Oh, and let's not forget my favorite:

... who NEEDS to be hurt.

Very revealing that one, especially.

  oh, shut UP, already!  absolutely _anything_ would be a sign of an abuser
  to you.  that's _part_ of the problem you need to solve for yourself.
  you have already demonstrated that the problem here is that you can't
  separate reality from your nightmarish imagination.  this is yet more of
  the same.  spare comp.lang.lisp your therapy sessions!  please!

  let me ask rhetorically: what kind of _victim_ runs after his purported
  abuser with "taunt me!  taunt me!" (except in Monty Python sketches)?

  shutting up may be a very good thing for you to consider, Joe Kraska.  as
  for your employer, present or future, they _will_ search for your name on
  the Net when they evaluate you, soon or on your next "career move".  in
  order to make you understand what you're doing to other people, I include
  your full name and affiliation when you hide it behind an incredibly
  childish nickname so people who look for your name will find your "work".
  anonymity is a privilege you have violated the right to expect others to
  honor, especially when you pretend that others say harmful things they do
  not in fact say, so suffer the consequences of your actions.

  others have pointed out that you're the abuser.  I'm gleefully picking up
  on that, of course, as they are in fact right, but you would never listen
  to them if I said it first.  I'm happy you're defensive about it, though.

  incidentally, but mostly for the search engines: the full quote is "you
  are the kind of moron who needs to be hurt to stop to think", Joe Kraska.
  our society punishes destructive morons who have no respect for others.
  if you are so retarded that you _still_ cannot fathom that this is very
  different from your nightmarish imagination of what it is, you're also
  clinically psychotic and probably _unable_ to distinguish reality from
  your sick imagination.

... you're a village idiot who.. behave like a fucking moron...
... with a moronic nick... you walk around in very small circles...
... like the other morons...  try some non-moronic behavior
... obviously impossible for you to fathom... keep acting the moron
... your moronic ways... I have said "moron", and you _are_ a moron
....you can't run your own miserable life... you pitiful "Courageous"
....moron

The part that drives you that finds behavior like what's
written above rewarding is a character flaw that you could
do without.

/Jon

*Why* should he be excused here?

I know *personally* many people, young budding programmers, who are
intimidated so much by this "expert" that they stop reading and never post
their questions.  He does the entire lisp community a grave diservice with
this behavior.  I learned lisp in a class of twenty, i'm not saying that he
is the reason there are not twenty new people participating in this group,
but i know what i am talking about.

And furthermore, if no one in the group objects, the impression is the the
whole group supports this attitude.

But really, it may be my mistake to park my car unlocked with the keys in
it, but the jerk who steals it is the only criminal.

Still, it does punish *some* destructive morons who have no respect for
others --- as well as some destructive intelligent people who have no
respect for others.

When he stays with speaking to _actual_ technical issues, he seems
to have tremendous insights to offer, even at those times when he
is basically saying, "Here's what's _true_; you're being a *moron,*
which makes this technical point _no less true_."

To _some_ extent, the abuse may chase off those that are being
morons, and that _may_ be of value to the quality of discussion.
When "morons" get "run out of town," and this is accompanied
by some discussion that has valuable quality, this is arguably
a good thing.

Unfortunately, sometimes the "moron" may be:
a) Not as moronic as #eric suggests, and
b) Persistent enough to _not_ get run out of town.

That seems to be the case here; "Courageous" is "courageously" standing
up against the abusive comments, to which #erik has been reacting via
_more abusive_ comments.

Which strikes me as a mistake on _both_ sides.

#erik _should_ restrict himself to speaking to the technical issues,
namely that of "How low can you go," when dealing with the depth of
copying objects.

  perhaps you confuse respect for people with respect for all their
  actions.  I don't.  it still amazes me that it is possible for some
  people to think in terms of their severely extrapolated conceptions of
  "people" when all they could possibly interact with is their actions,
  reactions, and responses in certain clearly delimited contexts.

  your imagination is playing tricks on you.  confine it accordingly.

| *Why* should he be excused here?

  I'm glad _your_ actions constitute an excuse of my actions.  or don't you
  include yourself in what you speak about?  perhaps it's time you do?

  stop attributing your own mental problems to other people.
  such constitutes your abuse of this forum.

Have a nice day.

However, there are wild disagreements as to which level is the right
one.  Most people favor what they are used to... and C people are used
to very little protection.

For example: Consider a language where you could, by an easy mistake,
make the compiler treat a bit pattern that was supposed to be a
floating point value instead be interpreted as an integer value.
(This does not mean _truncated_ to an integer, but bit-wise
reinterpreted as an integer.  This gives totally wild results)

This would be a bad idea, wouldn't it?

Computers used to work like that...  and people made that sort of
mistakes all the time.

Then type checking was introduced, and most people saw that it was a
good thing.  But some people had been using the old "feature" to do
real fast floating point arithmetic, e.g. multiplying by REAL 2.0 by
adding INTEGER 1.  They didn't like type checking.  (Never mind that
the "real fast" way of doing things occationally gave the wrong
answer...)

And so it goes.

My answer to your question would be that programmers should be
protected from themselves in any way reasonable, _but_ that the
protections should be easy to overrule when needed.

  I have yet to see one coherent justification for the abusive behavior I'm
  _criticizing_.  in fact, the reason for your "allowing" me this is that
  none of you would tolerate what I'm criticizing.  that's why you don't
  even _start_ pestering me until you're very safe that whatever nuisance
  I'm trying to get rid of is about to be gotten rid of for good.  just
  admit it: _you_ don't want Joe "Courageous" Kraska here, _either_.  I'm
  doing the dirty work you don't want to do, and when I succeed, you think
  I overdid it, but think back, carefully: why was so much force necessary?

  consider whether you understand the alternatives: do you really _want_ a
  newsgroup full of morons who post false information, idiotic guesswork,
  homework exercises and (stupid or severely misguided) "solutions"?  which
  other newsgroups have I frequented and which have maintained a supremely
  high technical level in the past?  which other newsgroups have seen their
  technical level _raised_ because of what the fools call "abuse" of the
  mindless pestilence that invades USENET from time to time?  which other
  newsgroups have deteriorated shortly after I stopped caring about the
  false information, the blathering idiots, and the destruction of the
  ability to discuss technical matters that only a small portion of the
  audience can follow?  maybe you should start thinking about such things?

  previously, your imagination had run amuck and conjured up the sick image
  of this going on in real life.  I'm amazed that this is possible, because
  it indicates a complete and utter lack of contact with reality:  a person
  such as Joe "Courageous" Kraska is a nuisance in real life, too, and will
  get reprimanded whenever he disturbs a group of people.  go back and read
  the _start_ of this thread.  _who_ would have been thrown out of a public
  meeting?  now, use your imgination _productively_ and think long and hard
  about why it doesn't work to throw some people out of _virtual_ meetings.
  what do those people do?  in brief, to what do I _respond_?  if you don't
  even _see_ that, you have no business criticizing anyone for anything.

  and... taking sides after the war is over is pretty damn stupid.  if you
  want this to end, just shut up about it, and it'll go away.  if you want
  this not to start again, help avoid _recurrences_.  it's just incredibly
  stupid to want something to end in the middle if you don't help it not to
  _start_ and even more stupid if you help fuel the flames.  however, such
  is the moronic blathering of my _critics_.  they have no concept of what
  they want or don't want until _long_ after they could have any _possible_
  effect on anything.  it's the annoyingly mindless "can't we all just get
  along?" all over again.  if we could, Joe Kraska would have gotten the
  idea the first time around.  if we could, anyone who wanted some moron to
  stop needed post only _one_ message to get results.  clearly, this is not
  the case _anywhere_.  so quit dreaming.  deal with reality -- a reality
  that has a certain percentage of morons.  help get rid of them _before_
  they do their damage.  and _don't_ support them afterwards.

  can I trust that you'll help me avoid recurrences of any future invasion
  of morons, Coby?  or can I trust that you will instead stand up for each
  and every blathering moron and proclaim your support at the _earliest_
  possible convenience and then stand by them through _all_ their actions
  and ensuing stupidity so that you can actually _fall_ with the guys you
  support?  you see, Joe "Courageous" Kraska now actually believes that you
  _support_ him and condone _his_ behavior, from his question and first
  moronic article in response to the first rejection to his moronic "Dear
  Erik" message.

  if you will neither help avoid recurrences _or_ support the morons the
  next time around, please be smart and don't jump into the middle of the
  fray only when it looks like the moron could _finally_ go away, because
  the moron will stay _much_ longer when you do that, and thus you help
  _perpetuate_ what you pretend you don't like to see happen.  _think_
  about this.  please.  and if your anger blinds you, shut up, instead.

Please don't do me any more of these favors.

|   consider whether you understand the alternatives: do you really _want_ a
|   newsgroup full of morons who post false information, idiotic guesswork,
|   homework exercises and (stupid or severely misguided) "solutions"?

I want a newsgroup where people of all levels of experience feel free to post their
questions and thoughts about lisp without the fear of being humiliated and harangued.
I want a newsgroup where questions asked in good faith are answered in good faith
*stupid or not*  I want a newsgroup where people of intermediate skill level can post
their answers for the beginners and the experts might then offer _constructive_
criticism and better solutions where appropriate.

The irony is that we have both just described exactly the same thing.  It is only the
way of looking at it that differs.

|   [snip]
|   _think_ about this.  please.  and if your anger blinds you, shut up, instead.
|

I *am* shutting up about all the rest of your post but not because of anger.  There is
so little common ground in our perceptions and so many assumptions i disagree with that
i don't foresee any useful discussion.

  you're not reading what I write, but rather what you want to read.  if
  you had read what I wrote, instead of what you want to read, you'd have
  realized about an eon ago that "questions and thoughts" are not at all
  what I react or respond to.  try again.  by opening your mouth in the
  express interest of justice, you owe it to yourself more than to me.

| The irony is that we have both just described exactly the same thing.

  don't flatter yourself.

| I *am* shutting up about all the rest of your post but not because of
| anger.  There is so little common ground in our perceptions and so many
| assumptions i disagree with that i don't foresee any useful discussion.

  that's becase you don't perceive, yet, you judge only, and not what you
  see, but what you want to see.  this happens only to people who have no
  interest in being fair, only in passing judgment.  you're hereby ignored.

  just cease and desist, Joe Kraska.  that will end it.  nothing else will.

Yes, in elisp.  See Emacs/Gnus (emacs-20.6 comes with Gnus-5.7),
particularly cool since it works on both email and netnews.  In
particular you might want to look at the section of the Gnus
documentation titled `Advanced Scoring'.

If you each decided to take a potshot or two at each other in public,
and leave it at that, nobody would complain very much.

The size of this thread of _non-Lisp-related_ material has grown to a
veritable dozen or more articles.

Frankly, that is _still_ well and fine; you guys can take as many
potshots at each other as you like, and nobody here will complain, _IF
YOU TAKE THE FIGHTING SOMEWHERE ELSE._  alt.flame would probably be a
good place to take it.  Or possibly alt.abuse.

The point is that none of this belongs on comp.lang.lisp, and it
hasn't belonged on comp.lang.lisp for quite some time.

_IT DOESN'T MATTER WHO'S IN THE WRONG._ When you each follow up in
comp.lang.lisp, and don't change to either email or a more appropriate
newsgroup, you perpetuate the wrong.

[Note: Followup redirected to alt.flame.]

If you at least had an "ObLisp" reference to ensure that the
discussion was, even if only ever so tenuously, related to Lisp, that
might be one thing.  Analyzing each other's "abusiveness" is in no way
relevant.  Don't think that because the "other guy" is being abusive,
that the exchange is somehow "benign" to you, and negative to the
other.  The abusive exchange makes _BOTH_ of you look bad.  

A relevant comparison here is of two monkeys flinging dung at each
other.  There is no "winning" such a fight; all parties involved in
the fight wind up smelling really bad.

ObLisp:

By weird coincidence, I've been hacking on one lately, in Scheme.
If there's interest, I'll post something here when it's vaguely
usable. (I wasn't going to bother the Lisp folks with it, but...)

By the way, the "filtering" (at least, not the kind I'm interested in)
wasn't the hard part. Most of the messiness has had to do with interacting
with the rest of the mail environment, especially playing the same style
of locking as the other programs which append to, alter, or truncate
mailbox files.

-Rob