IMjO, That node was prematurely unconsidered, 2 to 6 isn't much of an opinion about anything, and especially not for potentially controversial nodes. On the case of personal attacks I agree that sometimes the system works against us, since it only takes 2 keep votes to prevent deletion, and clearly some people have 2 or more "enemies" in the Monastery. (I don't necessarily agree that the mentioned node was a personal attack, but it clearly has no use/contribution to the thread.)

Having said that, I feel in general that the Monastery is quite a good example of a normal human community, and not a Utopia at all. Clearly we get people here from all walks of life, all sorts of religions, all colours, most different parts of the world. Which would actually make it a more mixed community than live ones, which are restricted by distance. All we have in common (for most of us anyway), is a common interest in a programming language called Perl. We get calm people, angry people, people who hold grudges, people who are like sheep, people who speak out for their beliefs·, quiet people.. I could go on and on, no doubt people will recognise themselves and others in my list.

People act here similarly to they do/would around their friends or their coworkers, quite a few regard the people they communicate with here AS their friends. And just like at work or home or in the pub, tension is sometimes taken by joking about a commoly known person. References to "pointy-haired-bosses" are all in good fun (mostly, I hope :) IMO at least, this does not represent a feeling of "we are better than them", at least only in the sense that clearly "we" know about prgramming, and they dont. I don't doubt that such bosses also complain to their friends how annoying "those programmers" are, insisting on doing things their way, testing, taking longer etc.

I could go on, but basically I wanted to say that all the things that have been pointed out above, are what makes the Monastery a normal, HUMAN community, and most everyone I've conversed with here knows this.

Like in real life, there will always be one or two trouble makers, we can't do much about that but ignore them, or try to integrate them, or just hold up and make them know they are not wanted, it seems to have worked so far.

C.