David Johnson's Blog

OK, here’s where I have my annual rant. If you really intend to read it, find a comfortable chair and a cup of coffee.

I was reading through the LUGRadio forum today (this isn’t about this specific forum, I’m talking in general, I’m just using it as a typical example of a community forum), I read through a few of the threads at which point I developed a headache and stopped reading. So what caused my headache? The amount of brainless zealotry. Quite a few of the threads on there seem to be very similar: 1st person: “I like X”, 2nd person: “I like Y, anyone who likes X must be a moron”. And so on and so on. Of course there have always been debates in the community about which software is best (vi vs emacs for example) but its always been good-natured in the past, just a little friendly jibing. But more and more there are people who do little more than rant and rave about their views, completely dismissing (and often insulting) anyone who doesn’t agree with them. People create threads purely to start flamewars and anyone who tries to debate things rationally just gets insulted and flamed.

As an example, the LUGRadio guys talked about such people on their show (specifically about how certain members of the community have been making personal attacks against someone whose views didn’t agree with theirs). There was a thread created on the forum to discuss the topic and pretty soon there were people there who thought such behaviour was acceptable in the community and as a result the thread digressed into brainless insults, with anyone trying to make a reasonable comment simply being ignored or insulted.

The actual discussion on LUGRadio was about a woman called Laura DiDio who was involved in publishing a paper which slagged off Linux. OK, fine. My response to that would be to simply respond to the points she made in a constructive manner and prove through reasonable discussion that she’s wrong. However some people thought it was appropriate to make abusive phone calls and send abusive e-mails, not to the company she was working for who commissioned the paper, but to this woman specifically. How anyone can consider it appropriate to make such personal attacks, I cannot imagine. Such people do not belong in this community.

My very real concern in that one day someone will go too far. All it takes is for a free software zealot/extremist who also happens to be a gun nut to get annoyed with someone and there could be gravely serious consequences… not to mention the complete destruction of the community and the reputation of free and open source software that would result.