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• What's with all these political posts? (Score:2)

  by Shlomi Fish (918)

  Hi nicholas!

  I've been subscribed the use.perl.org feed for a while now to follow up on all the interesting perl news. But one thing I don't like are political posts, especially those that you've posted recently, several in a row.

  Now I respect you as a programmer and a large contributor to the Perl core and other Perl projects, but I still don't want to read such disturbing blog posts.

  I suggest that you (and everybody else) refrain from posting political posts here. If you still wish to write them, th
  • Re: (Score:2)

    by drhyde (1683)

    Ho ho ho. What's this, Shlomi complaining about stuff being "off topic"? Could this be the same Shlomi who thought it would be OK to post his crappy Star Trek fanfic to a perl mailing list?
    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Shlomi Fish (918)

      Hi drhyde!

      First of all I should note that I never used the term "off topic" in my original post. So you're paraphrasing what I say, and not really accurately. I haven't complained about these political posts being "off-topic". I know some people post about various not-entirely-Perl-related matters to use.perl.org and I can tolerate most of these posts. But I find political posts disturbing and would prefer not to see them in the feed of posts from all the use.perl.org journals, that I wish to follow. My
      • Re:What's with all these political posts? (Score:1)

        by chromatic (983) on 2009.05.12 13:14 (#68542) Homepage Journal

        My post was a warning to Nicholas, that I (and possibly others) did not like this, and that he should refrain from doing that in the future, if he doesn't want me (and possibly others) to explicitly filter his journal (which I'd prefer not to do). It would ultimately be his choice.

        It's possible to read this as a public passive-aggressive threat -- with or without the Hint of a Silent Majority fallacy. That never goes well, because approximately no one cares if you unsubscribe.

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        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Shlomi Fish (918)

          Well, it's not a threat - it's a warning, and he won't be harmed much by acting against my advice. A threat is something like "Stop posting political posts or I will burn your house, rape your wife and daughters, banish you to the middle of Antarctica, convert all your Perl code to PHP, and then post it on thedailywtf.com [thedailywtf.com]."

          Regarding what you say that "no one cares if you unsubscribe", then this reminds me of what Fred Brooks says in The Mythical Man-Month [wikipedia.org]: "How does a project gets late? One day at a time
          • Re: (Score:1)

            by chromatic (983)

            Well, it's not a threat - it's a warning....

            Getting all definitional is often the last refuge of someone who's already lost an argument, but a threat is a warning of intent which may affect future action. It's cause and effect. If Nicholas doesn't stop doing you don't like, you and a bunch of anonymous people who may or may not exist will stop reading him.

            If you're not careful, you might lose a large percent of your blog's readership, one subscriber at a time.

            I don't speak for Nicholas, but I'm happy