Dear all,
Exchanging opinions and discussing them in public is very important for our community. Sometimes, discussions can become emotional and sometimes debaters use a too offensive language although, possibly unintentionally. In the last days we have seen some heated debates coming up on this list and individual messages of those discussions have already been brought to the attention of your list-admins. It also came to our attention that some of the more offensive messages were sent from mail accounts that joined this list just recently.
The list administration would like to help bring back a good tone and discussion culture by moderating the discussion if necessary and for now we set new subscriptions to the list on moderation.
But much more important for our discussion culture will be what you bring into it. A successful method that works for many people is, that if you are upset, then consider to keep your mail as a draft overnight and re-read it before sending it the next day. Also it might help to keep your audience in mind: This list has several hundred subscribers and is archived publicly on the Internet and indexed by search engines.
Generally the best advice is to always keep in mind that:
The Free Software Foundation Europe (FSFE) and its community aim to offer a friendly and peaceful environment for every participant at the FSFE's events, online and offline.
All participants should at all times feel at ease to do so without fearing any form of attack, reprisal or harassment. We ask everybody to be respectful and considerate towards each other, especially when attempting to provide constructive criticism.
Thank you very much and looking forward to many fruitful and friendly discussions, Erik for the list-admins