[Python-ideas] Toxic forum

[Paul Moore]

On Mon, 13 Aug 2018 at 11:30, Antoine Pitrou <solipsis at pitrou.net> wrote:
>
> On Sun, 12 Aug 2018 23:56:24 -0500
> Abe Dillon <abedillon at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > This forum is looking more and more toxic. I've explained myself over and
> > over again. I just wanted to +1 Steven's original comment. This is
> > ridiculous. I guess I've pissed of the good-old-boys by calling out
> > Steven's unnecessary condescension. Great. It looks like Python is in
> > fantastic hands.
>
> My experience is that this forum was toxic almost from the start,
> because it encourages people to engage into the kind of behaviour you
> are witnessing now (i.e. largely pointless and semi-agressive
> nit-picking which sometimes feels straight out of the well-known
> Argument Clinic sketch).

IMO, things have got worse over time. As a forum explicitly designed
for discussing speculative ideas, the general tone has become less and
less sympathetic towards people (particularly newcomers, which is
especially unfortunate) expressing ideas which are, shall we say, less
than perfectly thought through. I'm OK with gently pointing out to a
poster that they will need to tighten up their arguments and
assertions as the discussion progresses towards a concrete proposal,
but that's not how things feel any more. In particular there seems to
be an extremely aggressive dislike of anything that seems like
"opinion" which can't be backed up with solid evidence. Certainly we
don't expect proposals based purely on subjective opinion to make it
through to implementation, but we shouldn't be holding the process of
exploring ideas to such rigorous standards.

Anyway, I won't say any more, as I don't really know how we could
change things. And yes, a lot of the above is my view, and is
subjective. Asking me to provide evidence and back up my assertions
sort of proves my point, so please treat it as just that, my opinion,
and take it or leave it on that basis.

Paul