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[Python-Dev] Dealing with tone in an email (was: Drop/deprecate Tkinter?)

Steve Holden steve at holdenweb.com
Fri May 4 12:53:53 EDT 2018 
On Fri, May 4, 2018 at 4:43 PM, Steven D'Aprano <steve at pearwood.info> wrote:

> On Thu, May 03, 2018 at 06:31:03PM +0000, Brett Cannon wrote:
>
> > No one is saying people can't be upset and if you are ever upset there's
> > something wrong; we're human beings after all. But those of us speaking
> up
> > about the tone are saying that you can also wait until you're not so
> upset
> > to write an email. This was never going to be resolved in an hour, so
> > waiting an hour until you're in a better place to write an email that
> > wasn't quite so inflammatory seems like a reasonable thing to ask.
>
> Certainly!
>
> I'm not defending Ivan's initial email. His tantrum *was* annoying,
> unreasonable, and unfair to those who do care about tkinter. He could
> have done better.
>
> But *we* should be better too. Our response to Ivan has not been
> welcoming, and as a community we haven't lived up to our own standards,
> as we have piled onto him to express our rightous indignation:
>
> 1. Guido responded telling Ivan to calm down and work off his
>    frustration elsewhere. And that's where things should have
>    stopped, unless Ivan had persisted in his impoliteness.
>
> 2. Brian upped the ante by bringing the CoC into discussion.
>
> 3. Paul raised it again by describing Ivan's post as "offensive".
>
> 4. And now, Steve H has claimed that Ivan's initial post was
>    bordering on "abusive".
>
> We've gone from rightly treating Ivan's post as intemperate and
> impolite, and telling him to chill, to calling his post "offensive", to
> "abusive". (Next, I presume, someone will claim to be traumatised by
> Ivan's email.)
>
> ​I for one hold my hand up, and will simply not respond the next time I am
tempted to respond in this way. I do not wish to enter into discussion on
the semantics of abuse, neither do I want to sidetrack the list from its
intended purpose.

regards
 Steve​
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