Comments on: This is why we can’t have nice things

By: A comfortable limit « Motho ke motho ka botho

A comfortable limit « Motho ke motho ka botho — Tue, 11 Jan 2011 14:12:05 +0000

[...] to the few offers I’ve received … thanks, but no thanks. This format, although I detest it in general, is a compromise between expression and privacy. For the time being, this is as far as I’ll [...]

By: Once again: Don’t do it « Motho ke motho ka botho

Once again: Don’t do it « Motho ke motho ka botho — Tue, 09 Nov 2010 13:23:57 +0000

[...] I know it’s empty. Talk is cheap, and blog posts are even cheaper. I’m not in a position to come over to your house, obstruct your driveway with my body and [...]

By: Hans Bezemer

Hans Bezemer — Thu, 03 Jun 2010 21:33:17 +0000

I think you’re right. This blogging has created an ecosystem of itself where people are fighting each other verbally to the death while the rest of the world hardly notices. There have been clashes around KDE/Gnome, Mono, sexism and now Ubuntu and the real world hasn’t moved even an inch.

No more converts were made, people silently moved from one distribution or desktop to another and the 20,000 projects with their smaller or larger continue to exchange Usenet jokes like “Why C compilers are better than women”.

The point is, it is a child play version of playing house. It’s bloggers playing the media and community leaders playing the politicians. And I think that is what in essence drives people: trying to make a difference so the “bad guys” (whoever they are) don’t win.

But nobody is reading it. Nobody is paying attention. Only the politicians. And that can be dangerous for the FOSS community as a whole.

By: mulenmar

mulenmar — Sat, 17 Apr 2010 07:20:58 +0000

*sigh* Rule number one in blogging — play nice, or else.

By: Lithium

Lithium — Fri, 16 Apr 2010 21:55:32 +0000

Sigh!!… such dull flame wars these days.

Whatever happened to the good old McLaren vs Williams, Senna vs Prost, Yamaha vs Honda, Brazil vs Argentina, Nikon vs Leica flame wars of the old days?

I wish I had a cave to paint in…. but hey, at least I have Wacom support in Linux these days. Wonder if I owe thanks to someone ranting about Wacom support in his/her blog?

FYI, I still sit around in pubs and go on wild drunken rampages.

Great write-up, as always.

By: koleoptero

koleoptero — Fri, 16 Apr 2010 17:14:46 +0000

OUGK OUGK AARGHH OUGK.

By: JoshMiller

JoshMiller — Fri, 16 Apr 2010 15:36:48 +0000

It’s so true sadly. Even those who many online folks know like say, Leo Laporte, don’t really make much of a difference in the end. Some guy blogging in his spare time once a week might entertain 50-100 people occasionally but the end result is null.

By: Doug

Doug — Fri, 16 Apr 2010 12:54:49 +0000

I tune out most flamewars, although some have helped me to learn new things. Lately, the Apple vs. Adobe war on the merits of Flash has been very educational about the merits of tightly controlled platforms vs. open platforms.

I’ve learned a lot from the Ubuntu flamewars. They have shown me the value of learning more about Linux and experimenting to find the sorts of distros that best suit me. I wouldn’t have moved from Ubuntu to Debian and Arch without those flamewars.

Not much merit in the Varghese vs. Martin flamewar, although I’ve found both to produce insightful posts from time to time. Ubuntu has its virtues and flaws. Nothing new here.

This blog is one of the high signal-to-noise blogs that usually teaches me something. Not pointless for this reader, who thanks you for your blogging efforts.

By: Nugnuts

Nugnuts — Fri, 16 Apr 2010 12:45:17 +0000

“Blogging is a pointless, worthless, self-indulgent function wasting the time and effort of thousands upon thousands of people, every day, myself included.”

Though I see your point through the hyperbole (and even if you are fishing ) I would like to point out that your blog and several of the comments here have taught me/turned me on to a thing or two over the years. I imagine I am not alone. I would say there is real worth in that.

That said, I see a bit less worth in posts like these which seem to self fulfill the prophesy (to wit: “the effort and time and resources spent hashing out that little drama weren’t converted into some other endeavor” :p ), though they are certainly cathartic for the writer and can indeed be motivational for the reader.

By: vespas

vespas — Fri, 16 Apr 2010 11:58:48 +0000

This all sounds like the usenet flamewars of the 90s (and even 80s) all over again, just more mainstream. I think that cavemen, the French revolutionaries and MLK activists/haters all had had discussions (or tea parties, or brawls…) at some point that would today be less than proud of. I don’t see this as degeneracy or even much change, just greater publicity.
Blogging has attracted (even mainstream) media attention because it is so accessible and easy for everyone, something that could be said to be the effect of all digital technologies: digital communications, audio, imaging etc made a big difference not (mainly) because they increased quality, but because they made things so much easier to share.
This all reminds me of this headline from the onion:
http://www.theonion.com/articles/couple-sneaks-away-from-party-for-a-little-arguing,6900/
Also, there is something to be said about the quality of journalism in the technical sector. So many people confuse IT with computer science and proclaim themselves experts just because they installed winzip once that reading magazines does not even make sense anymore. At least with blogs, you know where you stand, it’s one man and his dog. But what really annoys me is reading Computerworld et al where 10-page articles will complain about “making it easier to install software in linux” in the author’s “24 hours with linux” and just throw MS marketing jargon at it.
Oh well, you can always increase signal-to-noise ratio criteria for reading things