* certainly viewed it as jokey, especially given the context (if
(me too, fwiw)
> you'll pardon the expression).  But I certainly second Brian's comment
> about the respect in which we hold each other.

Yes, I have to say I've really enjoyed being involved in the RDF effort
for this reason. There's (for the most part) a civility that's often
missing in online technical discussions. Like Brian, I tend to jump on
swearing on the RDF IG lists. It may matter less on small WG lists than on
larger lists open to public subscribers, but I think it's worth erring on
the prudish side, for reasons nicely articulated by Rick Jelliffe in [1].

My previous outburst on this subject is at [2],
	[[
	Could you please try to avoid swearing on RDF Interest Group mailing
	lists? While it may sound petty, keeping some control over the tone of our
	language helps to create a less threatening, hostile environment. For
	those of us know each other or have met offline, out-of-band context may
	implicitly lighten the tone, but for those new to this community, swearing
	can create a sour and unfriendly atmosphere. So I'd appreciate it if folk
	could stick to this simple guideline (ie: swearing: don't). I've no
	interest in getting into debate about whether "dash it", "darn" etc count
	as swearing. The real point is about (real or perceived) tone and
	attitude rather than vocabulary. Perhaps we should have followed Rick
	Jelliffe's Schematron model and called this the www-rdf-calendar-lovein
	list? See [1] for Rick's critique of the XML-DEV mailing list culture and
	on the  need to foster non-confrontational debating styles if we are to
	be truly pluralist and international in our work. Swearing on a mailing
	list is very different from doing so in real life, where you've a better
	sense of audience and audience reaction.
	]]

Dan

[1] http://rdfweb.org/people/danbri/2001/05/hk/batch10/ani.html
[2] http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-rdf-calendar/2001May/0036.html

Received on Wednesday, 20 March 2002 19:02:34 UTC