At 2025-09-10T15:08:14+1000, Martin D Kealey wrote: > On Wed, 10 Sept 2025 at 00:23, G. Branden Robinson < > g.branden.robin...@gmail.com> wrote: > > Thankyou for pointing out that the headers are clickable. So it turns > out that the “Mail Notification Carbon-Copy List” heading doesn't sit > above an empty section. Nice to know.
This type of control is called an "accordion". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accordion_(GUI) (Years ago, I heard it spoken of as a "blinder", but that usage seems to have receded.) > (On my screen, the (+) and (-) in each heading are just tiny > indistinguishable fuzzy white blobs on a pale blue background. Now > that I've tried out some other themes, contrasting colours help a bit, > but the + and - are still tiny and barely visible.) You can of course report an accessibility issue to the Savannah admins/Savane development team. https://savannah.nongnu.org/support/?group=administration&func=additem > That's not just observing, that's participating. This was exactly my > point: one can't follow a ticket UNLESS one adds a comment. As Chet pointed out, one can instead subscribe to this list, bug-bash. [snip] > There has been a depressing display of ad-hominem attacks on what is > supposed to be a technical mailing list. I don't agree. An ad hominem attack is a fallacy wherein one attempts to imply that a person's claim is false due to a defect of their character or circumstances. I'll give you an example. "Bob is incorrect that mass deportations will lower the crime rate because he's a jerk." What you observe is distinguishable. "Bob is incorrect that mass deportations will lower the crime rate because immigrants commit crime at a lower average level than the native born; remove them, ceteris paribus, and the offense rate per capita will necessarily go up. And Bob is a jerk for making nativist claims." (I wonder if the only fallacy practiced more widely than the ad hominem attack itself is the fallacious assertion of being the victim of same. Maybe we'd be better off interpreting such bogus claims as "touché".) Leavening a valid rebuttal to a fallacious or unsound argument with humor, reproach, asides, or exclamations of exasperation does not thereby nullify the validity of the rebuttal. To imply otherwise is itself fallacious. Reasoned argument (outside of _irrealis_ scenarios) is not a game of magic words, where the utterance or non-utterance of same somehow absorbs unto itself sufficient power to decide an issue. The foregoing is something of which I thought most people had acquired understanding by the age of 20 or so. I might not be mistaken, but rather some people find sport in pretending they lack it. > If I've made a mistake or omission, then by all means point that out, > but there's no call to add commentary about my personality or motives. There is, when you inflate your mistakes and omissions with fervid editorializing and fulmination about the quality of Bash's implementation or its project management (and the competency of the Austin Group, just for the lulz). The people who contribute to Bash have feelings just as you do; they are not ciphers behind a screen. Let's go to the metaphorical tape and sample the solipsistic flavor of your contributions within just the past two weeks. "It's crazy that we have hundreds of people on this mailing list, but Savannah only lists 3 people as members of the Bash group" (argument from absurdity, or begging the question, or not an argument at all) [1] "I can't think of a worse design for encouraging participation, than having everything is gatewayed through a “boss” human." (false and hyperbolic--but gratifyingly confessional of limited imagination) [1][2] "commercial systems like Github & Bitbucket are more like bazaars where participation is encouraged." (implying that it isn't here--a matter of opinion, not fact) [1][3] "So the situation is not going to improve until either (a) there are substantial improvements to Savane and Savannah, or (b) the project migrates to a different support platform." (false dilemma) [1][9] "The assumption that people will assume that something is deprecated if they cannot find it in the manual represents a travesty of misunderstanding of human cognition:" (hyperbole) [4] 'The "no compelling reason" seems odd, like nobody was bothered to think about it.' (everyone but you is thoughtless or lazy) [5][6] "citing patterns in case statements as a reason to prefer $(()) over $[] seems somewhat disingenuous." (Bash developers are deceptive and fail to practice candor in their documentation) [5] "Backtracking is never a good sign in language design." (gross overgeneralization; citation needed; whence the success of PCRE, then?) [5] "The last time I wrote about this - probably around 2000 - the answer was indeed "this is how we've always done it", accompanied by some oblique insults to my intelligence. So I was, unfortunately, primed for a fight." [7] This last is an especially illuminating example. (And, given the other examples here, evidence for how "unfortunate" you found it is lacking.) You carried a chip on your shoulder about GNU for twenty-five years. When others pointed that your presumption had been mistaken for fully *fifteen* of those years, you changed nothing about your rhetorical approach, but kept on as you were before. Holding a grudge can be excusable--I nurse a few myself--but resuming, at high frequency, the same flourishes that led to your spectacular faceplant less than two weeks ago suggests to me that you don't reflect on the causes of your errors--you feel free to make them, profusely, and you leave to others the burden of catching them. That attitude in turn suggests an indifference to the veracity of your own claims, and consequently a contempt for your audience. Harry G. Frankfurt has written a fairly famous monograph on this subject.[8] > PS: limited visual acuity is not correlated with stupidity, but it may > be correlated with frustration. Disability does not license haughtiness or arrogance. I wager that everybody reading this list routinely copes with _something_ unpleasant, and moreover that at least a few endure greater hardship than you. Being called out for bullshitting (see Frankfurt) does not constitute fallacy, victimization, abuse, or discrimination against one's age, low vision, or other infirmity. One can best avoid reproach for bullshitting by not practicing it. Regards, Branden [1] https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-bash/2025-09/msg00082.html [2] As noted previously, not "everything" is gatewayed through a "boss" human. Anyone can subscribe to the bug-bash@gnu and help-bash@gnu mailing lists--and submit patches!--without Chet's prior approval or even prior awareness. [3] Or demonstrably false, even. Koichi Murase and Grisha Levit, for example, have repeatedly and recently made reports that Chet welcomed and contributed patches that he incorporated. You might consider closely emulating their approach and see if your reception improves. I must advise you that such emulation will demand a demonstration of technical competency. [4] https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-bash/2025-08/msg00194.html [5] https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-bash/2025-08/msg00190.html [6] Presuming that one can happen upon a long-established development team and, with a casual remark, resolve a problem that has gone unresolved for decades is a sterling example of arrogance. If you find yourself suffering the burden of being the smartest person in the room, vacate it and inhabit a room where you aren't. Doing so is salutary for one's emotional _and_ intellectual development. [7] https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-bash/2025-08/msg00168.html [8] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_Bullshit [9] As an example of a third tine to the fork, the situation could improve because the quality of commentary on Bash development increases. We thus can see how the tenor of your participation contributes to a self-fulfilling prophecy.
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