Intrepid,

I think you and I get along OK in the CB, so in an attempt to provide a reasonably objective contribution and try to smooth over what has become an unfortunate situation, perhaps I could make a couple of comments:

• Yes, there are occasionally what I would consider to be incidents of bad manners on PM. You and I are both guilty of that too; no one is perfect, and there are times when all of us type something into the CB that we then regret.
• There are people on Perlmonks whose manners perhaps generally leave something to be desired. I mention no names. But I have to keep reminding myself that this is essentially a programming site, and technical people are often (in the real world as well as virtually) a little abrupt with each other. Those of us who are prone to take offence at this should try to remember where we are.
• There has been at least one occasion where someone borged you, and I thought at the time it was appropriate. IIRC you were being what I considered to be needlessly personal and voluble in your response to a new user asking questions that are documented in perldoc. That's something that does provoke some disapproval from others in the CB - me included.
• Friendly criticism: you hold strong views, which is perfectly OK, but you do sometimes tend to provoke an argument (also OK - discussion of wide ranging subjects makes the CB interesting) and then express your views in lots of rapidly submitted, substantial blocks of text. Although you may not be aware of it, from this side it conveys the impression of holding forth, or what I would call 'going off on one'.

Not that I want to convey the impression that it's all your own fault. Far from it, there does seem to have developed a 'Intrepids going off on one, lets borg him before he builds up a head of steam' approach. While I have some sympathy with it at times (it can be difficult to get a word in edgeways once you really get going), it does seem to be edging increasingly in the direction of victimisation. For what it's worth, there does appear to be an element of mischievous schoolboy humour in it.

The relationship between you and some of the site grandees does seem to have degenerated into a downward spiral. Many another person would have given up and left the site in that situation, and it's to your credit that you have the strength of character not to have gone off in a huff.

BUT, your response to it does come across as rather more confrontational than is really necessary. In particular, your habit of documenting who you're ignoring on your homenode. Personally, I'm not interested who you are ignoring and why, and I think many others would agree. By documenting this, you are making a pointed public statement of your opinions of particular people, which could be considered rather rude.

It's worth bearing in mind that the way we construct our role in any relationship is through a dynamic, ongoing process of negotiation; we conform to the others expectations to a certain extent, and we help to construct the relationship by contributing a proportion of our own expectations.

For the future I'd like to suggest the following:

Intrepid: I understand your point of view, but continuing to be confrontational will just perpetuate the problem. A few homenode edits might show a willingness to compromise.

power users: While I can see an element of mischevious humour in borging Intrepid when the CB messages from him start to flow thick, fast and strongly opinionated, it is unfair to treat him differently from anyone else - whatever has happened in the past.

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