Taming STIBP

Posted Nov 29, 2018 23:43 UTC (Thu) by Sesse (subscriber, #53779)
Parent article: Taming STIBP

So now we have a (sort-of) solution to the slowdowns, and it did not involve Linus calling anyone an idiot.

I will say the kernel is progressing on two fronts. Two thumbs up.

Taming STIBP

Posted Nov 30, 2018 2:22 UTC (Fri) by mangix (guest, #126006) [Link] (2 responses)

Unfortunately I miss Linus calling people idiots.

Taming STIBP

Posted Dec 4, 2018 17:24 UTC (Tue) by KaiRo (subscriber, #1987) [Link]

I do not, as IMHO calling anyone an idiot (or stupid, or similar) is simply unacceptable between decent human beings. Calling a product of their work idiotic or saying they behave stupidly or something in that manner is still bad behavior but somewhat better, it usually can and should be said with as precise but less strong words. People themselves should never be attacked, it's enough to criticize (hopefully constructively) their actual work that you take issue with.

Taming STIBP

Posted Dec 5, 2018 21:41 UTC (Wed) by flussence (guest, #85566) [Link]

Linus was not in the habit of calling people idiots. Bad ideas and corporations, sure.

He had to stop because, among other reasons, actual idiots were misinterpreting it as celebrity endorsement of their misanthropic, diseased attitudes toward other people.

Taming STIBP

Posted Nov 30, 2018 5:47 UTC (Fri) by unixbhaskar (guest, #44758) [Link] (2 responses)

" Linus calling anyone an idiot"

I am sorry and think you are hindsight and missing the context of those calling in the past. There is no point spreading the FUD, please don't.

No, I am not in favor of abusing people in any form or anybody doing it publicly, but there was some context before that calling, please do care to read those, which led to that outburst.

Taming STIBP

Posted Nov 30, 2018 8:40 UTC (Fri) by dgm (subscriber, #49227) [Link] (1 responses)

Absolutely. The parent comment insinuated that Linus was in fact calling everybody an idiot, all the time. This is, of course, false.

The question really is, is it permisible to call someone "idiot" when you think it is deserved? If it is not, then what we are effectively doing is censoring the word "idiot". Censoring words is an idiotic (sorry, I mean much less than adequate), way to proceed, because people will find ways to "politely" be as much offensive.

Better than censoring, we should promote communication styles that add to the *content* of the conversation.

Taming STIBP

Posted Nov 30, 2018 11:12 UTC (Fri) by anselm (subscriber, #2796) [Link]

The question really is, is it permisible to call someone "idiot" when you think it is deserved?

I don't think people actually deserve being called “idiots” if they write ill-advised code. I've done that for sure, you've probably done it on occasion, even Linus Torvalds has probably done it once or twice. If it happens, by all means call our code bad, or even idiotic if you must. But don't call us idiots. Certainly not over the Internet. If you want to call me an idiot, do it to my face or don't do it at all.