Don't feed the troll.

Roxy Robinson wrote:
Mr. Barker, that was just about the rudest posting I have ever seen on any
list I have ever read. If you had been looking through many of the regular
postings on this list, you would have seen that many of main people who
actually answer most of the questions here, have a posting stating to post
to the list ONLY. To NOT POST to their personal email address. I have not
been subscribed but for a couple of months, but that is one of the VERY
FIRST THINGS that I gleaned from reading the many postings.
So in my opinion it is YOUR behavior that is out of line on this list!
Roxy C. Robinson

*********** REPLY SEPARATOR  ***********

On 5/4/2007 at 10:12 PM Brian Barker wrote:

I'm sorry that you chose to write this abusive and unhelpful reply, and especially that you chose to advertise it publicly. It is only fair that I now reply and defend my behaviour, even though I am aware that much of this can be of no interest to most list members.

o No-one needs your permission to write to you privately when you advertise your address on a public list such as this. It is silly of you to imply that they do. What you do with such replies is up to you, but you have no right to shout at me not to do something I'm entitled to do. Perhaps you are not sufficiently experienced with mailing lists to know that such off-list messages are both common and frequently welcomed. If you would like to see unusual rules such as you suggest imposed on the list, perhaps you should propose a vote amongst its users.

o On the contrary, I *do* have the right to expect you not to copy private messages to you to any public list. Apart from this conversation being of no interest to others, I have the right to expect private correspondence not to be made public. You were wrong to copy my private message to you to the list. I require you not to do this with any future private message. Other list members will also have this expectation.

o I did not "sit around and snipe", but instead tested your suggestion, since I was surprised by it. My testing suggested that your answer was wrong or perhaps incomplete. If you have subsequently been proved right, that does not invalidate the tests I made or the conclusions I came to. (I note that you did not mention in your original reply that this was some sort of glitch and not something to be expected, as you do now.) I had the courtesy to report these to you privately, and not to criticise you in public. I am sorry you could not understand that this was the best way to proceed. I expressed my doubts gently and not arrogantly. If I was wrong (and I was certainly not entirely so), you could have told me privately or simply ignored my message. And if I was right, I gave you the opportunity to correct or add to your list message yourself (as you have), rather than have me do it. That was my intention, and it was a reflection of politeness on my part - not "sniping".

o You may have mistaken the conciseness of my message for rudeness. That would be a pity.

o Contrary to your suggestion, I did look into the issue in sufficient detail to be able to report what I did. In fact, I have done some more testing, and I still cannot reproduce the problem as originally described with my version of OpenOffice. You are wrong to assume that comments that do not agree with yours are necessarily not intelligently researched.

o It is silly of you to suggest that I should not contribute to the list about this matter, when in fact I didn't! It is you who chose to bring my comments to the list, against my wishes.

o Conversations such as this cannot encourage other potential users of OpenOffice and of this mailing list, which is presumably what we all want. Some potential posters will not relish the possibility of similar abuse and be discouraged by messages of this nature. A list of users must not be allowed to become the province of a small number of self-appointed experts: many users can and should contribute. But I do have the right to reply to your abuse in the same forum in which it was expressed. Please can we not bore people further with this publicly? If you wish to continue your disagreement with me, may we *please* do this off-list? And if you wish to reply to any future private communication I may send you, I shall be pleased to accept and deal with any further response - courteous or otherwise - sent to me privately.

Thank you.

Brian Barker

At 10:43 04/05/2007 +1000, you wrote:
-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Re:[users] [moderated] No type appears
From: Brian Barker <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: Dave Barton <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Date: Fri 04 May 2007 09:53:38 EST

At 09:41 04/05/2007 +1000, you wrote:
-------- Original Message --------
From: Stephen Cooke <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Date: Thu 03 May 2007 13:36:51 EST
When I open "writer" and commence to type, nothing appears on the
screen although the cursor moves.
If I save the document and then re-pen it, I can see what I have
typed.
[...]

It sounds like you have inadvertently changed the default text colour
to white ...
If that were so, surely saving and reopening the document would not
solve the problem.  Must be something different ...

Brian Barker - privately
Firstly, DO NOT respond off-list to my list postings, unless requested
or invited to do so.

Secondly, my suggestion was based on first hand experience I had with
one of my customers, who had an almost identical issue and this was how
I resolved it. Why the text colour returns to normal when the file is
reopened, I don't know. If all I had to do was to sit around and snipe
at the answers given by those who are trying to assist other OOo users,
I would look into the issue in more detail. Unfortunately, I don't have
that luxury, because I have a business to run, but I do endeavour to
make some small contributions to the OOo project where I can.

Finally, if you have nothing constructive to contribute, I suggest you
unsubscribe from this and go get a life.

Please note that you neither requested or invited to respond to this
post off-list.



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