In article ,
says...

I said:
But there is a more important distinction to be made between these
positions. One side treats the one that is not agreed with with respect.
The other side is dismissive to the point of using terms like "bat****
crazy". OM may be gone, but the level of close-mindedness and disrespect
displayed in this forum has not diminished. Very sad.

...and along the theme of accurately attributing fault, I should say that the reason why SSH became a cesspool was never the fault of any one person in particular. I saw it to be the fault of the group as a whole.

If there is ever a case (cyber or non) where one person is being abusively treated, then other members of the community have the opportunity to speak up to voice objection to such behavior. There is a critical mass where a certain number of people are acting abusively, and another certain percentage are choosing to remain silent on the matter, forming a tacit base of approval. THAT is when a turning point is reached and a community becomes toxic.

The problem here was never OM as an individual. It was everyone who chose the path of not respecting all members. And it was everyone who remained silent, enabling such toxicity to persist.

This is hardly a problem limited to this forum. Nor limited to Usenet. Nor limited to the web. It is a problem that has persisted throughout all of human history.


...and in many ways, it is quite similar to the problem that caused the 51-L carnage. There was a critical mass of people who pressed with a plan that was obviously abusive to the hardware. And there was a critical mass of people who quite clearly knew much better, but for whatever reason chose to remain silent.

The last time I was at the Cape was in 2013. I spent time with Fred Gregory. He is one of the many who kept silent, sitting on console in Houston Control that morning.

Yes, the "culture" at NASA was a huge part of the problem. The culture
was to up the flight rate to what it needed to be to serve its three
masters (NASA, USAF, and commercial). It was unreasonable pressure that
went back to the beginnings of the program, long before the Reagan
Administration.

But, the biggest failure was the original, compromised, design. The
orbiter was far bigger than NASA intended due to the USAF payload
requirements (i.e. optical spysats) resulting in a large, costly,
vehicle design ripe with corners to cut (like going with SRBs to lower
development costs). Also, its cross-range was unreasonably large due to
the USAF requirement for a single (polar) orbit mission with landing at
the launch site resulting in large wings and fragile TPS. This all led
to side-mounting the orbiter on a large disposable tank (which ended up
shedding chunks of its insulation during each and every launch,
ultimately dooming Columbia).

The joint USAF/NASA design was quite simply flawed from the very start.
Want another example of this sort of insanity? Look at the JSF program.
It's a technological, budgetary, and scheduling disaster.

Jeff
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