On Thursday, 23 June 2022 at 18:02:13 UTC, Don Allen wrote:
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I can assure you, that 'robust' discussions have always been, and will always be, a part of human interaction.

There is nothing unique about the D forums, in this respect.

If somone ever genuiely crosses the line of 'civiilty', they are called out.

I've never seen a situation where they haven't been.

But shutting down robust discussions, is not my thing, and I'd encourage you, to not make it your thing.

btw. You mentioned the 'most controversial' threads, but there are other threads, discussions, besides the one you mention ;-)

On Thursday, 23 June 2022 at 22:18:14 UTC, IGotD- wrote:
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> ..
> If I'm going to criticize how things are discussed in the forum is that often that threads are derailed off topic. One thread, one topic should be the rule.


That's to be expected, particuarly in threads that spark an 'emotional' connection to the topic being discussed.

When dealing with humans, you need to allow some leniency here... otherwise.. bad things sometimes happen when people cannot express their emotional state...

Again, lets keep this in context.

Most threads in the D forums, do not evolve into 'robust' discussion, and 'most' threads remain, for the most part, on topic.

Unfortunately, as humans, our attention is always directed immediately to the most emotionally salient content.

But the vast majority of threads in the D forum do not have emotionally salient content ;-)

On Thursday, 23 June 2022 at 18:02:13 UTC, Don Allen wrote:
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Also, if you are new to the D forums, you will often find this verb below, as the last part of an opening thread:

Destroy!

If I'm correct, we can thank (I mean genuiely thank) Andrei Alexandrescu for this!

While it's certainly not permission to go be uncivil to each other, it is a clear indication that 'group think', thankfully, is not actively encouraged in the D forums.

You need to get comfortable with this ;-)

Thanks for your kind words, Don! And thanks for recounting your success story with converting C to D.

Frankly, it has a lot to do with marketing. We're all engineers here, not marketers, and it shows.

Since you brought up the music business, it's the same thing. It's only partially a meritocracy. The rest is skill at marketing, packaging, and promotion. Even The Beatles languished in obscurity until they met Epstein.

My own C compiler did poorly until I partnered with John Haggins, a born marketer. Wow, what a difference he made!

I've known many engineers over the years who created very nice products. They'd come and complain to me that there was no uptake, what should they do? I replied that they needed marketing and promotion, and I'd outline things they needed to do (like write articles, give presentations at conferences, etc.).

None of them would do this. Several had the attitude that it was unethical to do any marketing and promotion. The rest just didn't want to make the effort. All wound up very discouraged and bitter.

Remember that movie "Field of Dreams"? To have a successful baseball field, "build it and they'll come". That's a pernicious lie. Things don't happen that way. Do you think Hollywood did no marketing and promotion for "FoD"? Of course they did! Lots of it.

Yes, we in the D community do do marketing and promotion. It's just that we're up against other communities that are very good at it.

P.S. Yes, I know there are products that took off with zero marketing and promotion. They are very, very rare.

On Friday, 24 June 2022 at 02:48:32 UTC, Walter Bright wrote:
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>
> Remember that movie "Field of Dreams"? To have a successful baseball field, "build it and they'll come". That's a pernicious lie.

Another lie is "There's no such thing as bad publicity”. Bad press is bad. Threads like "Why D is unpopular?" shouldn't reach 1000 posts.