It never ceases to amaze me the numbers of people who think it's polite to lecture hundreds of adults about politeness on a technical mailing list.
I mean, if someone is using strong language for some reason, it just could be because they feel strongly about something, they may actually have a reason for talking that way. Think about it: someone is excited and upset about something, and then you're going to wade in and act like a kindergarten teacher. This is guaranteed to make the situation worse. You couldn't come up with a better way to piss someone off if you tried.
I saw a case like this on the mod_perl mailing list just recently. For those of you who aren't up on this list: there is a superb on-line "mod_perl" guide largely written by Stas Bekman. It's incredibly detailed, it's not just a FAQ on steroids, it's the godzilla of FAQs. And Stas Bekman himself hangs out on the mod_perl mailing list, continually answering questions by saying "Look at the guide" with a link to the appropriate section. If there's one thing you would learn from the mod_perl list, it's that most questions are in fact already answered in this guide, and you should probably look at it first or else you're going to feel embarassed. Nevertheless, there's no shortage of lazy people who feel the world owes them unpaid, instantaneous consultation...
Every once in a while, Stas loses it a little bit, and tells someone to RTFM a little more forcefully than usual. On one of these occasions someone actually had the nerve to interject that he "needs to work on his people skills".
(And Stas Bekman, being the amazingly reasonable saint that he is, actually passed over this silly dig, and went back to the technical subject, which shows that he has no trouble with his people skills whatsoever...)
I guess it's one of those rules of nature, people who complain about politeness are really pretty rude... if they tell you to "work on your people skills", then they're showing off their own lack of people skills.
All I'm saying is to just stop telling other people how to say things --
Uh oh.