Re: [Leica] The chip on Creek Johnson's shoulder

[Barney Quinn <barney@ncep.noaa.gov>]

Freedom of speech works two ways, in my view. It is hypocritical, and all
too human, not to extend to others those freedoms one insists on for one's
self. Usually I just lurk. But I am going to de-cloak long enough to say
that I, for one, neither like nor appreciate what strikes me as the
increasingly hostile, netgative tone of many messages I have read of late
on the LUG. I don't think that it is necessary, and I don't think it
presents one's views in a way which will convince anyone else.

I don't think that freedom of speech was even intended to be a
justification for rudeness, abuse, or simple bad manners. The fact that
these things often go with the territory doesn't make them right.
Photography, I think, is an art, and I think that photographers are
artists. That, in my mind, implies a certain level of sensitivity and
openness to other people, opinions, situations and places. I wish we could
spend our time celebrating each other's creative work, lives, and
experiences.

It ain't what you say, as the saying goes, it's the way what you say it.
I think that what we write and how we write it says something significant
about each of us as both humans and as artists. A little sensitivity to
the feelings of others is one of the corner stones of good manners. The
fact that all of what I have read on the LUG lately is protected by the
first ammendment doesn't make the content of these messages factually
correct, praiseworthy, mannerly, or tasteful, in my view. 

Perhaps we should work a bit at toning down the rhetoric. Baring that,
could we at least work at labeling our opinions as such. Little points of
nettiquite such as IMHO can, in my humble opinion, go a long way to
greasing the wheels of discourse on the LUG.

Barney