Thin skins [Was: Restoration technique [Was: Re: Bay Area: IBM 4341 and HP3000]]

[Tothwolf]

On Thu, 15 Jan 2015, Mouse wrote:

>> What Jay said: [...]
>
>> And for newcomers he offered some background [...]
>
>> At least that's what I read; where did you read anything like what
>> you're replying to below?
>
> I have a suspicion I may have some idea what happened.
>
> I don't for a moment think this is what Jay intended.  But what he
> wrote did strike me as being rather like "my server is bigger than your
> server, so shut up" - that is to say, while I've been here long enough
> to know that is (shall we say) extremely unlikely to be what Jay meant,
> the text was rather like what would have resulted if that _had_ been
> what he'd meant, and most of the differences were things Jay didn't
> say.  And a lot of people find it hard to notice unsaid things.
>
> So, while Jay didn't outright say (and, I repeat, I don't believe he
> meant) anything like any of
>
>> ... "Jay's the only person allowed to respond" ??
>> ... "everything you are running is a joke, waste of time" ??
>> ... "personal attack against me and my level of skill" ??
>> ... "I will leave if asked" ??
>
> I have no trouble seeing how someone new(ish) to the list could read
> any or all of those as subtext below what Jay did write.
>
>> Where does this come from?
>
> I don't know.  I speculate that it comes from having been on the net
> long enough to have run into plenty of cases of "well _my_ $THING is
> $BETTER than _your_ $THING" (which are depressingly common) and
> developed reflexive reactions to them, combined with not having been
> here long enough to have learnt that that's not something Jay would
> say.  Or maybe even just having been tired or stressed enough to have
> failed to suppress the reflexive reaction.

I think Mouse pretty much hit the nail on the here here.

Sean, MediaWiki hosting, specifically the server administration aspects, 
tends to be an absolute nightmare. It is one of those things where the 
maintenance of the underlying MediaWiki software is best left to a 
dedicated hosting provider who is always going to be on top of all the 
security patches (I'd also place something like WordPress in this category 
for the same reasons). I've worked with MediaWiki extensively in the past, 
including handling the server admin side of it, and it was a right pain in 
the rear to deal with.