[tex-live] \"\i causes problems with texlive 2015

Philip Taylor P.Taylor at Rhul.Ac.Uk
Sun Jun 14 19:29:58 CEST 2015



Norbert Preining wrote:

> On Sun, 14 Jun 2015, Philip Taylor wrote:

>> Am I alone in longing for a return to the days when TeXhax was a
> 
> Phil, this is 1) not texhax

Agreed. Mea culpa.

> 2) people here are friendly, but expect a certain level of 
> cooperation

If the TeX-Live list is "friendly", then I would hate to participate in
one that is unfriendly. There are a few invariably friendly contributors
(and I single out Akira-san as a paragon of politeness, although a few
others get very close), but unfortunately there are also a number of
contributors who can be relied upon to be acerbic, aggressive, abrasive
and intolerant.

> 3) we are not here to fulfil your very specific expectations.

There is no "we"; there are people with problems, and people who can
help with those problems. Some unfailingly attempt to do so in a
friendly and helpful manner; some usually attempt to help in such a
manner, but become exasperated when the information they seek is not
forthcoming, or when they believe (rightly or wrongly) that the
questioner is not understanding their replies, and allow that
exasperation to come through in their replies; and there are some who
simply make me ashamed to be a member of this community.

> And from now please stop calling other members who try to explain and
> help strange names.

You must be confusing me with someone else -- I have called no-one
names, strange or otherwise. I have simply expressed a heartfelt wish
that all questions should be answered with politeness and respect, a
wish that in two occasions in the last 24 hours has been honoured more
in the breach than in the observance.

What I believe is that before anyone posts a reply, they should apply
the "bnb" test : that is, they should re-read their words and then ask
themselves "would Barbara Beeton, who has helped more TeX users than
most of us have had hot dinners, have written what I am about to
post ?". If the answer is "no", then it should not be sent -- it should
be re-written it in a /helpful/ way that neither sets out to demonstrate
that the question/questioner is stupid, nor sets out to demonstrate the
author's intellectual superiority.

> You are helping the community much less with your useless comments 
> than Reinhard with his trial to explain everything.

I hear your opinion; I prefer to leave the judgement to those whose
opinions I respect.

** Phil.


More information about the tex-live mailing list