rude-email-responses
Responding to rude emails
We need everyone's help to keep the community civil and friendly (see be nice in the mailing list guidelines), however, sometimes someone will say something rude on the email list. In such cases it is useful to have a set of pre-written responses to make it easier to deal with. Here are a few actual examples with responses you may use:
unsubstantiated claim of repeated issue
Example rude text:
"something many people talked about on microformats.org for years. A few years ago it was brought up on a regular basis by newcomers, about twice a year." -[1]
Response:
If something was "brought up on a regular basis by newcomers", provide the URLs.
false claim of excluding newcomers
Example rude text:
"newcomers were then driven out of the community." -[2]
Response:
No one was "driven out". We've had to ban a few trolls for negative behaviors for fixed periods of time, but haven't had to do any such thing for over a year (maybe 2) now.
empty claims of use-cases
Example rude text:
"I had actual parsing uses-cases for such a feature as well as publishing use-cases" -[3]
Response:
If you had "actual parsing uses-cases for such a feature as well as publishing use-cases", at what URL did you document them?
name-calling elitism
Example rude text:
"Not everyone tried to follow the process but I did, to the same end. After everything, the elitism of uf.org turned me off to the whole effort." -[4]
Response:
If you consider requiring documentation on the web/wiki and being rigorous as "elitism of uf.org" then, yes, you're not going to be very productive.
name-calling cabal
Example rude text:
"I decided not to waste my time trying to be in the cabal." -[5]
Response:
Developing microformats is not for everyone - only those that are willing to document their work and be scientific in their methods. If you consider "science" to be a cabal, then you're not going to find much sympathy and should take your name-calling elsewhere.