From: timsuth@... (Tim Sutherland)
Date: 2004-11-05T17:03:47+09:00
Subject: Re: Ruby and civil political discussion? (Re: [OT] US Presidential Election)

In article <418A19C4.8080906@semantico.com>, Peter Hickman wrote:
>Actually the political *debate* came to RT very late. Other ML/NG have 
>been having various rants for quite a few weeks now.
>
>Maybe Ruby programmers have better things to do?

Personally, I have very strong feelings about the election (unhappy with the
result). However, if I started discussing it here I would quickly get angry
and say some harsh and insulting things to people who I otherwise like and
respect. That was my reason for not contributing to this thread (until now).
I expect there are others who feel the same way. I value the atmosphere of
this list too much to engage in this.

This is relevant to Ruby because ... it's like "Broken Window Theory" - 
http://www.artima.com/intv/fixitP.html (interview with Dave'n'Andy).

If the list is civilised, (most) people who join will also want to be
civilised. If this list was full of flamewars all the time then I would
certainly be jumping in and smokin' some folks ;-)

Thanks to everyone for the restraint shown in this thread!