[oclug] April 6 meeting / part II

[Matthew Wilcox]

On Mon, Apr 12, 2004 at 01:39:26AM -0400, Mike Roy wrote:
> 	Well, I really don’t want this to be the neverending thread but there are 
> some comments that must be addressed.

Then why not continue them in the original thread?  There's no need to
start a new thread.  And I don't think it's offtopic; indeed it's probably
the most on-topic thread this month.  By the way, you seem to be wrapping
lines at greater than 80 columns which is visually unaesthetic.

> 	Some have also suggested that it is the speaker’s responsibility to control 
> the audience.  This assumption is correct in a classroom but not at our 
> meetings.  I really don’t think a guest speaker should be expected to bring 
> his (or her) own whip and chair to keep the audience in line.

No, it's true in any presentation environment.  It's certainly the case
at any LUG I've been to; OCLUG is no better and no worse than any other
in this regard.  Maybe OCLUG would like to strive to be better ;-)

> 	However, my comments were not directed a people asking questions but at a 
> group of individuals (including at least two OCLUG board members) that 
> carried on their own private discussion to the exclusion of everyone else in 
> the room.  Their behaviour was rude, disruptive and showed a total lack of 
> respect for both the speaker and the rest of the audience.  

My perception of the conversations was that they didn't start while the
speaker was talking; they started while people were asking questions.
There's an obvious conclusion to be drawn there.

-- 
"Next the statesmen will invent cheap lies, putting the blame upon 
the nation that is attacked, and every man will be glad of those
conscience-soothing falsities, and will diligently study them, and refuse
to examine any refutations of them; and thus he will by and by convince 
himself that the war is just, and will thank God for the better sleep 
he enjoys after this process of grotesque self-deception." -- Mark Twain