Etiquette

For quite some time now I have noticed an increased rudeness and impoliteness from some few developers working on PHP, both on this mailinglist and on IRC. Other Open Source projects, like Gentoo Linux [1], for instance, have a policy for how their developers should interact. For example: "One should try to not be rude, abusive or impolite under any circumstances. Sometimes, just one sarcastic comment can change the tone to the reader. If you think you might give somebody a bad as a result of your comment, and if you really need to say it, make sure people understand that you are not trying to be offensive. Please remember that you are an official representative of Gentoo. In this capacity, you are expected to maintain a certain level of professionalism and courtesy in your day-to-day interactions with users and other developers." The straw that breaks the camel's back and made me write this email today is the fact that I was being called a "lowlife" by Edin on IRC because I informed Stefan about Edin's outbursts in his direction on IRC earlier ("sesser needs to be taken out back and shot", "he is a mega ego maniac and a prick in general"). While I do not think that Stefan's behaviour is perfect, either, I deem remarks like these intolerable and I think the person that is being talked about (in its absence) has a right to know, which is why I gave Stefan a copy&paste from my IRC logfile. I wish everyone involved in the development of PHP would be able to discuss technical issues in a professional manner without getting offensive and personal. Please do not turn this thread into yet another flamewar, Sebastian