[Pan-users] Re: Purging headers

[Duncan]

Joe Zeff <address@hidden> posted
address@hidden, excerpted below, on  Sat, 06 Dec 2008 19:35:54
-0800:

> I had the impression
> that somebody had apologized, but haven't kept the messages so I can't
> check.

You /may/ be referring to my "your name, your rights" posts, tho I still 
don't see the big deal, but I wasn't the one who made the mistake (tho 
that had as much to do with luck and the fact that I seldom mention 
direct parent posters by name, as anything else).

But... consider this.  Honestly if a bit rudely, there's the saying 
"Beggars can't be choosers."  IOW, those who generally post questions 
really need to be a bit more cautious than those who generally post 
answers, lest they cause all that may have the answer to plonk or simply 
ignore them.  As a normal answer poster and as most such folks in that 
position, there's far more questions here and elsewhere than I have time 
to answer.  We regular answerers have quite a bit of luxury in what we 
choose to answer and can afford to make demands that those who post 
questions really can't.

Your potential problem, then, is that you just caused someone with the 
right answer to plonk you.  Much less of a worry for him than for you, 
should you have other questions that he would have otherwise been the 
first or only correct answer to.  No, I don't expect to change your 
policy of a lifetime, and if you really consider being so particular 
about your name more important than getting a good answer to a question, 
as I said, your name, your right to be particular about it, but it's 
certainly worth considering.  There are certain things (the four software 
freedoms) I consider worth defending.  How others might mishandle my name 
isn't one of them, particularly when it comes in an answer to a question 
I asked.  But others consider other things important, and you obviously 
consider your name important.  It is indeed your right to do so, whatever 
the cost to you.

... As for the OT, well, yes, it is.  However, pan development isn't 
giving us a lot new to talk about at the moment (not that I can complain 
those that write the code, make the rules, particularly in the world of 
free/libre and open source software, but Charles DOES have a definite 
pattern of on again off again pan development, and right now, it's off 
again), so it's natural for us regulars to relish a break from the long 
slog of rehash, once in awhile.  Not that we don't welcome newbies and 
their questions, but well, something different once in awhile can be a 
nice change of pace, even if it's not strictly on topic, so...

... So that's probably why this OT subthread grew such a life of its own 
in the first place. =:^)

-- 
Duncan - List replies preferred.   No HTML msgs.
"Every nonfree program has a lord, a master --
and if you use the program, he is your master."  Richard Stallman