I think that there are numerous reasons we could point to in explaining this... but the most important one is, because we want things that way, and work to keep them that way.

Of course, the main topic of conversation here is rather abstruse, and not to likely to appeal to your average Slashdotter. And we're not a totally open community... we've got some controls on the system, to limit crass and abusive behavior.

But we've also got a culture which values courtesy; not only moreso than does the Internet at large, but moreso than you'll find in most of the streets of America, or on television or in the newspapers. It's different, and many people here like it a lot; so much so that they often show a taste for gratuitous displays of ettiquette.

And actually, all displays of ettiquette are gratuitous. They go beyond what's needed to express the information at hand; peppering your message with "please" and "thank you" and "in my opinion" and "but I understand your view" does not make it any clearer. It simply conveys respect.

In my opinion, that's also largely why this place is a useful technical resource. I have no reason to spend my time answering other people's questions; sure, I like to have mine answered, but that's different. Neither does anyone else have a good reason help out... so just as good a question is, why does anyone bother? Why are we, thus far, doing pretty well at the prisoner's dilemma?

I think because we enjoy answering questions; which is because we mostly like each other; which is because we accept the conversational overhead involved in treating other people well.

Why are we different? Because I treat people with courtesy. Because tilly does, and because ybiC does, as do too many others to mention. Because people care enough to ask questions like yours. Because we help and enourage newcomers to learn our ways.

In short, we care and we work at it; for which I thank everybody here.

As a sidenote (if you're into this), evolutionary biologists try explain it in a similar way, but they invoke 'reciprocity'. The arguement is that animals (and humans) only do favours for each other if there is a chance it will be repaid. For that, you need to meet the person/creature you did a favour for, and be able to recognise them. But the critical point is that you are likely to see them and deal with them a second time.

In ordinary discussion groups, you can change your email address and .sig and you are a different person. So there's little reason for favours, since they aren't likely to be returned.

But around here people are attached to their names, and would rather behave than give them up.

Please don't confuse me for someone who actually believes this gak, I've just been pumped full of it for many years. Personally I like participating in flame wars because there's no chance of me getting hurt.

____________________
Jeremy
I didn't believe in evil until I dated it.

I recently (2 days ago) swapped home page from /. to the monastry - at least now when I'm not working, I am working (ie, learning :)

I value a site that doesn't get obsessed by ALL YOUR Natalie Portman Grit ARE US

Or perhaps I'm just getting older... :)

cLive ;-)

A consistent theme, which makes it relatively easy to distinguish the on-topic from the off-topic. Communities that lack a consistent theme quickly fracture.

An emphasis on self-improvement and knowledge sharing, which puts a negative incentive on flaming. (Flame, and you risk not getting help, or at least not the type of help you want :-)

A friendly feedback mechanism, in the form of XP, which gives people gentle guidance on the kinds of behaviors that the community rewards. Without feedback on behavior, a site can degenerate into "anything goes."

Self policing, which makes it easy for senior members of the community to "fix broken windows" before too many of the wrong sorts wander in and think this is a free-fire zone.

Online communites that I've been a part of that have lacked most of the above have since fractured or redefined themselves. Compare the list above against, say, slashdot.

As for that quotation, I have always found it amazing how low people will stoop. As a one-time school sysadmin, I had many successes introducing the Internet but made a couple of really bad mistakes: (a) setting up IRC, and (b) allowing free use of email (but what else could I do??)

When these media started to be used for sexual harassment, racial abuse and good ole fashioned flame-wars, I was astonished that the people involved were often the most polite in real life. I guess they were a bit repressed and fubar inside, and the 'net gave them a way to express that. Hope it did them some good :-}

I think one thing that everyone has neglected to add to this is that we're all hackers. We are people involved heavily in forwarding our culture.

I read this link a while ago, and I owe premchai21 for finding it for me. Hackerism is a gift culture. This means that we gain status through giving our stuff away. We cant quite give away our material goods online (though I've been trying), but we can provide knowledge encouragement and support.

We're all here because part of our ethos is to give. We're here because we're all hackers. Thats the glue that binds us together. On slashdot you have netizens. Here we have hackers. We want to give back. I am here because so many people have helped me out in the past. All I want is to be able to contribute something back to people.

I won't lie and say I'm not here for status. Thats the cool part about being a hacker. You gain status by giving. And, heck, I think that's what makes us so cool. If I do say so myself.

/me makes a big silly grin at his fellow monks

I'm glad to be a part of this little outfit.

ebullient,
brother dep.

--
Laziness, Impatience, Hubris, and Generosity.

Some other on-line forums I've used had real attitude problems that resulted from either a lack of leadership or de-facto leaders that fostered rudeness either unintentionally or in a misguided hope of stopping the "newbie problem".

I worked in telephone customer service in a bank for a year and a half and many of my phone calls started with a raging lunatic, usually with profane language skills that would make a sailor's head turn. The problem they would present could be easily solved but most my time was spent dealing with the bad flow of emotions (from them and from me!)

In the rare occasions I had to work face to face customer service the same people would come up, almost meekly, to ask for help. This frustrated me to no end until our advanced telephone c.s. training classes. There we found out that the less feedback available, ie facial expressions, body language, voice tones, the easier it is for the person to dehumanize the other.

My feeling is that the internet in general takes even more feedback away, making "flames" easier. However here at I have noticed that we do have some feedback mechanisims available: Voting, the Chatterbox and the Nodereaper. While this is not the biofeedback we are used to, it is still feedback. This is why I prefer this community over the others I have seen.

puts down the chalk and walks away from the board

As someone posted earlier, this positive feedback cycle probably all started with the originators of this board. Thanks to them and everyone else who makes this board possible. It's a fantastic resource. I'm really amazed by it and it's something I would definitely be willing to pay for.

This apparent impoliteness has a bit more to do with the technical nature of the discussion. If I were discussing fine films or fine wines with someone I might let them get away with generalizations such as "the French certainly do make great ones". But as a programmer I could not let someone get away with the inaccurate statement "all operating systems use / as a directory separator".

If I were the quibbling type discussing films and wine I might be inclined to point out some of the lesser French films or wines so that my friend might not try to lead me into the falsehood that "all French films and wines are fine". But that would be irksome to my friend the Franco-eonophilic film buff.

To let the programmer in this example get away with their untruth without a remark would be somewhat impolite of me. It is not that I want to embarass or berate them personally that I feel compelled to point out the falsity of their assertion. I feel compelled to point out counterexamples, presumably because we are discussing code. Code differs from wine and films in that a computer may be asked to interpret it at some time. Hopefully at that time it will be correct. Hopefully the human that wrote it has learned something about the intracacies of computers by the time they "release" it. A strictly technical discussion is nothing personal really.

Most of the flamewars you see computing geeks engage in (eg emacs vs vi, Perl vs Python, do you hang braces and cuddle else's) are not fundamentally meaningful.

One of the reasons is that in programming there is a lot of domain-specific information which you need to know. Many times there are different but roughly equivalent ways of doing things. Which one you choose doesn't really matter. Not having to deal with both at once, does. A lot. In other words expertise is fragile. Guru-hood is easily lost from apparently small changes in your working environment.

So before your next flame war, stop and think about what you are arguing about. The odds are pretty good that it is one of these important irrelevancies. This is almost certainly true for most of the "religious wars" that you see.

Hiding that behind an attitude that you are, "Just pointing out the facts, Ma-am!" is disingenuous at best. You are being destructive. Before doing that give it careful thought. Why do you feel so strongly? Do you believe that the other person will find an immediate improvement in their life from taking your advice? Are you being a rigid asshole who refuses to change because you are scared to suddenly be incompetent in a new world?

Yes, there are things that matter. But most of the ones that matter to you personally are not based on anything more meaningful than the fact that they preserve your domain based expertise. (Which I assure you will largely be lost by changes in programming over the next 5 years.)