I find your justifications unconvincing. I like much of what you have said in this thread about your motives. As an expert in Perl you demonstrate a good and generous social conscience by feeling and acting on "your" responsibility to correct "good" people.

People do persist and to some extent maintain state, I just called you a "Perl expert" this doesn't imply a momentary state. Your view of people as innately good also doesn't imply a momentary state. And "being a fool" doesn't imply a momentary state.

Much like two-thirds of programmers will err in judging $obj->new, many English speakers will mistake your meaning and be stung when reading "some fool comes along, this time it's $reader_name". That many here, myself included, are glad to have your expertise; and that many of us have become used to your poor tact; and that many of "the powers that be" know you in real life; and that some of us are just in awe of you--all those make Perl Monks a very forgiving audience for you.

The idea that politeness and effectiveness are either-or qualities of communication is erroneous. Compare politeness to good identifier names and good logic flow. "Fool" was not the best of variable names.

Your lack of skill in handling people has cost you a lot and I don't expect you to "get it" just because I write this; but as I see myself as more expert (close to normal) in this skill it is my duty to try to help you correct yourself. You are articulate but you have a small blind spot that leaves you insensitive to others regarding this sort of thing. Ugol's law is worth consideration.

I am warmed by a couple of your posts in this thread; the fineness of your intentions is not usually so well displayed. Perhaps you could craft a less abrasive standard disclaimer from things you have said in this thread. I volunteer my help if you want it.

Be well.

In reply to Re^4: A modest request of Merlyn by rir
in thread A modest request of Merlyn by delirium

Title:
Use:  <p> text here (a paragraph) </p>
and:  <code> code here </code>
to format your post, it's "PerlMonks-approved HTML":


  • Posts are HTML formatted. Put <p> </p> tags around your paragraphs. Put <code> </code> tags around your code and data!
  • Titles consisting of a single word are discouraged, and in most cases are disallowed outright.
  • Read Where should I post X? if you're not absolutely sure you're posting in the right place.
  • Please read these before you post! —
  • Posts may use any of the Perl Monks Approved HTML tags:
    a, abbr, b, big, blockquote, br, caption, center, col, colgroup, dd, del, details, div, dl, dt, em, font, h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6, hr, i, ins, li, ol, p, pre, readmore, small, span, spoiler, strike, strong, sub, summary, sup, table, tbody, td, tfoot, th, thead, tr, tt, u, ul, wbr
  • You may need to use entities for some characters, as follows. (Exception: Within code tags, you can put the characters literally.)
            For:     Use:
    & &amp;
    < &lt;
    > &gt;
    [ &#91;
    ] &#93;
  • Link using PerlMonks shortcuts! What shortcuts can I use for linking?
  • See Writeup Formatting Tips and other pages linked from there for more info.