Tone (Was: [PLUG] City Lawyer: We Don't Store Data on Hard Disk)

[Jeff Abrahamson <jeff@purple.com>]

(I'm intentionally not quoting any particular bit of this thread, I
want to address it generally.)

We aren't lawyers, Ed's lawyer is a lawyer. Why are so many of us
making pronouncements on the legal merits of the case, or even opining
on those merits, when a professional is engaged to do that? Don't we
feel frustrated when people who know little about software engineering
or system administration tell us how it ought to be done?

Similarly, many of the comments suggest that their writers didn't read
the material that Ed has posted on his site, hallwatch.org, about his
efforts. We are the first to say RTFM on technical matters.

Here's a guy who's come to us with some specific technical questions,
and I feel like we're flaming all sorts of details of what he's
doing.

BTW, Ed's doing something many of us don't understand well: fighting
for a process instead of a specific thing. He wants open records laws
and policies to work. He could get around them technologically, but
that's not his first goal, as I understand it from his site. We've
pointed out that he could spider, he's acknowledged that he could but
that he doesn't want to now. What do we achieve by arguing what he
should do?


There's certainly a technically competent core of us who easily slough
off sharp technical criticism. But I worry that we may sometimes be a
bit too harsh outside the folks we know can take it. And, worse, I
worry that newbies will be afraid to stick their necks out when they
see frenzied gloves-off debates like this.

Only my $.02, but I'd like to make a call for more reflection on tone.

-- 
 Jeff

 Jeff Abrahamson  <http://www.purple.com/jeff/>
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