http://polishlinux.org/apps/cli/ext4-defragmentation-with-e4defrag/

The opposite is called ‘diplomacy’. Diplomacy was alive and well when Hitler marched through Europe and started killing the Jews. Its alive and well in a hundred places where the weak let the evil prevail, because its impolite to call a spade a spade. Its alive and well as the Japanese slaughter whales and call it research and the diplomats get paid to sit around making pathetic excuses for not calling a spade a spade.

You people that object to someone making a stand need to wake up to yourselves, and I have nothing but loathing for your ilk. Scorp123 bluntly alerted us to what he thought it was. Good on him for having the guts, and piss on you pathetic weaklings that can’t take it.

McLobo: I agree with your conclusion, and again this particular post was just given as an example.

I like to read the posts when they say “I think you are wrong because this, this and that” that kind of post makes people at least think, don’t you think ?

> Thoughtful, polite criticism – and I vigorously stress those adjectives –
> of an article will give the commenter what was probably wanted,
> a more in-depth review by the article’s author of the original content.

I think that article went beyond that point the moment the author started posting his arrogant remarks to those who criticised him and challenged his findings. There is nothing wrong with “thoughtful, polite criticism” but it has to be *both ways* IMHO

Thoughtful, polite criticism – and I vigorously stress those adjectives – of an article will give the commenter what was probably wanted, a more in-depth review by the article’s author of the original content. You gain respect and perhaps a brother in arms when you may need it yourself later on.

Otherwise, it is little else than childish noise, good only to be dismissed for the drivel it is.

> I just want to clarify that the post I was referring was
> just given as an example, the same as your comment.

I don’t have issues with that at all. I even have to compliment you on your downright polite blog post here. And you have every right to use whoever as valid example –be that good or bad examples– for the perfectly valid things you say here.

Another thing:

Had the author formulated his “article” (honestly, I still think it’s a pile of cow dung, and I don’t even feel sorry to say so!) in ways that would invite an open discussion and had he offered facts or insights that the other posters asked him about, I would not have posted the childish BS I posted over there. Or had the author posted this in a forum and formulated it as question (e.g. “I did some tests, my test results are this and that, I have these and these numbers, so: does it mean I need to defrag my Linux filesystem?” ….) I would have again reacted in a different way (go to the Mint forums or the UbuntuForums and search for my name … ). But this entire load of nonsense was sold to a wide audience as *ARTICLE* and the “findings” of the author were offered as “hard facts”, even when it was very easy for the other better-informed posters to challenge or even disprove most if not even all arguments the author offered …. And it’s not like Linux is “new” or anything, there have been many hundred discussions about filesystem fragmentation on Linux … So my expectations in an article on web sites such as LinuxToday or PolishLinux are *HIGH* …. I expect authors to offer valid points and I expect them to at least do their homework by doing some basic research. I obviously don’t expect that from a “newbie” posting his questions in a Linux forum. But this wasn’t a Linux support forum, this was sold to us (to everyone going to that site) as being an opinion of an “expert” who supposedly has found something “new” … And then the arrogant remarks of that self-proclaimed “expert” to the requests of the other posters to backup his article with hard numbers did the rest for me and I turned into “troll mode”. Do I feel sorry about it? Nope. If you write stupid BS you deserve stupid BS comments. Simple as that. Same is of course true for me. All the other comments here who criticise me …. Yes, all perfectly valid comments. I wrote silly nonsense and I deserve those comments and the criticism. But you see, this here … this isn’t the “real life”. That article is irrelevant. So is the self-proclaimed “expert” who wrote that nonsense. And me? Am I irrelevant? Of course I am. Totally irrelevant. And regardless of what brutal, harsh, childish nonsense I wrote back there: Nobody’s life or existence was threatened for real. So I suggest we leave this topic and move on with our lives. There are more important things in life than myths about filesystem fragmentation, tools nobody needs, and silly trolls responding to such articles

Also by all means this is not a general thing, as many many comments bring in valuable additions to the original post, and sometimes you can find more value inside a comment than in the post.

Cheers,
- Marius -

it’s me, the “a**hole” you refer to. You have absolutely valid points, and usually I’d fully agree to all what you write. Yes, my posting was brutal. That was the whole point of it. And it was useless too. But I honestly don’t really care. But as for the article in question: First of all: It really was an idiotic article. And others tried in polite ways to question the numbers the author of said article produced “out of thin air”. My first posting (further down in the page) was harsh too but still within limits of what I’d call a “still somewhat polite response”, but what really made me angry was the IMHO arrogant response the author gave (kind of “I wrote those tools for myself and I am not going to publish them …. ” ) to absolutely valid questions. I mean really …. There is so much information out there about how file system fragmentation is a non-issue on Linux and yet this author –who obviously lacks any qualifications– gives such responses to people who obviously know better? Yes my response was brutal, harsh, and downright childish. But honestly, I honestly don’t care given the lack of quality the said article had and how technically totally inaccurate it was. If you write stuff on the net you have to deal with criticism too, you have to be prepared for the fact that other people who know better will question what you write and especially so if you produce numbers out of thin air like the author over there did. And the author over there didn’t really seem to be interested in that, instead he wrote just BS and more BS and talked of his oh-so-superior tools like the world needed them, like he knew something the kernel devs didn’t. That simply wasn’t the case and he got the response he deserved. Your criticism of my “brutality” is absolutely valid, yes. But given the valid points in what you write you are also unlikely to see any of that here