[asterisk-dev] Insulting source code comments in main/channel.c

[Vlasis Hatzistavrou (KTI)]

Steve Murphy wrote:
> 
> 
> On Mon, Nov 23, 2009 at 9:13 AM, Vlasis Hatzistavrou (KTI) 
> <vhatz at kinetix.gr <mailto:vhatz at kinetix.gr>> wrote:
> 
>     I can't believe what I'm reading... Some people are being spat upon and
>     they think its raining!
> 
>     Or at least they don't recognize in others the right to feel offended
>     under certain circumstances.
> 
>     In this case then, I'm sorry, I take back everything I wrote. The
>     comment was right: Europeans seem to be silly after all.
> 
> 
> "Silly" is so low on the insult scale, that someone really
> angy would lose all his heated steam by even using
> "silly". His anger would seem silly, or laughable. Everyone around would 
> see the
> irony and start laughing. The person who used it would/should have a 
> tough time
> keeping a straight face himself. So, "silly" is more for humor than 
> anything else.
> If you want to get more insulting, more strong, use something like 
> "ridiculous".
> 
> It reminds me of the Prince, hunting the captors of his kidnapped 
> fiance, in the
> movie "The Princess Bride": "If they kill her, I will be "miffed"! Or 
> did he use
> "peeved"? I can't remember!
> 
> It's wise not to take insult where none was intended. Let your attitude 
> be that
> of the Black Knight: "It's only a flesh wound!"
> 
> murf

Indeed it is wise not to take offense only if _no offense was intended_. 
But can you really be sure about the intentions of the writer in that 
particular sentence of comment in the code?

If the original writer had no insult in mind he could have used a ":)" 
or even a ":P" to indicate his intentions. But he chose not to and 
unfortunately the literal reading of the sentence does not convey the 
intentions of the writer.

So, it is up to each reader to decide if he is offended or not. 
Therefore, some people _were_ actually offended by the literal meaning 
of the sentence, because to them (me included) he left no doubt that he 
actually believes that Europeans are silly because they use one codec 
over the other.

And a question to all of you who believe we should not take offense by 
this comment:

Please tell me with all sincerity, if such a remark about a group of 
people being silly was done against any other group (for ex. various 
minority groups), would there not be a storm of reactions from all 
directions, even if the comment was _clearly_ with good intentions?

So, why not in this case, too?

Don't we have the _same_ right to feel offended?

Or do we have to twist the meaning of a sentence until it does no 
offense and we brush it off, just to feel magnanimous, aloof, 
untouchable by petty remarks, to say "It's only a flesh wound!" like the 
Black Knight, or whatnot?

Regards,
Vlasis.

PS: To those who post diagrams and stats on how much swearing can be 
found in various open source project: The argument here is not about 
using foul language ("silly" can hardly be categorized as foul). It is 
about a demeaning comment against a group of people found in public, 
open source code. This is why it is meaningless to utilize such 
diagrams/stats in this discussion.