Hi Paul, 

Thanks for sharing your thoughts. 

Fear of speaking or fear of reading - both are not ideal. The balance of respectful discourse likely falls somewhere between the two.

Context is important. I wonder though if the author's intent was constructive comment...

On Fri, Sep 21, 2018, 8:01 AM Paul Moore <p.f.moore@gmail.com> wrote:
On Fri, 21 Sep 2018 at 12:38, Carol Willing <willingc@gmail.com> wrote:

> Much of the discussion here has focused on the use of a few words.
>
> IMHO, discussing violence, assault, and implying that its okay to accept and trivialize this violence do not belong in posts about the Python language.
>
> From the original post:
>
> Being triggered by a word this simple is not exactly a
> sign of mental stability. I know a girl who's been raped more than she can
> count - but the word doesn't trigger her like this(only makes her want to
> beat up rapists). If people can do that, then surely a playground insult
> wont reduce you to tears, right ?

I agree - *but* there's a whole lot more I wish I could say, about
context, and looking at how the conversation reached that point.

But I won't, because frankly I'm scared to do so. I don't trust myself
to explain my feelings without doing so in a way that people find
offensive, and suffering a backlash that I didn't intend to trigger,
and which won't help the discussion.

I'm not sure that "I'm too scared to participate in this discussion"
is where we want to be, though...
Paul