On 04/15/11 5:05 PM, Virgilio A. P. Machado wrote:
So nobody has any idea why things are the way they
are? Will I have
to make a drawing?
A *relevant* drawing would be nice. Your offer of a drawing is no less
sarcastic than David's about being consulted. We're not talking about
elaborate theoretical ramblings purporting to explain how we got where
we are. That solves nothing. What I addressed was a class of comments
that is neither constructive nor a personal attack, but somewhere in
between.
Ray
At 00:43 16-04-2011, you wrote:
It is a valid point about David's comment.
Maybe us old hands have
become too accustomed to David's sarcasm. Other than that it seems to
have been a conversation where one person was offside to everybody else.
I've been there before and know how uncomfortable it can become. The
insensitive comment was certainly not essential to the main topic of the
thread, but if in raising it the only result would be to have David
personally change his ways nothing of significance to the community
would have been accomplished. One person would have been fixed while
the rest of us could go smugly on believing that that was the end of it.
The continuum from valid on-topic comments, through insensitive sarcasm
to outright personal attacks is not made up of discrete and easily
identifiable steps. Where is the middle ground between insensitivity
and hypersensitivity.
Ray