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mention of books & extensions welcome, or...? (was Re: Scripting *of* Python)

Alex Martelli aleax at aleax.it
Sat Feb 1 03:01:39 EST 2003 
On Saturday 01 February 2003 12:55 am, you wrote:
   ...
> > How could Nick by himself tell me what the _consensus_ of
> > c.l.py may be?  Do you think he's an oracle or something?
>
> You could simply have explained to him why you felt like
> mentioning the book you are proofreading.

Sure, I could; I thought that was pretty obvious -- and apparently
so did Nick, since he did later explain he meant his remarks jocularly.

But that would have done nothing to clarify consensus NOR to
inform any reader of the newsgroup about it -- new readers would
have seen an unchallenged *grumble* about such mentions, and
might thus reasonably infer that such mentions are unwelcome.


> Even within a group talking in one room there is a lot
> of stuff going on when a "consensus" is built.
> On a newsgroup like c.l.py it's certainly not less.

Sure!  That's human nature.  A group's consensus is not built by
each member of the group in isolation thinking about all issues
and independently deciding: it's _obvious_ that there is "group
dynamics" going on.  If that's the root of your displeasure -- that
human beings are pack animals -- you might prefer to hang out
with tigers or other species for whom isolation is a more natural
state.  Personally, I _love_ human beings, for all our foibles.

The nature of group dynamics may diminish effectiveness when
e.g. some purely technical decision is to be made; but when the
purpose is _social_ (as clarification of group consensus cannot
fail to be, by definition), then I think our group dynamics, evolved 
adaptively for aeons (albeit in rather different contexts, such as
"how should we hunt mammoths":-), are perfectly suitable.


Thanks for clarifying the reason for your preferences, but as a
result I hope I've clarified mine (in my own mind first of all) and
come to the conclusion that I disagree very deeply with you
on this subject: I opine that _as a rule_ such discussions are
best held on the group, ensuring all readers can, if they wish, 
follow _and_ participate (thus seeing all they need to make up
their own mind AND let their feelings be known if they want).
And I see no reason to make this one case an exception.

Presumably, we can agree to disagree on this, since it seems
our disagreement stems from deep differences in outlook and
is therefore quite unlikely to be resolvable.  Fortunately, there
is no NEED for it to be resolved, since each of us can keep
posting according to their preferences (or not: a Vulcanian might
find it odd that you post publically your preference for private
discussion -- but this, too, is part of human nature;-).


Alex
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