He was not attempting to hurt people. That some people reacted that way to his posts is not an indication of intent.
Of the posts of his I read, it seems that he would go that direction only when someone else already painted themselves the victim of emotional hurt from his earlier technical criticism.
You could argue he should've reacted differently to this self-victimization, but I worry what that would do to the signal-to-noise ratio of the forum in question. If people who require emotional coddling are encouraged to participate in technical forms, then a lot of the conversations focus on that rather than on technical point.
ESR was not entirely wrong when he stated you can pick exaggeratedly "friendly" or useful; Naggum's goal was to keep the forum firmly planted in the realm of useful, even if it meant offending some people along the way. I think there is some virtue in this. Of the posts of his I read, there were nuggets of very good wisdom in all of them.
Of the posts of his I read, it seems that he would go that direction only when someone else already painted themselves the victim of emotional hurt from his earlier technical criticism.
You could argue he should've reacted differently to this self-victimization, but I worry what that would do to the signal-to-noise ratio of the forum in question. If people who require emotional coddling are encouraged to participate in technical forms, then a lot of the conversations focus on that rather than on technical point.
ESR was not entirely wrong when he stated you can pick exaggeratedly "friendly" or useful; Naggum's goal was to keep the forum firmly planted in the realm of useful, even if it meant offending some people along the way. I think there is some virtue in this. Of the posts of his I read, there were nuggets of very good wisdom in all of them.