I don't think an email like that is ever appropriate. It's immature and childish, regardless of how foolish the initial inquiry was. There are certainly people who can provoke that kind of reaction, but since I don't know any backstory I have to go on what I read at the link. Here's an interesting truth: as your software achieves greater levels of use and success you come into contact with more, not fewer, clueless people with strong opinions. You going to tell all of them they are idiots? I assume so. Think about the impression others get when they come upon stuff like this in the archive, before you go cheering on such behavior. I have nothing bad to say about OpenBSD or the people who run the project, but reading a reply like that makes me wince.

> I assume so. Think about the impression others get when they come upon stuff like this in the archive

I loved this mail, and it's actually making OpenBSD stand out as a human project, because it's not riddled with indecipherable political correctness. You can feel there are people involved, that they didn't copy-pasted a template but actually thought out their words, you can feel the involvement of the people. On the other end of the spectrum a smiley would also make the project more human, closer to the people. This mail also serves as a warning to future people who will want to engage a similar path of "I don't know anything, but I think things should be done This Way" to actually think about it. A net advantage.

Yes, the mail is harsh; that doesn't mean countrygeek should have a problem with it. The latter can (and should) absolutely go back to the research part, try to understand what he asks for, and then come back with a plan. That is what is really asked from the kind of people in the same position.

The problem for me isn't the lack of "political correctness", but the weirdness of being so angry about someone being wrong on the internet, and the tediousness of it happening often. Sometimes someone is good enough at other things that it's worth working with them anyway, but it's despite their tendency go to off on mailing lists, not because of it! And when more than one person does it regularly it gets really tedious, e.g. in the old comp.lang.lisp, Another Goddamn Flame From The Usual Suspects was not one of the group's strong points, even though some of those people were also smart.