The following is a repost of an appeal that I made to all forum participants last year. I am repeating again, for those who are new, or those of you who may be "slipping" a bit. And please read my note at the bottom.

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Y2k is certainly a hotbutton issue for many of us, regardless of our personal views and/or affiliations. The subject has become very polarizing, and this polarization leads to suspicion of intent or motive on both sides of the issue. As humans, those of us with opposing viewpoints have a tendency in these situations to call into question each other's agenda, professionalism, or parental lineage, ostensibly driven by a passion to get to some "ultimate truth".

Well, gentle readers, I'm here to tell you that there is no "ultimate truth" in Y2k. But we're not even going to get close to some common understanding (much less "ultimate truth") unless we can treat each other with a modicum of respect.

Over the past few weeks, I've noticed a decreasing trend in the civility of discourse on the euy2k.com forum. Rhetoric and ad hominems have historically had no place in this forum, and as long as it's operational, won't have a place at the table. One of the things that has distinguished this forum from all other public Y2k forums is the manner in which we communicate with each other. Yeah, I've slapped a few people around, and I've been slapped around a bit myself. But generally, while we challenge each other, we have done so with respect.

I want to ask everyone to maintain the integrity of this forum by treating the person on the other end of your rant as a person with true beliefs and a technical basis for those beliefs, whether pessimistic, optimistic or somewhere inbetween. Regardless of beliefs, everyone has some degree of personal dignity, and when you challenge that dignity, the discussion can only deteriorate from there.

We (the collective "we") have become, in many ways non-Y2k, less tolerant of views that contrast with our personal experiences and what we ass/u/me to be the "ultimate truth". A wise man (or maybe it was a woman!) once said that you do not learn or grow until someone challenges your personal status quo. If you are not open to learning something that challenges your personal status quo, or contributing or taking back something useful from this forum, then there's no reason for you to be here.

I'll leave you with one thought, expressed quite well in a previous posting of mine, and shamelessly lifted from a good friend who used to post in comp.software.year-2000. As I said before to CL, it really, really applies to this forum, like no other on the web, and is what makes this forum somewhat unique:

 On 13 Oct 1998 01:20:16 GMT, in comp.software.year-2000 Ron Kenyon wrote:

>You find yourself in the company of giants - of many different 
>backgrounds - some of whom would let you stand on their shoulders, if 
>you could recognize them, and ask nicely.
>
>And dwarves, some of whom would share useful magic, if you could 
>recognize them, and ask nicely.
>
>And trolls, among others...

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It seems that I may need to step up the moderation a bit, again. I'd rather not. We're all grownups here (well, most of us anyway), and I appreciate the "self policing" that we've all gotten pretty good at.

-- Anonymous, September 24, 1999

Answers

Thank you for this post Judith.

One of the things that I enjoy about this forum is that generally the level of discussion is well above that of other forums, and most people do respects the views of others. We may not always agree on the possible outcomes, and we may interpret the same piece of information in different ways, but at least we can post post information without fear of being personally attacked.

Unfortunately, it is sometimes hard to determine that fine line between attacking the message, and attacking the messenger, but I think we can all appreciate that no-one feels any personal animosity due to a difference of opinion.

Malcolm

-- Anonymous, September 25, 1999