[gentoo-dev] Tone in Gentoo

[gentoo-dev] Tone in Gentoo

[Sebastian Pipping]

Hello!


Tone is currently not a strength of Gentoo.

As I have heard there are people not joining Gentoo because the
atmosphere in Gentoo is lacking respect and empathy.

I have searched a few places for rules on tone, looking at the Gentoo
Social Contract [1], the Code of Conduct [2] and the Philosophy of
Gentoo [3].  In a way the Code of Conduct defines what good and bad
behavior is.  The term "Acceptable behaviour" may make sense as a
counterpart to "Unacceptable behaviour" but feels like "what you can get
away with" to me anyhow.

What is surprising me:

 - How come tone is so rough when we actually meant to be
   a friendly community?  Has it always been that way?

 - With these Code of Conduct rules in place how come DevRel
   is not publicly reminding of these rules where necessary?

Could it be we expect perfection from each other instead seeking to
understand and complement each other?  What can we do to make Gentoo a
friendlier community?

Thanks for your interest,



Sebastian


[1] http://www.gentoo.org/main/en/contract.xml
[2] http://www.gentoo.org/proj/en/council/coc.xml
[3] http://www.gentoo.org/main/en/philosophy.xml

Re: [gentoo-dev] Tone in Gentoo

[Mike Frysinger]

sounds like something that should be on gentoo-project
-mike

Re: [gentoo-dev] Tone in Gentoo

[Alec Warner]

On Tue, Jun 15, 2010 at 8:33 PM, Sebastian Pipping <sping@gentoo.org> wrote:
> Hello!
>
>
> Tone is currently not a strength of Gentoo.
>
> As I have heard there are people not joining Gentoo because the
> atmosphere in Gentoo is lacking respect and empathy.
>
> I have searched a few places for rules on tone, looking at the Gentoo
> Social Contract [1], the Code of Conduct [2] and the Philosophy of
> Gentoo [3].  In a way the Code of Conduct defines what good and bad
> behavior is.  The term "Acceptable behaviour" may make sense as a
> counterpart to "Unacceptable behaviour" but feels like "what you can get
> away with" to me anyhow.

We had enumerated bad behavior in the past and people walked the line
(Ciaran is a good example; but there were others.)
We had a rather open policy where DevRel had leeway to 'take necessary
action' and community members cried out for abuse due to lack of
transparency.
We had COC enforcers that would attempt to moderate mailing list traffic.

I don't think any of these were a raging success.  I like the open
policy one because I think it makes DevRel's job easier and the buck
needs to stop somewhere.  Here is a hint; if you want to stay on as a
developer; don't piss of HR (or infra, or probably a number of other
groups that could make your life hell.)

>
> What is surprising me:
>
>  - How come tone is so rough when we actually meant to be
>   a friendly community?  Has it always been that way?

I don't see the tone as tough; but you have to understand that I work
with a bunch of socially inept engineers on a daily basis.  People
writing dumb crap in email is something that happens every day.  I
think a lot of the 'bad' threads people just reply to email every 5-10
minutes (I used to do this years ago...)  Stop reading email that
often.  Reply to a thread once a day.  If you need to converse in real
time you can use jabber or irc or whatever.  You tend to reach a
logical consensus quicker over chat than over email.

Avoid people you know you interact badly with.  Do Not Feed The
Trolls.  I remember at work often I'd be dragged into a thread with
one of the Ganeti guys; he would complain about how cfengine was
awesome and puppet was crap.  I tended to stop replying to that guy
when that subject came up (he is a nice fellow; but holy lord the
puppet vs cfengine debate could rage forever.)

>
>  - With these Code of Conduct rules in place how come DevRel
>   is not publicly reminding of these rules where necessary?

Probably because DevRel is small.  If the community expects people to
act a certain way I'd expect 'the community' to call people on it; not
necessarily just DevRel.

>
> Could it be we expect perfection from each other instead seeking to
> understand and complement each other?  What can we do to make Gentoo a
> friendlier community?

I haven't seen the crazy crap on the lists that was present in
2007-2008 so I'm actually fairly happy with the current style.  I'd
love to throw around more compliments but I tend to compliment people
by using their software and sending them patches...or making fun of
them on IRC, either way.

>
> Thanks for your interest,
>
>
>
> Sebastian
>
>
> [1] http://www.gentoo.org/main/en/contract.xml
> [2] http://www.gentoo.org/proj/en/council/coc.xml
> [3] http://www.gentoo.org/main/en/philosophy.xml
>
>

Re: [gentoo-dev] Tone in Gentoo

[Jorge Manuel B. S. Vicetto]

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Hash: SHA1

On 16-06-2010 05:03, Alec Warner wrote:
> On Tue, Jun 15, 2010 at 8:33 PM, Sebastian Pipping <sping@gentoo.org> wrote:
>> Could it be we expect perfection from each other instead seeking to
>> understand and complement each other?  What can we do to make Gentoo a
>> friendlier community?
> 
> I haven't seen the crazy crap on the lists that was present in
> 2007-2008 so I'm actually fairly happy with the current style.  I'd
> love to throw around more compliments but I tend to compliment people
> by using their software and sending them patches...or making fun of
> them on IRC, either way.

Sebastian, I understand your concern, but as Alec puts it, we have gone
a long way since the 2007-2008 low regarding this type of behaviour.
I'm not advocating that communication in Gentoo mediums has become
perfect, but I don't see all the rudeness and lack of respect and
empathy that you see, not in a global manner.
There are a few cases where people could and should improve their
behaviour, but let's not forget we're a technical community and so it's
imho an illusion to expect us to have a "hugs and kisses" tone. But yes,
everyone participating in Gentoo mediums should strive to be courteous,
respectful and promote debates on ideas.

>> Thanks for your interest,
>>
>>
>>
>> Sebastian
>>
>>
>> [1] http://www.gentoo.org/main/en/contract.xml
>> [2] http://www.gentoo.org/proj/en/council/coc.xml
>> [3] http://www.gentoo.org/main/en/philosophy.xml
>>
>>
> 

- -- 
Regards,

Jorge Vicetto (jmbsvicetto) - jmbsvicetto at gentoo dot org
Gentoo- forums / Userrel / Devrel / KDE / Elections
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Re: [gentoo-dev] Tone in Gentoo

[Sebastian Pipping]

Jorge,


On 06/17/10 02:14, Jorge Manuel B. S. Vicetto wrote:
> Sebastian, I understand your concern, but as Alec puts it, we have gone
> a long way since the 2007-2008 low regarding this type of behaviour.
> I'm not advocating that communication in Gentoo mediums has become
> perfect, but I don't see all the rudeness and lack of respect and
> empathy that you see, not in a global manner.

maybe is has been worse, maybe other projects do worse.
I have been to IRC channels of other distros and went away quickly, yes.

Still: I use Gentoo for about a year; during that year I have seen many
cases.


> There are a few cases where people could and should improve their
> behaviour, but let's not forget we're a technical community and so it's
> imho an illusion to expect us to have a "hugs and kisses" tone.

I was expecting someone to bring up "hugs and kisses" as you say.
In my impression other technical projects do much better in that regard
so it doesn't seem impossible.  KDE and Xiph come to my mind: they do
better.  Our low number of female developers could also be an indicator
for the atmosphere in here.

I wouldn't feel to bad if Gentoo is widely recognized as the
distribution with the most friendly community around in 2011.

Best,



Sebastian

Re: [gentoo-dev] Tone in Gentoo

[Ciaran McCreesh]

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On Thu, 17 Jun 2010 02:32:51 +0200
Sebastian Pipping <sping@gentoo.org> wrote:
> I wouldn't feel to bad if Gentoo is widely recognized as the
> distribution with the most friendly community around in 2011.

Wouldn't you rather it be recognised as the distribution with the best
product?

-- 
Ciaran McCreesh

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Re: [gentoo-dev] Tone in Gentoo

[Auke Booij]

On Thu, Jun 17, 2010 at 11:51 AM, Ciaran McCreesh
<ciaran.mccreesh@googlemail.com> wrote:
> On Thu, 17 Jun 2010 02:32:51 +0200
> Sebastian Pipping <sping@gentoo.org> wrote:
>> I wouldn't feel to bad if Gentoo is widely recognized as the
>> distribution with the most friendly community around in 2011.
>
> Wouldn't you rather it be recognised as the distribution with the best
> product?

Wouldn't you agree that unless you're a genius who can understand the
entire system upfront with just the bit of documentation out there,
the support given, in this case by the community, is part of the
product?

Re: [gentoo-dev] Tone in Gentoo

[Ciaran McCreesh]

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On Thu, 17 Jun 2010 11:58:21 +0200
Auke Booij <auke@tulcod.com> wrote:
> Wouldn't you agree that unless you're a genius who can understand the
> entire system upfront with just the bit of documentation out there,
> the support given, in this case by the community, is part of the
> product?

No. The community is what you fall back on when the product (of which
the documentation is an important part) fails.

The goal of the community should be to improve the product, not to
perpetuate itself.

-- 
Ciaran McCreesh

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Re: [gentoo-dev] Tone in Gentoo

[Angelo Arrifano]

On 17-06-2010 12:08, Ciaran McCreesh wrote:
> On Thu, 17 Jun 2010 11:58:21 +0200
> Auke Booij <auke@tulcod.com> wrote:
>> Wouldn't you agree that unless you're a genius who can understand the
>> entire system upfront with just the bit of documentation out there,
>> the support given, in this case by the community, is part of the
>> product?
> 
> No. The community is what you fall back on when the product (of which
> the documentation is an important part) fails.
> 
> The goal of the community should be to improve the product, not to
> perpetuate itself.
> 

Sounds like we need to nuke our forums (oh wait..), nuke our IRC
channels and create a direct phone line for end-user support.

- Angelo

Re: [gentoo-dev] Tone in Gentoo

[Dale]

Ciaran McCreesh wrote:
> On Thu, 17 Jun 2010 02:32:51 +0200
> Sebastian Pipping<sping@gentoo.org>  wrote:
>    
>> I wouldn't feel to bad if Gentoo is widely recognized as the
>> distribution with the most friendly community around in 2011.
>>      
> Wouldn't you rather it be recognised as the distribution with the best
> product?
>
>    

LOL  I thought that was already the case.  I just couldn't help but say 
that.

Dale

:-)  :-)

Re: [gentoo-dev] Tone in Gentoo

[Angelo Arrifano]

On 17-06-2010 11:51, Ciaran McCreesh wrote:
> On Thu, 17 Jun 2010 02:32:51 +0200
> Sebastian Pipping <sping@gentoo.org> wrote:
>> I wouldn't feel to bad if Gentoo is widely recognized as the
>> distribution with the most friendly community around in 2011.
> 
> Wouldn't you rather it be recognised as the distribution with the best
> product?
> 

When I read that, the first question that was raised on me was:
- The best product for what, whom?
We can't simply put all possible Gentoo applications and users in one bag.

Is it really good to think on Gentoo as a product? Can we do like Apple
and treat our users like crap while still making them use our product?
*No!*
Unless we provide locking, GNU/Linux users will always have a choice.
That choice can be to join the Gentoo community, or leave it.

- Angelo

Re: [gentoo-dev] Tone in Gentoo

[Angelo Arrifano]

On 17-06-2010 12:08, Angelo Arrifano wrote:
> On 17-06-2010 11:51, Ciaran McCreesh wrote:
>> On Thu, 17 Jun 2010 02:32:51 +0200
>> Sebastian Pipping <sping@gentoo.org> wrote:
>>> I wouldn't feel to bad if Gentoo is widely recognized as the
>>> distribution with the most friendly community around in 2011.
>>
>> Wouldn't you rather it be recognised as the distribution with the best
>> product?
>>
> 
> When I read that, the first question that was raised on me was:
> - The best product for what, whom?
> We can't simply put all possible Gentoo applications and users in one bag.
> 
> Is it really good to think on Gentoo as a product? Can we do like Apple
> and treat our users like crap while still making them use our product?
> *No!*
> Unless we provide locking, GNU/Linux users will always have a choice.
> That choice can be to join the Gentoo community, or leave it.
> 
> - Angelo
> 

I apologize for replying to self but I felt we should all remember *what
is Gentoo*. Or at least what it used to be..

http://www.gentoo.org/main/en/about.xml

"What is Gentoo?

Gentoo is a free operating system based on either Linux or FreeBSD that
can be automatically optimized and customized for just about any
application or need. Extreme configurability, performance and a
top-notch user and developer community are all hallmarks of the Gentoo
experience.

(...)

*Of course, Gentoo is more than just the software it provides. It is a
community built around a distribution* which is driven by more than 300
developers and thousands of users. The distribution project provides the
means for the users to enjoy Gentoo: documentation, infrastructure
(mailinglists, site, forums ...), release engineering, software porting,
quality assurance, security followup, hardening and more.
"

Re: [gentoo-dev] Tone in Gentoo

[Ciaran McCreesh]

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On Thu, 17 Jun 2010 12:08:05 +0200
Angelo Arrifano <miknix@gentoo.org> wrote:
> That choice can be to join the Gentoo community, or leave it.

The choice can be to use Gentoo, or not use Gentoo.

If using Gentoo means being required to use bugzilla, the mailing
lists, forums and IRC, then Gentoo has huge scalability problems.
Providing one on one support takes an awful lot of manpower; the goal
should be to improve the distribution so that most people don't
encounter many bugs and can get all the support they need from the
documentation.

Thus things like GLEP 42 news items: they're a way of avoiding having
thousands of users running to get support because they don't know what
to do when a large change happens. If you think the community's the
important part, you'd do the opposite: you'd not provide upfront
instructions, and would instead see big changes as an opportunity to
persuade more users to participate in the community by trying to help
each other.

-- 
Ciaran McCreesh

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Re: [gentoo-dev] Tone in Gentoo

[Angelo Arrifano]

On 17-06-2010 12:17, Ciaran McCreesh wrote:
> On Thu, 17 Jun 2010 12:08:05 +0200
> Angelo Arrifano <miknix@gentoo.org> wrote:

I had some text written here. Why did you just remove it like this? Next
time, please write some kind of marker "(...)" to tell you did crop some
text.

>> That choice can be to join the Gentoo community, or leave it.
> 
> The choice can be to use Gentoo, or not use Gentoo.
> 
> If using Gentoo means being required to use bugzilla, the mailing
> lists, forums and IRC, then Gentoo has huge scalability problems.

I believe using Gentoo means reading the handbook, read forums, bugs and
learn from them.. That's what I felt when I read the Gentoo philosophy
for the first time.

> Providing one on one support takes an awful lot of manpower; the goal
> should be to improve the distribution so that most people don't
> encounter many bugs and can get all the support they need from the
> documentation.

Are we trying to make Gentoo some kind of ubuntu?
> 
> Thus things like GLEP 42 news items: they're a way of avoiding having
> thousands of users running to get support because they don't know what
> to do when a large change happens. If you think the community's the
> important part, you'd do the opposite: you'd not provide upfront
> instructions, and would instead see big changes as an opportunity to
> persuade more users to participate in the community by trying to help
> each other.
> 

- Angelo,

PS: I'm exceeding my email bulk-reply quotas for today. I don't want to
flood the mailing list so I'll step back and leave other people express
their opinion.

Re: [gentoo-dev] Tone in Gentoo

[Sebastian Pipping]

Ciaran,


the mindset I hear in your mail sounds a lot more like (my understanding
of) Exherbo than Gentoo.

I would appreciate if you stayed on topic which is improving tone in
Gentoo.  Thanks.

Best,



Sebastian

Re: [gentoo-dev] Tone in Gentoo

[Jacob Godserv]

On Wed, Jun 16, 2010 at 20:14, Jorge Manuel B. S. Vicetto
<jmbsvicetto@gentoo.org> wrote:
> There are a few cases where people could and should improve their
> behaviour, but let's not forget we're a technical community and so it's
> imho an illusion to expect us to have a "hugs and kisses" tone. But yes,
> everyone participating in Gentoo mediums should strive to be courteous,
> respectful and promote debates on ideas.

I agree that we need to be "courteous, respectful and promote debates
on ideas," but I disagree that we have to accept subtle opposites
because the topic might be touchy.

I'm somewhat confused about why there can't be a team of people who
moderate the mailing list. That solution seems effective for most
other Internet communities. Is it a question of manpower?

-- 
    Jacob

    "For then there will be great distress, unequaled
    from the beginning of the world until now — and never
    to be equaled again. If those days had not been cut
    short, no one would survive, but for the sake of the
    elect those days will be shortened."

    Are you ready?

Re: [gentoo-dev] Tone in Gentoo

[Jeroen Roovers]

On Wed, 16 Jun 2010 05:33:27 +0200
Sebastian Pipping <sping@gentoo.org> wrote:

> Tone is currently not a strength of Gentoo.
> 
> As I have heard there are people not joining Gentoo because the
> atmosphere in Gentoo is lacking respect and empathy.

That's a conclusion first, then a premise?

> I have searched a few places for rules on tone, looking at the Gentoo
> Social Contract [1], the Code of Conduct [2] and the Philosophy of
> Gentoo [3].  In a way the Code of Conduct defines what good and bad
> behavior is.  The term "Acceptable behaviour" may make sense as a
> counterpart to "Unacceptable behaviour" but feels like "what you can
> get away with" to me anyhow.

>  - How come tone is so rough when we actually meant to be
>    a friendly community?  Has it always been that way?

What are you referring to? forums.g.o? bugs.g.o? #gentoo? Who, where,
when, what channel, thread?

>  - With these Code of Conduct rules in place how come DevRel
>    is not publicly reminding of these rules where necessary?

When did you point this out to devrel?

> Could it be we expect perfection from each other instead seeking to
> understand and complement each other?  What can we do to make Gentoo a
> friendlier community?

Being probably guilty of all of the above, I'd say it would help if the
Gentoo users would file GOOD bug reports, and would know when to use
forums.g.o instead, but since I don't know what you are really
referring to, I decline to answer that one. :)


Regards,
     jer

[gentoo-dev] Re: Tone in Gentoo

[Nikos Chantziaras]

On 06/16/2010 08:43 AM, Jeroen Roovers wrote:
> On Wed, 16 Jun 2010 05:33:27 +0200
> Sebastian Pipping<sping@gentoo.org>  wrote:
>
>> Tone is currently not a strength of Gentoo.
>>
>> As I have heard there are people not joining Gentoo because the
>> atmosphere in Gentoo is lacking respect and empathy.
>
> That's a conclusion first, then a premise?
>
>> I have searched a few places for rules on tone, looking at the Gentoo
>> Social Contract [1], the Code of Conduct [2] and the Philosophy of
>> Gentoo [3].  In a way the Code of Conduct defines what good and bad
>> behavior is.  The term "Acceptable behaviour" may make sense as a
>> counterpart to "Unacceptable behaviour" but feels like "what you can
>> get away with" to me anyhow.
>
>>   - How come tone is so rough when we actually meant to be
>>     a friendly community?  Has it always been that way?
>
> What are you referring to? forums.g.o? bugs.g.o? #gentoo? Who, where,
> when, what channel, thread?
>
>>   - With these Code of Conduct rules in place how come DevRel
>>     is not publicly reminding of these rules where necessary?
>
> When did you point this out to devrel?
> [... snip ...]

Those replies are a good example of the rude behavior the poster is 
referring to.  The replies consisted of sarcastic questions in "you're 
an idiot" style.  The only thing they do is trying to trigger a hostile 
response from the poster.

Very good example of tone in Gentoo.

Re: [gentoo-dev] Re: Tone in Gentoo

[Alec Warner]

On Wed, Jun 16, 2010 at 8:36 AM, Nikos Chantziaras <realnc@arcor.de> wrote:
> On 06/16/2010 08:43 AM, Jeroen Roovers wrote:
>>
>> On Wed, 16 Jun 2010 05:33:27 +0200
>> Sebastian Pipping<sping@gentoo.org>  wrote:
>>
>>> Tone is currently not a strength of Gentoo.
>>>
>>> As I have heard there are people not joining Gentoo because the
>>> atmosphere in Gentoo is lacking respect and empathy.
>>
>> That's a conclusion first, then a premise?
>>
>>> I have searched a few places for rules on tone, looking at the Gentoo
>>> Social Contract [1], the Code of Conduct [2] and the Philosophy of
>>> Gentoo [3].  In a way the Code of Conduct defines what good and bad
>>> behavior is.  The term "Acceptable behaviour" may make sense as a
>>> counterpart to "Unacceptable behaviour" but feels like "what you can
>>> get away with" to me anyhow.
>>
>>>  - How come tone is so rough when we actually meant to be
>>>    a friendly community?  Has it always been that way?
>>
>> What are you referring to? forums.g.o? bugs.g.o? #gentoo? Who, where,
>> when, what channel, thread?
>>
>>>  - With these Code of Conduct rules in place how come DevRel
>>>    is not publicly reminding of these rules where necessary?
>>
>> When did you point this out to devrel?
>> [... snip ...]
>
> Those replies are a good example of the rude behavior the poster is
> referring to.  The replies consisted of sarcastic questions in "you're an
> idiot" style.  The only thing they do is trying to trigger a hostile
> response from the poster.

Don't read so much between Jer's words.  The tone of the reply could
certainly use improvement but I do not think his questions were meant
to be sarcastic at all or imply the poster was an idiot.  The only
thing Jer was trying to 'trigger' is a response with some evidence of
'bad tone' so we can continue the discussion.  I don't think a hostile
reply was intended at all.

You may not like the tone of the questions but certainly asking for
examples of 'bad tone' is likely a key step in improving the tone of
the community.  Otherwise people have no idea what they are doing
wrong in the community's eyes and have no way to improve it.

DevRel tends to be a body of folks that do not act unless things are
reported.  Asking 'when did you report these items to DevRel and what
action did they take if any' is likely a reasonable question as well.
Again pointing out what DevRel is doing wrong and providing
alternative actions will likely be a necessary part of this process.

>
> Very good example of tone in Gentoo.
>
>
>

[gentoo-dev] Re: Tone in Gentoo

[Nikos Chantziaras]

On 06/16/2010 09:18 PM, Alec Warner wrote:
> On Wed, Jun 16, 2010 at 8:36 AM, Nikos Chantziaras<realnc@arcor.de>  wrote:
>> On 06/16/2010 08:43 AM, Jeroen Roovers wrote:
>>>
>>> On Wed, 16 Jun 2010 05:33:27 +0200
>>> Sebastian Pipping<sping@gentoo.org>    wrote:
>>>
>>>> Tone is currently not a strength of Gentoo.
>>>>
>>>> As I have heard there are people not joining Gentoo because the
>>>> atmosphere in Gentoo is lacking respect and empathy.
>>>
>>> That's a conclusion first, then a premise?
>>>
>>>> I have searched a few places for rules on tone, looking at the Gentoo
>>>> Social Contract [1], the Code of Conduct [2] and the Philosophy of
>>>> Gentoo [3].  In a way the Code of Conduct defines what good and bad
>>>> behavior is.  The term "Acceptable behaviour" may make sense as a
>>>> counterpart to "Unacceptable behaviour" but feels like "what you can
>>>> get away with" to me anyhow.
>>>
>>>>   - How come tone is so rough when we actually meant to be
>>>>     a friendly community?  Has it always been that way?
>>>
>>> What are you referring to? forums.g.o? bugs.g.o? #gentoo? Who, where,
>>> when, what channel, thread?
>>>
>>>>   - With these Code of Conduct rules in place how come DevRel
>>>>     is not publicly reminding of these rules where necessary?
>>>
>>> When did you point this out to devrel?
>>> [... snip ...]
>>
>> Those replies are a good example of the rude behavior the poster is
>> referring to.  The replies consisted of sarcastic questions in "you're an
>> idiot" style.  The only thing they do is trying to trigger a hostile
>> response from the poster.
>
> Don't read so much between Jer's words.  The tone of the reply could
> certainly use improvement but I do not think his questions were meant
> to be sarcastic at all or imply the poster was an idiot.  The only
> thing Jer was trying to 'trigger' is a response with some evidence of
> 'bad tone' so we can continue the discussion.  I don't think a hostile
> reply was intended at all.

It's the overall tone that isn't nice.  Usually, when someone posts 
something, lots of people reply with sarcastic-looking "you're wrong, 
prove it or gtfo" replies.  Even if the OP is wrong, that's not the way 
to tell him that.  If you want to be constructive, you should include 
the reasons of why you thing he's wrong in your reply, or ask him to 
elaborate more.

Just look at some threads where lots of developers were fighting each 
other and track down the first post that triggered the flame; it's 
usually of the "proof or gtfo" sort.  It's bound to annoy the poster and 
make him get hostile even if his original intentions were anything but 
hostile.

Re: [gentoo-dev] Re: Tone in Gentoo

[Sebastian Pipping]

Nikos,


thanks for speaking up on this matter.

I encourage more Gentoo users to make them heard with this.

Best,



Sebastian

Re: [gentoo-dev] Re: Tone in Gentoo

[Jeroen Roovers]

On Wed, 16 Jun 2010 18:36:31 +0300
Nikos Chantziaras <realnc@arcor.de> wrote:

> Those replies are a good example of the rude behavior the poster is 
> referring to.  The replies consisted of sarcastic questions in
> "you're an idiot" style.  The only thing they do is trying to trigger
> a hostile response from the poster.

They were simple questions. I asked them because I care, not because I
am planning to defend a status quo.

> Very good example of tone in Gentoo.

Maybe instead you have come to expect a certain "Gentoo tone" to
accompany the silent letters of an e-mail? I certainly didn't put that
tone in there.

What I think but didn't initially say:

1) that there are probably some good examples of the bad tone that sping
referred to, perhaps in the devrel/userrel domain and therefore not
initially public, and that unless those projects fail (to uphold the
CoC), we should probably not be talking about it on a public mailing
list.

2) that "tone" is unavoidably a subjective matter, which is precisely
the reason that some in our community choose consciously to be concise,
informative and dispassionate, while you might infer that this results
in curt, graceless and unaffectionate communication, or "bad tone" in
short.


Regards,
     jer

Re: [gentoo-dev] Re: Tone in Gentoo

[Sebastian Pipping]

Jeroen,


On 06/16/10 21:31, Jeroen Roovers wrote:
> 1) that there are probably some good examples of the bad tone that sping
> referred to, perhaps in the devrel/userrel domain and therefore not
> initially public, and that unless those projects fail (to uphold the
> CoC), we should probably not be talking about it on a public mailing
> list.

from demanding a friendly tone on other mailing lists myself and the
private "thank you, I was afraid this was accepted around here" replies
after I prefer to keep tone discussions in the open as far as possible.
Our user base wouldn't know we care about tone if we discussed it in
private.

On the conflict resolution I would go as far as stating that DevRel
currently fails at that.  I'll start a new thread on that.


> 2) that "tone" is unavoidably a subjective matter, which is precisely
> the reason that some in our community choose consciously to be concise,
> informative and dispassionate, while you might infer that this results
> in curt, graceless and unaffectionate communication, or "bad tone" in
> short.

I agree that's though to do well.

Best,



Sebastian

Re: [gentoo-dev] Re: Tone in Gentoo

[Roy Bamford]

On 2010.06.16 16:36, Nikos Chantziaras wrote:
> On 06/16/2010 08:43 AM, Jeroen Roovers wrote:
> > On Wed, 16 Jun 2010 05:33:27 +0200
> > Sebastian Pipping<sping@gentoo.org>  wrote:
> >
> >> Tone is currently not a strength of Gentoo.
> >>
> >> As I have heard there are people not joining Gentoo because the
> >> atmosphere in Gentoo is lacking respect and empathy.
> >
> > That's a conclusion first, then a premise?
> >
> >> I have searched a few places for rules on tone, looking at the
> Gentoo
> >> Social Contract [1], the Code of Conduct [2] and the Philosophy of
> >> Gentoo [3].  In a way the Code of Conduct defines what good and 
> bad
> >> behavior is.  The term "Acceptable behaviour" may make sense as a
> >> counterpart to "Unacceptable behaviour" but feels like "what you
> can
> >> get away with" to me anyhow.
> >
> >>   - How come tone is so rough when we actually meant to be
> >>     a friendly community?  Has it always been that way?
> >
> > What are you referring to? forums.g.o? bugs.g.o? #gentoo? Who,
> where,
> > when, what channel, thread?
[snip]
> 

Nikos,

As a native English speaker (from England) I view Jers reply as terse 
and to the point, completely lacking in tone.
As Alec has already pointed out, it asks questions that need to be 
asked to advance the discussion.

To add my opinion to the reasons for the tone in gentoo communication 
channels (all of them) ...
1. Many posters are using a language that they are less than fluent in.
2. There are so many ways to say the same thing in English, its easy to 
be misunderstood. Take into account point 1 here.
3. Most contraversially, many of our developers are young and still 
have to develop the social skills that only come with experience. Keep 
in mind points 1 and 2. 

Read age in place of experience if you like but that's not a 
politically correct statement, which is I suppose another issue.

-- 
Regards,

Roy Bamford
(Neddyseagoon) a member of
gentoo-ops
forum-mods
trustees

Re: [gentoo-dev] Re: Tone in Gentoo

[Sebastian Pipping]

Roy,


On 06/16/10 21:40, Roy Bamford wrote:
> As a native English speaker (from England) I view Jers reply as terse 
> and to the point, completely lacking in tone.

interesting.  Looking at the sentence

  "When did you point this out to devrel?"

I would like to say that while it's not impolite per se it's implicitly
saying "You _have to_ point this out to dev rel" in my ears.  A more or
less word-by-word translation to German ("Wann hast du das gegenüber
DevRel angesprochen?") would make perfect sense and carry the same
problem so I assume it's not an English language thing.  In contrast asking

  "Have you pointed this out to DevRel?  What was their reaction?"

does not seem to have this mis-hearing problem, at least not to me.


I remember a guy of the German Unix User Group (GUUG) saying something like

  "Communication is always oriented at the receiver".

Applying that to tone and avoiding mis-interpretation the sender has the
power (and arguably the responsiblity) to sounds as friendly as needed
to be sure it will not be understood as unfriendly.  In a way there's
always a way to be friendlier - _without_ faking anything.


Some of you may know ArneBab's signature saying:

  "Being unpolitical  means being political  without realizing it."

Maybe not applying tone means applying tone without realizing, too.

Best,



Sebastian

[gentoo-dev] Re: Tone in Gentoo

[Duncan]

Sebastian Pipping posted on Thu, 17 Jun 2010 00:33:25 +0200 as excerpted:

> On 06/16/10 21:40, Roy Bamford wrote:
>> As a native English speaker (from England) I view Jers reply as terse
>> and to the point, completely lacking in tone.
> 
> interesting.  Looking at the sentence
> 
>   "When did you point this out to devrel?"
> 
> I would like to say that while it's not impolite per se it's implicitly
> saying "You _have to_ point this out to dev rel" in my ears. [...]
> In contrast asking
> 
>   "Have you pointed this out to DevRel?  What was their reaction?"
> 
> does not seem to have this mis-hearing problem, at least not to me.

Thanks for the concrete example, and yes, I agree.

I've become aware of two issues I personally have, in this regard.

1) I (normally) instinctively interpret statements in the positive, 
subconsciously rewriting statements of the first form into the second as I 
read them, because I assume people have the best intentions until it is 
demonstrated otherwise.  Yet this process is not without cost in 
subconscious processing time and thus in stress, and while I couldn't 
point out why without deliberately deconstructing the post as you did, I'm 
left with a vague unease about the post, which only becomes apparent when 
pointed out, as here, or over time, as other posts accumulate and I 
evaluate the poster as less friendly than I might, still without 
consciously understanding why.

You explain my unease.  If I assume others are like me, perhaps I've 
pointed out why they too, wouldn't have pointed to this post as 
unfriendly, yet agree with your point now that you have.

2) I often overcompensate in an attempt to make my point clear, with 
"verbiage out the yin-yang", but in reality, often obscuring it due to 
simple "verbiage overgrowth".  (Point 1 shrunk by more than half after 
four rewrites.)  This exasperates some to the point of killfiling, tho 
I've enough "thanks for the explanation" replies from others over the 
years to know "it's what works" for others.

Some seem to have an instinctive fear of verbiage, contracting 
communications to their most precise possible while retaining literal 
meaning, without understanding the effect this has on implied meaning.  
Thus, example #2 gets contracted into #1, and the more sensitive read into 
it an offense when none was intended.

> I remember a guy of the German Unix User Group (GUUG) saying something
> like
> 
>   "Communication is always oriented at the receiver".

Wise man.

> Applying that to tone and avoiding mis-interpretation the sender has the
> power (and arguably the responsiblity) to sounds as friendly as needed
> to be sure it will not be understood as unfriendly.  In a way there's
> always a way to be friendlier - _without_ faking anything.

But that takes three times the effort and twice the words.  Example #2 
above is, after all, almost twice the size of #1.

-- 
Duncan - List replies preferred.   No HTML msgs.
"Every nonfree program has a lord, a master --
and if you use the program, he is your master."  Richard Stallman

Re: [gentoo-dev] Re: Tone in Gentoo

[Roy Bamford]

On 2010.06.16 23:33, Sebastian Pipping wrote:
> Roy,
> 
> 
> On 06/16/10 21:40, Roy Bamford wrote:
> > As a native English speaker (from England) I view Jers reply as
> terse 
> > and to the point, completely lacking in tone.
> 
> interesting.  Looking at the sentence
> 
>   "When did you point this out to devrel?"
> 
> I would like to say that while it's not impolite per se it's
> implicitly
> saying "You _have to_ point this out to dev rel" in my ears.  A more
> or
> less word-by-word translation to German ("Wann hast du das gegenüber
> DevRel angesprochen?") would make perfect sense and carry the same
> problem so I assume it's not an English language thing.  In contrast
> asking
> 
>   "Have you pointed this out to DevRel?  What was their reaction?"
> 
> does not seem to have this mis-hearing problem, at least not to me.
>
Hmm - thats interesting, I subconsciously read the two questions into 
the one posted. I accept you point. Its something I am likely to write 
myself without thinking about it too much too.   
> 
> I remember a guy of the German Unix User Group (GUUG) saying 
> something
> like
> 
>   "Communication is always oriented at the receiver".
> 
Communication is a two way process. On other more immediate
media, that's reinforced as the "receiver" often asks questions to 
clarify the intent of the communication. That does not seem to happen 
as much in email so misunderstandings are more frequent and more 
damaging as they take longer to resolve.

> Applying that to tone and avoiding mis-interpretation the sender has
> the
> power (and arguably the responsiblity) to sounds as friendly as 
> needed
> to be sure it will not be understood as unfriendly.  In a way there's
> always a way to be friendlier - _without_ faking anything.
>
Hmm - its quite possible to give offence without intending to. The 
receiver also has the power and responsibility to clarify the intent of 
the communication before concluding that it was intended in any 
particular manner. 

> Best,
> 
> 
> 
> Sebastian
> 
> 
> 

-- 
Regards,

Roy Bamford
(Neddyseagoon) a member of
gentoo-ops
forum-mods
trustees

Re: [gentoo-dev] Re: Tone in Gentoo

[Jeroen Roovers]

On Thu, 17 Jun 2010 20:29:13 +0100
Roy Bamford <neddyseagoon@gentoo.org> wrote:

> >   "Have you pointed this out to DevRel?  What was their reaction?"
> > 
> > does not seem to have this mis-hearing problem, at least not to me.
> >
> Hmm - thats interesting, I subconsciously read the two questions into 
> the one posted. I accept you point. Its something I am likely to
> write myself without thinking about it too much too.   

Oh, this is a good one. Without introducing the problem, it is being
assured that devrel has a problem because (some?) Gentoo users have a
problem. So I ask very straightforwardly when this was pointed out to
devrel, because I don't see the information being introduced to the
wider public that has led to this public e-mail accusing devrel of not
doing their job. Excuse me please, but how did I not turn out to ask
the right question about the information that wasn't exposed on a
public mailing list? And if I did put a vitriolic spin on it, then how
would you sanctify your actions that bypassed normal procedure without
actually at least summarising how that procedure ran to a dead end?


Regards,
     jer

Re: [gentoo-dev] Re: Tone in Gentoo

[Sebastian Pipping]

On 06/18/10 05:43, Jeroen Roovers wrote:
>> Hmm - thats interesting, I subconsciously read the two questions into 
>> the one posted. I accept you point. Its something I am likely to
>> write myself without thinking about it too much too.   
> 
> Oh, this is a good one. Without introducing the problem, it is being
> assured that devrel has a problem because (some?) Gentoo users have a
> problem. So I ask very straightforwardly when this was pointed out to
> devrel, because I don't see the information being introduced to the
> wider public that has led to this public e-mail accusing devrel of not
> doing their job. Excuse me please, but how did I not turn out to ask
> the right question about the information that wasn't exposed on a
> public mailing list? And if I did put a vitriolic spin on it, then

Jeroen, I'm not sure if I understood all of this ^^^.
Is there anything I can still turn for the better?


> how
> would you sanctify your actions that bypassed normal procedure without
> actually at least summarising how that procedure ran to a dead end?

My latest thread of communication with them ended in X treating me like
a child and me ending the discussion due to that.

Best,



Sebastian

Re: [gentoo-dev] Tone in Gentoo

[Sebastian Pipping]

On 06/16/10 07:43, Jeroen Roovers wrote:
> That's a conclusion first, then a premise?

"Tone is not a strength of Gentoo" is my own obserservation.
Please be more verbose - I fail to understand the core of your question.


>>  - How come tone is so rough when we actually meant to be
>>    a friendly community?  Has it always been that way?
> 
> What are you referring to? forums.g.o? bugs.g.o? #gentoo? Who, where,
> when, what channel, thread?

I have oberved this in #gentoo, in the forums and basically every thread
releated to Python 3 - that topic seams to be a heat bomb.  Are links to
concrete threads really necessary?  I'm afraid we'll be arguing about
that very case and justifications for this and that sentence then.  My
concern are all threads together.


>>  - With these Code of Conduct rules in place how come DevRel
>>    is not publicly reminding of these rules where necessary?
> 
> When did you point this out to devrel?

I have previously contacted DevRel with concerns about their inactivity
even with cases happening.  I have not asked for specific actions on the
mailing list, though.

I agree with antarus that it shouldn't be the job of just DevRel to
demand friendly tone on communication mediums but the job of everyone
involved.


> Being probably guilty of all of the above, I'd say it would help if the
> Gentoo users would file GOOD bug reports,

As I understand you say that bad bug reports make it hard for you to
stay friendly.  Correct?  Any ideas what we could do on our end to
improve the situation?

Best,



Sebastian

Re: [gentoo-dev] Tone in Gentoo

[Jeroen Roovers]

On Thu, 17 Jun 2010 00:14:28 +0200
Sebastian Pipping <sping@gentoo.org> wrote:

> On 06/16/10 07:43, Jeroen Roovers wrote:
> > That's a conclusion first, then a premise?
> 
> "Tone is not a strength of Gentoo" is my own obserservation.
> Please be more verbose - I fail to understand the core of your
> question.

I was responding two the two previous (quoted) paragraphs:


1> Tone is currently not a strength of Gentoo.

2> As I have heard there are people not joining Gentoo because the
2> atmosphere in Gentoo is lacking respect and empathy.

and the question was whether "the atmosphere in Gentoo is lacking
respect and empathy"(2) equals "bad tone"(1), whereby the latter
paragraph(the premise) serves to prove the former (the conclusion). In
my humble opinion, a lack of respect or a lack of empathy is not the
same as "bad tone". Whereby I take "bad tone" to mean is communicating
in a bad, possibly malicious way, like condescending or scathing in
nature. I guess bad communication could result from a lack of respect,
but that presupposes a history between the parties that do not show
each other respect.

A lack of empathy is something that really does bite us, as is already
explained by Roy, with his three cause of cumulative misunderstanding.
There's a language barrier, English is *not* the easiest language to
bring an unmistakable point across in, and on top of that there is a
problem, between people from different nations, of different sexes and
of different ages.

I'd say there is yet a fourth cause, which is that the Internet (that
thing appearing on your computer screen) offers far fewer moral
handholds than your typical brick-and-mortar environment with real
people in them.

> I have oberved this in #gentoo, in the forums and basically every
> thread releated to Python 3 - that topic seams to be a heat bomb.
> Are links to concrete threads really necessary?  I'm afraid we'll be
> arguing about that very case and justifications for this and that
> sentence then.  My concern are all threads together.

That's not much of an example.

> I agree with antarus that it shouldn't be the job of just DevRel to
> demand friendly tone on communication mediums but the job of everyone
> involved.

Well, on top of that, devrel already tried that once, and I think it
didn't work.

> As I understand you say that bad bug reports make it hard for you to
> stay friendly.  Correct?

No, it is difficult to write a good response to any bug report. If you
need to write a response at all, the report is probably so bad it needs
to be closed (perhaps to be reopened later). A bad bug report takes more
time to wrangle than a good one, so the more bad bug reports, the
longer you need to wrangle them and the less time you have to
elaborate, inform, help or thank the reporters. Bad bug reports do make
me hesitantly find ways to say more with less, which some reporters
might find rude. It still isn't very obvious to me when I might behave
badly in someone else's view, but I do respond to such concerns when
they are raised (and take even more time to either defend my view or to
change the Summary around or to request more specific information or
output pertaining to a changed description).

> Any ideas what we could do on our end to improve the situation?

Well, apart from explaining technical stuff[1] as in the example above,
we could obviously explain how our developers work, how much most of
them get payed for doing that, inform users of our services what they
can and cannot expect to get.


     jer


[1] We have a couple of pretty good guides[2][3] about using
bugzilla.g.o, but I suspect bug reporters who report badly tend to be
the same people who skip a three page lecture on how to report bugs.

[2] <http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/bugzilla-howto.xml> the official
    thing, as referred to on <https://bugzilla.gentoo.org/>.
[3] <http://www.gentoo.org/proj/en/qa/bug-wranglers/index.xml> the
    guide for bug-wranglers slash project page.

Re: [gentoo-dev] Tone in Gentoo

[Sebastian Pipping]

On 06/17/10 05:24, Jeroen Roovers wrote:
> Well, apart from explaining technical stuff[1] as in the example above,
> we could obviously explain how our developers work, how much most of
> them get payed for doing that, inform users of our services what they
> can and cannot expect to get.

It sounds a bit like if we explained ourselves we could continue as is
instead of improving processes on our side.  Maybe it would improve the
whole situation a bit but it pushes away resposibility to others and it
wouldn't help developer to developer conflicts either.  Maybe we can
still make use of that idea.

Best,



Sebastian

Re: [gentoo-dev] Tone in Gentoo

[Jeroen Roovers]

On Thu, 17 Jun 2010 14:20:34 +0200
Sebastian Pipping <sping@gentoo.org> wrote:

> On 06/17/10 05:24, Jeroen Roovers wrote:
> > Well, apart from explaining technical stuff[1] as in the example
> > above, we could obviously explain how our developers work, how much
> > most of them get payed for doing that, inform users of our services
> > what they can and cannot expect to get.
> 
> It sounds a bit like if we explained ourselves we could continue as is
> instead of improving processes on our side.  Maybe it would improve
> the whole situation a bit [... ]

Faced with users with little bug analysis/bug reporting/problem solving
skills who merely exclaim that something is wrong, there's obviously a
need to explain some of the basics. I guess that's not what this thread
was initially about. :)

> [ ...] but it pushes away resposibility to
> others and it wouldn't help developer to developer conflicts either.
> Maybe we can still make use of that idea.

I didn't intend to touch upon the subject of conflicts between
developers and I am not going to. What you set out to discuss was the
tone developers use that might scare away new users/developers. 

Re: [gentoo-dev] Tone in Gentoo

["Paweł Hajdan, Jr."]

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 1271 bytes --]

On 6/16/10 5:33 AM, Sebastian Pipping wrote:
> As I have heard there are people not joining Gentoo because the
> atmosphere in Gentoo is lacking respect and empathy.

This is really sad. And the kind of people who value that often make
good developers if they also have good technical skills.

> I have searched a few places for rules on tone,

I believe one can't solve this problem by using rules.

>  - With these Code of Conduct rules in place how come DevRel
>    is not publicly reminding of these rules where necessary?

I think the initiative is on the offended person's side. If a developer
is being aggressive and needlessly argumentative towards other people,
that's clearly a misconduct. Similarly for aggressive users.

> Could it be we expect perfection from each other instead seeking to
> understand and complement each other?

That might be a part of it.

> What can we do to make Gentoo a friendlier community?

We need leadership. I remember very well when the leader of one of the
Gentoo projects I participate in reminded me to always say "thanks" to
people who are helping us on Bugzilla. A small thing, but wasn't he right?

I believe it's the project leaders and the Council who ultimately set
the tone.

Paweł


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Re: [gentoo-dev] Tone in Gentoo

[Angelo Arrifano]

On 16-06-2010 18:39, "Paweł Hajdan, Jr." wrote:
> On 6/16/10 5:33 AM, Sebastian Pipping wrote:
>> As I have heard there are people not joining Gentoo because the
>> atmosphere in Gentoo is lacking respect and empathy.

You are not the only one hearing that. If we jump over our own fences,
that will be much more visible.
> 
> This is really sad. And the kind of people who value that often make
> good developers if they also have good technical skills.
> 
>> I have searched a few places for rules on tone,
> 
> I believe one can't solve this problem by using rules.
> 
>>  - With these Code of Conduct rules in place how come DevRel
>>    is not publicly reminding of these rules where necessary?
> 
> I think the initiative is on the offended person's side. If a developer
> is being aggressive and needlessly argumentative towards other people,
> that's clearly a misconduct. Similarly for aggressive users.
> 
>> Could it be we expect perfection from each other instead seeking to
>> understand and complement each other?
> 
> That might be a part of it.
> 
>> What can we do to make Gentoo a friendlier community?
> 
> We need leadership. I remember very well when the leader of one of the
> Gentoo projects I participate in reminded me to always say "thanks" to
> people who are helping us on Bugzilla. A small thing, but wasn't he right?

Damn right. Motivation is something that is very easy to lose. If we
developers don't show users that we appreciate their contributions (even
when we don't), we risk losing potential contributions in the future.

I've seen some bugs [sorry no references right now] where some
developers point out facts in a *very* aggressive way. Even when what
they have to say is true, they will scare away people. Is this what we want?
I understand there are a lot of factors that leads into a aggressive
response: private life, karma, the persistence of people doing things
*wrong*, etc.. we are humans after all. But if such behavior is the rule
instead of the exception, then I believe something is wrong and devrel
should be brought into attention.

- Angelo
> 
> I believe it's the project leaders and the Council who ultimately set
> the tone.
> 
> Paweł
> 

Re: [gentoo-dev] Tone in Gentoo

[Sebastian Pipping]

Angelo,


On 06/16/10 19:07, Angelo Arrifano wrote:
> I've seen some bugs [sorry no references right now] where some
> developers point out facts in a *very* aggressive way.

bug replies, yes!  I remember replies like

  "you obviously have no clue how xzz works"

from developer to developer on a bug (though that's a case of infighting
not insulting users.)

Best,



Sebastian

Re: [gentoo-dev] Tone in Gentoo

[Sebastian Pipping]

Pawel,


On 06/16/10 18:39, "Paweł Hajdan, Jr." wrote:
>> I have searched a few places for rules on tone,
> 
> I believe one can't solve this problem by using rules.

any ideas what could help?


> We need leadership. I remember very well when the leader of one of the
> Gentoo projects I participate in reminded me to always say "thanks" to
> people who are helping us on Bugzilla. A small thing, but wasn't he right?

Yes.  Giving credit where possible comes to my mind, too.
Back when I was new to Gentoo I wondered if giving credit to others is
really not done in Gentoo ..

Best,



Sebastian

Re: [gentoo-dev] Tone in Gentoo

[Steve Dibb]

On 06/16/2010 04:47 PM, Sebastian Pipping wrote:
> Pawel,
>
>
> On 06/16/10 18:39, "Paweł Hajdan, Jr." wrote:
>    
>>> I have searched a few places for rules on tone,
>>>        
>> I believe one can't solve this problem by using rules.
>>      
> any ideas what could help?
>    

Well, I'm all about practical ideas, but they take manpower, and I'm 
already pushing too much workload as it is, blah blah blah .. but ..

It seems to me that it's easier to respect everyone's work once you get 
to know them better.  So, I say, bring back developer profiles like we 
used to have on GMN.  I know dabbott's been doing some podcasts, and 
those are cool.

So, yah, my simple idea is just to get to know the devs. :)

Steve

Re: [gentoo-dev] Tone in Gentoo

["Paweł Hajdan, Jr."]

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On 6/17/10 12:47 AM, Sebastian Pipping wrote:
> On 06/16/10 18:39, "Paweł Hajdan, Jr." wrote:
>> I believe one can't solve this problem by using rules.
> any ideas what could help?

I think the "How Open Source Projects Survive Poisonous People"
presentation may be helpful here.

Summary:
<http://www.oreillynet.com/conferences/blog/2006/07/oscon_how_open_source_projects.html>

Video: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZSFDm3UYkeE>

Slides:
<http://www.slideshare.net/vishnu/how-to-protect-yourhow-to-protect-your-open-source-project-from-poisonous-people>

Some of the points that I think apply especially to Gentoo would be:

> Attention and focus are scarce resources and you need to protect 
> them.

> Finally, look out for people unwilling to cooperate with others. Be 
> wary of people who complain, but are unwilling to help fix the 
> problem at hand, people who refuse to discuss design and people who 
> cannot take criticism.

> Perfectionists and people obsessed with process can derail forward
> progress (unintentionally).

Paweł


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Re: [gentoo-dev] Tone in Gentoo

[Jorge Manuel B. S. Vicetto]

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On 16-06-2010 16:39, "Paweł Hajdan, Jr." wrote:
> On 6/16/10 5:33 AM, Sebastian Pipping wrote:
>>  - With these Code of Conduct rules in place how come DevRel
>>    is not publicly reminding of these rules where necessary?
> 
> I think the initiative is on the offended person's side. If a developer
> is being aggressive and needlessly argumentative towards other people,
> that's clearly a misconduct. Similarly for aggressive users.

There is a common misconception here that I feel the need to address. It
was never the direct responsibility of the Developer Relations team to
"police" the communication mediums nor was it assigned the
responsibility to enforce the CoC.
The "enforcement" of the CoC was orginally assigned to the Proctors
Project. When that project ended, that responsibility was not
specifically assigned to any other project.
Users and developers should be aware that the Developer Relations team
besides taking care of the HR side of Gentoo, including the recruitment
and retirement of developers, is responsible for mediation between
developers (only developers) and may take disciplinary actions when
developers misbehave, usually by request of another developer or team.
The responsibility of mediation between users and developers, as well as
the review of abusive behaviour by users has been assigned to the User
Relations team for quite a few years now.
There was a mostly silent agreement between some teams, including
DevRel, UserRel, Council and Trustees, that after the Proctors project
was terminated, the enforcement of the CoC, including any moderation or
banning actions, would fall to the UserRel team.

>> What can we do to make Gentoo a friendlier community?
> 
> We need leadership. I remember very well when the leader of one of the
> Gentoo projects I participate in reminded me to always say "thanks" to
> people who are helping us on Bugzilla. A small thing, but wasn't he right?
> 
> I believe it's the project leaders and the Council who ultimately set
> the tone.

Leadership can help by making people focus on goals, promoting shared
views and make developers less likely to get entangled on flame wars.
However, even though those with more prominent roles like project
leaders and council members have an extra responsibility as their
actions have greater exposure, it's critical that all members of the
community realize that it's up to "each and every one of us" to set the
tone. One of the goals of the CoC was to make it clear that every single
one of us affects the tone of the community and that each of us can and
should make an effort to promote a better tone that will ultimately lead
to a "friendlier community".

> Paweł
> 

- -- 
Regards,

Jorge Vicetto (jmbsvicetto) - jmbsvicetto at gentoo dot org
Gentoo- forums / Userrel / Devrel / KDE / Elections
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Re: [gentoo-dev] Tone in Gentoo

[Sebastian Pipping]

Jorge,


On 06/17/10 02:01, Jorge Manuel B. S. Vicetto wrote:
> There was a mostly silent agreement between some teams, including
> DevRel, UserRel, Council and Trustees, that after the Proctors project
> was terminated, the enforcement of the CoC, including any moderation or
> banning actions, would fall to the UserRel team.

Why on the UserRel team?  Am I missing obvious things?


> Leadership can help by making people focus on goals, promoting shared
> views and make developers less likely to get entangled on flame wars.
> However, even though those with more prominent roles like project
> leaders and council members have an extra responsibility as their
> actions have greater exposure, it's critical that all members of the
> community realize that it's up to "each and every one of us" to set the
> tone. One of the goals of the CoC was to make it clear that every single
> one of us affects the tone of the community and that each of us can and
> should make an effort to promote a better tone that will ultimately lead
> to a "friendlier community".

Well said.

Best,



Sebastian

Re: [gentoo-dev] Tone in Gentoo

[Jorge Manuel B. S. Vicetto]

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On 17-06-2010 00:17, Sebastian Pipping wrote:
> Jorge,
> 
> 
> On 06/17/10 02:01, Jorge Manuel B. S. Vicetto wrote:
>> There was a mostly silent agreement between some teams, including
>> DevRel, UserRel, Council and Trustees, that after the Proctors project
>> was terminated, the enforcement of the CoC, including any moderation or
>> banning actions, would fall to the UserRel team.
> 
> Why on the UserRel team?  Am I missing obvious things?

Because the CoC is about communication on Gentoo mediums and that
involves our global community. One of the roles and goals of the User
Relations project is to mediate between users and developers.
Prior to the Proctors project and in most cases after the Proctors were
dissolved, it has fall into a UserRel member to intervene on the MLs
when a flame war burst and it's to UserRel that abusive behaviour in the
communication channels is being reported, mostly by users, and even
appeals about decisions made by moderators of other "forums" are being sent.

- -- 
Regards,

Jorge Vicetto (jmbsvicetto) - jmbsvicetto at gentoo dot org
Gentoo- forums / Userrel / Devrel / KDE / Elections
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Re: [gentoo-dev] Tone in Gentoo

[Ben de Groot]

On 17 June 2010 02:01, Jorge Manuel B. S. Vicetto
<jmbsvicetto@gentoo.org> wrote:
> On 16-06-2010 16:39, "Paweł Hajdan, Jr." wrote:
>> On 6/16/10 5:33 AM, Sebastian Pipping wrote:
>>>  - With these Code of Conduct rules in place how come DevRel
>>>    is not publicly reminding of these rules where necessary?
>>
>> I think the initiative is on the offended person's side. If a developer
>> is being aggressive and needlessly argumentative towards other people,
>> that's clearly a misconduct. Similarly for aggressive users.
>
> There is a common misconception here that I feel the need to address. It
> was never the direct responsibility of the Developer Relations team to
> "police" the communication mediums nor was it assigned the
> responsibility to enforce the CoC.

DevRel is repsonsible for solving conflicts between developers.
Apparently I am not the only one who expects DevRel to take an active
role in enforcing the CoC, at least where it concerns inter-developer
relations. If this is not DevRel's task, then this should be made
explicit.

> There was a mostly silent agreement between some teams, including
> DevRel, UserRel, Council and Trustees, that after the Proctors project
> was terminated, the enforcement of the CoC, including any moderation or
> banning actions, would fall to the UserRel team.

This is very worrying. Such things should never be a silent agreement.
This needs to be open and transparent. This is policy that needs to be
explicit.

Cheers,
Ben

Re: [gentoo-dev] Tone in Gentoo

["Paweł Hajdan, Jr."]

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On 6/17/10 3:13 AM, Ben de Groot wrote:
>> There was a mostly silent agreement between some teams, [...]
> This is very worrying. Such things should never be a silent agreement.
> This needs to be open and transparent. This is policy that needs to be
> explicit.

+100

I think we should pay more attention to documenting important policies.
It just happens too often when people are confused by something, and
then somebody pops up and says "it's obvious, see our unstated policy".

This is not to be understood as an attempt to policy everything. No. I'd
prefer to have less policies, but well documented and agreed on by
everybody.

Paweł


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[gentoo-dev] Re: Tone in Gentoo

[Duncan]

Paweł Hajdan, Jr. posted on Wed, 16 Jun 2010 18:39:18 +0200 as excerpted:

> We need leadership. I remember very well when the leader of one of the
> Gentoo projects I participate in reminded me to always say "thanks" to
> people who are helping us on Bugzilla. A small thing, but wasn't he
> right?

=:^)

Thanks for that encouraging word... to somebody.

Perhaps said leader might be named?  While not publicly naming names on 
the negative side is arguably a good thing, isn't publicly crediting 
people by name for positives like this, when the opportunity arises, part 
of the solution, not the problem?

(Unless there's a specific reason not to, in this case.  A simple "Thanks 
to that unnamed person" statement would then indicate that the name was 
deliberately withheld, while keeping it positive.  IMO, of course.)

-- 
Duncan - List replies preferred.   No HTML msgs.
"Every nonfree program has a lord, a master --
and if you use the program, he is your master."  Richard Stallman

Re: [gentoo-dev] Tone in Gentoo

[Sebastian Pipping]

Hello.


As some people seem to be interested in examples of out of the line tone
in Gentoo I feel like sharing an example just happened a few minutes ago:

  In #gentoo-infra people are talking about banging each others moms
  right now.  I was told this is normal in there.  As I mentioned it's
  not funny at all I was told that it's not funny to _me_ and that I
  don't have to hang around there if I don't like it.

Now that's tone in Gentoo.  Brilliant.

Good night.




Sebastian

Re: [gentoo-dev] Tone in Gentoo

[Jorge Manuel B. S. Vicetto]

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On 19-06-2010 02:25, Sebastian Pipping wrote:
> Hello.
> 
> As some people seem to be interested in examples of out of the line tone
> in Gentoo I feel like sharing an example just happened a few minutes ago:
> 
>   In #gentoo-infra people are talking about banging each others moms
>   right now.  I was told this is normal in there.  As I mentioned it's
>   not funny at all I was told that it's not funny to _me_ and that I
>   don't have to hang around there if I don't like it.
> 
> Now that's tone in Gentoo.  Brilliant.

Sebastian,

you're confusing talk and jokes between developers on a particular
private room with tone between members of the global community in public
mediums.
You're also missing an important point that some channels have their own
environment and so one should start by understanding it. Furthermore,
pushing for change and or imposing one's view on an established channel
is not a "nice" way to deal with the residents of that channel.
Another thing you've just done and should be aware of, is that you chose
to air into the public private conservations. When any Gentoo developer
decides to reveal a private discussion in the core ml or some other
private medium into the general public without the other parties
knowledge and or consent, that developer is abusing the other members'
"trust".

You have shown to be very attached to this topic, so much so that you've
just blown this completely out of proportion. There was no "foul play"
intended in that conservation nor was there any abusive tone between the
involved parties. It may have sounded that way to you, but there was no
doubt for the involved parties.
Please consider that some of the developers in this distribution have
known each other for years and have their own communication code and
style. Don't be too quick judging the other people and as others have
said in this thread, assume others to have the best possible intention
in their messages, until proven otherwise.

> Good night.

Good night.

> Sebastian
> 

- -- 
Regards,

Jorge Vicetto (jmbsvicetto) - jmbsvicetto at gentoo dot org
Gentoo- forums / Userrel / Devrel / KDE / Elections
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Re: [gentoo-dev] Tone in Gentoo

[Angelo Arrifano]

On 19-06-2010 05:20, Jorge Manuel B. S. Vicetto wrote:
> On 19-06-2010 02:25, Sebastian Pipping wrote:
>> Hello.
> 
>> As some people seem to be interested in examples of out of the line tone
>> in Gentoo I feel like sharing an example just happened a few minutes ago:
> 
>>   In #gentoo-infra people are talking about banging each others moms
>>   right now.  I was told this is normal in there.  As I mentioned it's
>>   not funny at all I was told that it's not funny to _me_ and that I
>>   don't have to hang around there if I don't like it.
> 
>> Now that's tone in Gentoo.  Brilliant.
> 
> Sebastian,
> 
> you're confusing talk and jokes between developers on a particular
> private room with tone between members of the global community in public
> mediums.

I corroborate Jorge, I usually (or used to when there was time) hang
there and #gentoo-infra is like a big family. While I agree there is
sometimes a certain tone in gentoo, #gentoo-infra is for sure *not* an
example.

- Angelo

> You're also missing an important point that some channels have their own
> environment and so one should start by understanding it. Furthermore,
> pushing for change and or imposing one's view on an established channel
> is not a "nice" way to deal with the residents of that channel.
> Another thing you've just done and should be aware of, is that you chose
> to air into the public private conservations. When any Gentoo developer
> decides to reveal a private discussion in the core ml or some other
> private medium into the general public without the other parties
> knowledge and or consent, that developer is abusing the other members'
> "trust".
> 
> You have shown to be very attached to this topic, so much so that you've
> just blown this completely out of proportion. There was no "foul play"
> intended in that conservation nor was there any abusive tone between the
> involved parties. It may have sounded that way to you, but there was no
> doubt for the involved parties.
> Please consider that some of the developers in this distribution have
> known each other for years and have their own communication code and
> style. Don't be too quick judging the other people and as others have
> said in this thread, assume others to have the best possible intention
> in their messages, until proven otherwise.
> 
>> Good night.
> 
> Good night.
> 
>> Sebastian
> 
> 

[gentoo-dev] Re: Tone in Gentoo

[Duncan]

Jorge Manuel B. S. Vicetto posted on Sat, 19 Jun 2010 03:20:08 +0000 as
excerpted:

> you're confusing talk and jokes between developers on a particular
> private room with tone between members of the global community in public
> mediums.

It's possible that's the case.  However, it's also the case that with such 
content, whatever consent there may have been between present parties 
previously, as soon as one person present asks that it stop and it does 
not, it's sexual harassment.  Evidently, one person present, regular or 
not, asked that it stop, and it didn't, ergo...

Regardless of whether it was acceptable before that, it certainly was not, 
after that.

That's not the sort of situation, private or not, that I'd be proud to say 
I was a part of, or would like to try to explain to my kid, my parent, or 
my girlfriend/wife, particularly after one party present evidently asked 
that it stop, and it didn't.  It does not make me proud to say I run 
Gentoo.

-- 
Duncan - List replies preferred.   No HTML msgs.
"Every nonfree program has a lord, a master --
and if you use the program, he is your master."  Richard Stallman

Re: [gentoo-dev] Re: Tone in Gentoo

[Brian Harring]

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On Sat, Jun 19, 2010 at 09:00:26AM +0000, Duncan wrote:
> Jorge Manuel B. S. Vicetto posted on Sat, 19 Jun 2010 03:20:08 +0000 as
> excerpted:
> 
> > you're confusing talk and jokes between developers on a particular
> > private room with tone between members of the global community in public
> > mediums.
> 
> It's possible that's the case.  However, it's also the case that with such 
> content, whatever consent there may have been between present parties 
> previously, as soon as one person present asks that it stop and it does 
> not, it's sexual harassment.  Evidently, one person present, regular or 
> not, asked that it stop, and it didn't, ergo...

I ask y'all to stop this unproductive line of discussion.

Via your logic, aparently regardless of the sanity of the request, it 
must be followed.

Bluntly, this logic, this conversation, and Sebastian sticking his 
nose into people joking with eachother in in #-infra is blown 
seriously out of proportion (for reference I was the one who stated 
"sorry, but _you're_ the one not finding it funny").  The PC level 
inplicit in this is farcical enough it belongs in a monty python 
sketch.  Hell, even the exherbo smackdown earlier on ciaran was out 
of proportion (his points were valid and civil, even if you don't 
agree with them).

Simply put, you gauge your tone dependant on your surroundings.  You 
don't go into a funeral chanting Carlin's 7 words you can't say 
on television, and you do not go into someone's home and tell them 
what they can/cannot say.

If you cannot understand this simple fact, then you're going to have 
many, many ackward social interactions with the rest of humanity.  

Why?  Because you're going around telling other people how *you* want 
them to act, instead of what is *communally* agreed to.

Tolerance cut's both ways.  The people making the noise on this thread 
seem to be missing the bidirectional nature however.

Finally, take the thread to -project... it's well past being even 
remotely technical.

~harring

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Re: [gentoo-dev] Re: Tone in Gentoo

[Sebastian Pipping]

Brian,


On 06/19/10 11:37, Brian Harring wrote:
> and you do not go into someone's home and tell them 
> what they can/cannot say.

right.  #gentoo-infra is not anybody's home though: it's an infra-matter
channel of Gentoo.

If you like to view it as anybody's home it's home of Gentoo and
therefore my home, too.


> If you cannot understand this simple fact, then you're going to have 
> many, many ackward social interactions with the rest of humanity.  
> 
> Why?  Because you're going around telling other people how *you* want 
> them to act, instead of what is *communally* agreed to.

It seems we're just about finding out what is commonly agreed to.
You are absolutely right: if that tone we had in #gentoo-infra yesterday
is more agreed to in Gentoo than a friendly, non-sexist interaction I
might be wrong around here and asking for changes is pointless, correct.

Best,



Sebastian

Re: [gentoo-dev] Tone in Gentoo

[Sebastian Pipping]

Jorge,


On 06/19/10 05:20, Jorge Manuel B. S. Vicetto wrote:
> you're confusing talk and jokes between developers on a particular
> private room with tone between members of the global community in public
> mediums.

It wasn't #gentoo-roughshit, it was in #gentoo-infra - the place devs go
on infra matters.  To the outside of Gentoo it may be a private channel,
to Gentoo itself it is not (or should not be) a private channel.  I can
expect proper tone from an infra related channel just like from #gentoo-doc.


> You're also missing an important point that some channels have their own
> environment and so one should start by understanding it. Furthermore,
> pushing for change and or imposing one's view on an established channel
> is not a "nice" way to deal with the residents of that channel.
> Another thing you've just done and should be aware of, is that you chose
> to air into the public private conservations. When any Gentoo developer
> decides to reveal a private discussion in the core ml or some other
> private medium into the general public without the other parties
> knowledge and or consent, that developer is abusing the other members'
> "trust".

If #gentoo-infra bangs their moms the rest of the community deserves to
know.  I didn't mention names or anything implying specific participants
to the outside.


> You have shown to be very attached to this topic, so much so that you've
> just blown this completely out of proportion. There was no "foul play"
> intended in that conservation

I was more or less told to fuck off if I don't like the tone.
This is where I left the channel.

How will I be able to tell women on LinuxTag 2010 that we do want women
in Gentoo with such tone in #gentoo-infra?

Best,



Sebastian

Re: [gentoo-dev] Tone in Gentoo

[Denis Dupeyron]

On Sat, Jun 19, 2010 at 8:37 AM, Sebastian Pipping <sping@gentoo.org> wrote:
> I was more or less told to fuck off if I don't like the tone.

Please watch your language, this is a public mailing-list.

Denis.

Re: [gentoo-dev] Tone in Gentoo

[Nirbheek Chauhan]

On Sat, Jun 19, 2010 at 8:28 PM, Denis Dupeyron <calchan@gentoo.org> wrote:
> On Sat, Jun 19, 2010 at 8:37 AM, Sebastian Pipping <sping@gentoo.org> wrote:
>> I was more or less told to fuck off if I don't like the tone.
>
> Please watch your language, this is a public mailing-list.
>

I think that now we've come full-circle, and rendered half the
original goals of this thread m00t.

And while I still have everyone's attention, I'd like to point out
that the tone of people on a small channel restricted to devs-only; a
place 90% of devs will never end up in, is not where I would start my
crusade.

If the participants of this discussion really want to make Gentoo a
gentler and nicer place to be, I would suggest that they start with
places that will actually make a difference. For example, gentoo-dev
ML, gentoo-project (where this discussion should have taken place),
gentoo-user, #gentoo-dev, #gentoo-soc (where a lot of our recruits
come from), #gentoo, the forums, the planet, etc.

No, really, flaming #gentoo-infra on the gentoo-dev mailing list is
silly, useless *and* ironic (in this case).

And to everyone who is getting very angry right now, please refrain[1].


1. They might even want to read this blog post someone made in a tiny
corner of the internet: http://is.gd/cVrxM

-- 
~Nirbheek Chauhan

Gentoo GNOME+Mozilla Team

Re: [gentoo-dev] Tone in Gentoo

[Sebastian Pipping]

Nirbheek,


On 06/19/10 17:34, Nirbheek Chauhan wrote:
> No, really, flaming #gentoo-infra on the gentoo-dev mailing list is
> silly, useless *and* ironic (in this case).

It's not about the infra team, it's about communication in the
#gentoo-infra channel.  All of "silly, useless *and* ironic" could use
an explaination, at least to me.

Best,



Sebastian

Re: [gentoo-dev] Tone in Gentoo

[Nirbheek Chauhan]

On Sat, Jun 19, 2010 at 9:32 PM, Sebastian Pipping <sping@gentoo.org> wrote:
> On 06/19/10 17:34, Nirbheek Chauhan wrote:
>> No, really, flaming #gentoo-infra on the gentoo-dev mailing list is
>> silly, useless *and* ironic (in this case).
>
> It's not about the infra team, it's about communication in the
> #gentoo-infra channel.  All of "silly, useless *and* ironic" could use
> an explaination, at least to me.
>

* It is silly because this is an insignificant matter compared to the
bigger problems.
* It is useless because you're approaching this in a completely wrong
way; being vehement doesn't convince anyone.
* It is ironic because by flaming the people on that channel in a
public manner, you are degrading the tone of this mailing list.

In fact, by doing what you are doing, you are alienating people who
once supported your cause, and wanted to help. You cannot cause change
without widespread support. You cannot convince people of your
opinions by insulting them, or repeating your arguments emphatically.

I advise you to take a break to cool off and think for a while about
how you are approaching this. To make someone understand your PoV, you
must first understand their PoV and *empathize* with it.

-- 
~Nirbheek Chauhan

Gentoo GNOME+Mozilla Team

Re: [gentoo-dev] Tone in Gentoo

[Wulf C. Krueger]

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> If #gentoo-infra bangs their moms the rest of the community deserves to
> know.  

Oh? What do you do at night with your girlfriend (or boyfriend or yourself)? 
The community deserves to know!

> > You have shown to be very attached to this topic, so much so that you've
> > just blown this completely out of proportion. There was no "foul play"
> > intended in that conservation
> I was more or less told to fuck off if I don't like the tone.
> This is where I left the channel.

If you can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen. 

> How will I be able to tell women on LinuxTag 2010 that we do want women
> in Gentoo with such tone in #gentoo-infra?

You might be surprised to hear that I know more women that don't care or would 
laugh at such stuff (albeit possibly laughing more about the immature people 
stating such nonsense) than those who would be offended.

Best regards, Wulf

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Re: [gentoo-dev] Tone in Gentoo

[Sebastian Pipping]

On 06/19/10 19:50, Wulf C. Krueger wrote:
>> If #gentoo-infra bangs their moms the rest of the community deserves to
>> know.  
> 
> Oh? What do you do at night with your girlfriend (or boyfriend or yourself)? 
> The community deserves to know!

My point was about the style of communication in there, not about sex.

I could have said "If #gentoo-infra operates in such tone [..]"
alternatively.


>>> You have shown to be very attached to this topic, so much so that you've
>>> just blown this completely out of proportion. There was no "foul play"
>>> intended in that conservation
>> I was more or less told to fuck off if I don't like the tone.
>> This is where I left the channel.
> 
> If you can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen. 

Or make the kitchen a place to be, right.


> You might be surprised to hear that I know more women that don't care or would 
> laugh at such stuff (albeit possibly laughing more about the immature people 
> stating such nonsense) than those who would be offended.

According to my female source Lena Simon some women seem to rather laugh
about such things with men around and do the opposite in
female-to-female discussions.  We have so few women in Gentoo that that
alone makes me doubt your point.



Sebastian

Re: [gentoo-dev] Tone in Gentoo

[Ben de Groot]

On 19 June 2010 19:50, Wulf C. Krueger <wk@mailstation.de> wrote:
>> If #gentoo-infra bangs their moms the rest of the community deserves to
>> know.
>
> Oh? What do you do at night with your girlfriend (or boyfriend or yourself)?
> The community deserves to know!

Take it somewhere else. We dont want this here.

>> > You have shown to be very attached to this topic, so much so that you've
>> > just blown this completely out of proportion. There was no "foul play"
>> > intended in that conservation
>> I was more or less told to fuck off if I don't like the tone.
>> This is where I left the channel.
>
> If you can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen.

This is not the kind of attitude we want in Gentoo.

>> How will I be able to tell women on LinuxTag 2010 that we do want women
>> in Gentoo with such tone in #gentoo-infra?
>
> You might be surprised to hear that I know more women that don't care or would
> laugh at such stuff (albeit possibly laughing more about the immature people
> stating such nonsense) than those who would be offended.

Sure there are such women. But we also want to extend a welcome to the
other women.

Cheers,
Ben

Re: [gentoo-dev] Tone in Gentoo

[Jeremy Olexa]

On 06/18/2010 09:25 PM, Sebastian Pipping wrote:

>    In #gentoo-infra <snip>

#gentoo-infra is a private channel and you don't have to be in there. No 
public community members/users are in there. The "tone" can be anything 
that is acceptable to the normal inhabitants of said channel.

This topic is old and I haven't said anything in the thread until now 
because I didn't have anything to contribute and it looks like you don't 
either. =/

On a final note, no wonder third parties claim[1] that Gentoo Developers 
have an affinity for in-fighting between members. I *strongly* feel that 
instead of threads like this, people can, and should be, leading by 
example and recruiting people that show similar feelings. As Patrick 
said[2], back to bug fixing and using time wisely.

-Jeremy

[1]: http://distrowatch.com/dwres.php?resource=major
[2]: 
http://archives.gentoo.org/gentoo-dev/msg_1c5e5274c6b6cfc2d3683f51c3556a15.xml

Re: [gentoo-dev] Tone in Gentoo

[Sebastian Pipping]

Jeremy,


On 06/19/10 06:45, Jeremy Olexa wrote:
> On 06/18/2010 09:25 PM, Sebastian Pipping wrote:
> 
>>    In #gentoo-infra <snip>
> 
> #gentoo-infra is a private channel and you don't have to be in there. No
> public community members/users are in there. The "tone" can be anything
> that is acceptable to the normal inhabitants of said channel.

#gentoo-infra is a channel on infra matters.
The fact that it's developers only doesn't make it a private channel in
a sense of "tone doesn't matter".


> I *strongly* feel that
> instead of threads like this, people can, and should be, leading by
> example and recruiting people that show similar feelings.

Leading by example doesn't work with tone.  Being the politest one in
group of people insulting each other will not make them change tone.


> As Patrick
> said[2], back to bug fixing and using time wisely.

Fixing bugs addresses the technical layer.
Again, technical is not our problem: non-technical is.

Best,



Sebastian

Re: [gentoo-dev] Tone in Gentoo

[Jorge Manuel B. S. Vicetto]

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

On 19-06-2010 16:15, Sebastian Pipping wrote:
> Jeremy,
> 
> 
> On 06/19/10 06:45, Jeremy Olexa wrote:
>> On 06/18/2010 09:25 PM, Sebastian Pipping wrote:
>>
>>>    In #gentoo-infra <snip>
>>
>> #gentoo-infra is a private channel and you don't have to be in there. No
>> public community members/users are in there. The "tone" can be anything
>> that is acceptable to the normal inhabitants of said channel.
> 
> #gentoo-infra is a channel on infra matters.
> The fact that it's developers only doesn't make it a private channel in
> a sense of "tone doesn't matter".

Sebastian,

you've failed to notice an important point that others have already
tried to convey to you - #gentoo-infra is the home of the Gentoo infra
team. Yes, developers go there to address infra issues on Gentoo, but it
is the infra team channel and not the channel of every Gentoo developer.
Furthermore, the fact you consider it insulting, doesn't make it
necessarily insulting. Also that tone was used between other developers
who know each other very well and wasn't directed at you.
You acted like you were entitled to set rules for behaviour in another
team's channel. It must not surprise you if the people there weren't too
pleased or impressed.

>> As Patrick
>> said[2], back to bug fixing and using time wisely.
> 
> Fixing bugs addresses the technical layer.
> Again, technical is not our problem: non-technical is.

That is your opinion and a perfectly reasonable one. It doesn't mean
everyone shares your opinion or that everyone agrees with your proposals
to address that problem.

> Best,
> 
> Sebastian

- -- 
Regards,

Jorge Vicetto (jmbsvicetto) - jmbsvicetto at gentoo dot org
Gentoo- forums / Userrel / Devrel / KDE / Elections
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Re: [gentoo-dev] Tone in Gentoo

[Richard Freeman]

On 06/19/2010 01:06 PM, Jorge Manuel B. S. Vicetto wrote:
> On 19-06-2010 16:15, Sebastian Pipping wrote:
>> #gentoo-infra is a channel on infra matters.
>> The fact that it's developers only doesn't make it a private channel in
>> a sense of "tone doesn't matter".
>
> you've failed to notice an important point that others have already
> tried to convey to you - #gentoo-infra is the home of the Gentoo infra
> team. Yes, developers go there to address infra issues on Gentoo, but it
> is the infra team channel and not the channel of every Gentoo developer.

Perhaps he didn't fail to notice this point, but rather he just 
disagrees with it?

The fact is that #gentoo-infra is part of the Gentoo linux distribution. 
  It belongs to every Gentoo developer, or at least legally to every 
Gentoo foundation member.  Conduct on this channel reflects on all 
Gentoo developers.

It really does bother me that everybody is lining up to defend this kind 
of behavior.  If the response had been - sorry, I guess the joking got 
out of hand I'd say, ok, well, let's try to do better but let's all move 
on.  I don't see offensive behavior using Gentoo IDs/IRC Cloaks/media as 
a trivial matter.  It sets the overall tone of the distro, which is what 
this thread is all about.

I've heard several devs over the years comment that they love 
contributing to Gentoo, but they'd never put it on their resume.  Who 
can blame them?  I know that if I ever were hiring somebody and they 
pointed out that they were a Gentoo dev, I'd tend to assume that their 
technical knowledge was pretty good but you can be assured I'd do quite 
a bit of digging around to figure out if they're somebody I'd want 
working on my team.

Unless somebody is so good that you'd be fine if they were the only 
person working for you, then they're not too good to pass over.  Rest 
assured that if you hire and keep certain people, sooner or later they 
WILL be the only ones working for you...

I don't think that most Gentoo devs behave in this way.  I think a lot 
of people care about trying to fix this.  I don't think it is asking too 
much for Gentoo devs to try to keep their behavior reasonably 
professional when using Gentoo media, or Gentoo emails/cloaks/etc.

No need to start burning people at the stake for slip-ups, but let's at 
least try to agree that we'd like to be associated with a somewhat 
professional-acting distribution?

Rich

Re: [gentoo-dev] Tone in Gentoo

[Jorge Manuel B. S. Vicetto]

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

On 19-06-2010 17:40, Richard Freeman wrote:
> On 06/19/2010 01:06 PM, Jorge Manuel B. S. Vicetto wrote:
>> On 19-06-2010 16:15, Sebastian Pipping wrote:
>>> #gentoo-infra is a channel on infra matters.
>>> The fact that it's developers only doesn't make it a private channel in
>>> a sense of "tone doesn't matter".
>>
>> you've failed to notice an important point that others have already
>> tried to convey to you - #gentoo-infra is the home of the Gentoo infra
>> team. Yes, developers go there to address infra issues on Gentoo, but it
>> is the infra team channel and not the channel of every Gentoo developer.
> 
> Perhaps he didn't fail to notice this point, but rather he just
> disagrees with it?
> 
> The fact is that #gentoo-infra is part of the Gentoo linux distribution.
>  It belongs to every Gentoo developer, or at least legally to every
> Gentoo foundation member.  Conduct on this channel reflects on all
> Gentoo developers.

Richard,

that channel is as much part of the Gentoo Linux distribution as
#gentoo-kde, #gentoo-elections, #gentoo-devrel, #gentoo-forums and many
others, including private channels for some teams.
I can assure you that if someone goes to #gentoo-forums and tries to
tell the forums team what tone should be used in that channel, we'll
kindly ask the person to stop or to leave. This is one of the "public"
and exposed channels and thus we have a tone with that in mind, but
we're not going to set our tone according to the demands of a developer
that is not even part of the team. I can convey similar statements about
#gentoo-userrel, #gentoo-devrel, #gentoo-elections and many others. I've
picked these particular channels as I'm member of these teams, have been
for a while, and these are public channels that try to keep an inviting
tone as they are very exposed to the community.
If someone tried to go to the old userrel private channel and tell the
people in the team how to behave in their "backyard", they would likely
get a similar response to that used in #gentoo-infra. What would grant
any non-member of a team the right to demand how the members of the team
should act amongst themselves in their private room?

About the "legal right", that isn't true. There are a few misconceptions
in your statement. Even though the Foundation is the body which holds
the Gentoo brand, trademarks and logo, it's not the Foundation that sets
the rules for joining and be part of the Gentoo Developers Community.
Furthermore, being a Gentoo developer doesn't mean you can join any team
you want or that you have a "right" to go to any #gentoo-* channel. In
case you have any doubt, I can give you a list of quite a few channels
most developers don't have access to.
If you insist, to address the question that access lists for #gentoo-*
channels can be set by Freenode (our main IRC network), you should know
that the only people Freenode will listen to regarding that are the
members of the Freenode Gentoo Group Contacts. The people in that group
were not chosen by the Foundation nor do they respond to it.
Also, please never forget that being part of Gentoo is a "privilege" and
not a "right".

> It really does bother me that everybody is lining up to defend this kind
> of behavior.  If the response had been - sorry, I guess the joking got
> out of hand I'd say, ok, well, let's try to do better but let's all move
> on.  I don't see offensive behavior using Gentoo IDs/IRC Cloaks/media as
> a trivial matter.  It sets the overall tone of the distro, which is what
> this thread is all about.

I'm not defending "your-mom jokes" nor a "harsh tone" in Gentoo. I'm
trying to explain the difference between joking amongst friends on your
house and making insulting comments directed towards individual members
or a global community in the public.
The #gentoo channel has had a long time policy of clean language as it
can be and is used by children and it's one of the channels (the one?)
with greater exposure to the community. Many of the comments and jokes
that are common practice and perfectly reasonable on #gentoo-dev would
likely get you a warning in #gentoo. Some #gentoo-* channels impose some
restrictions about valid topics for that channel. The #gentoo-ops
channel topic is "Discussion of #gentoo issues". The #gentoo-kde channel
doesn't want PM discussions. So the appropriate tone for each channel
depends of its environment.

> I've heard several devs over the years comment that they love
> contributing to Gentoo, but they'd never put it on their resume.  Who
> can blame them?  I know that if I ever were hiring somebody and they
> pointed out that they were a Gentoo dev, I'd tend to assume that their
> technical knowledge was pretty good but you can be assured I'd do quite
> a bit of digging around to figure out if they're somebody I'd want
> working on my team.

Well, this is an option of every Gentoo developer. It's up to each
member of the community to decide whether they want to publicize their
participation in Gentoo or not. To be more precise, it's the option of
every member of every community to decide that.
In my humble opinion, that decision reveals much about the person and
can help explain how one behaves in the Gentoo community. So if that
helps you or someone else make your opinion about this particular Gentoo
developer, you should know I do publicize that I'm a member of this
community and I feel no shame in being part of it.

> I don't think that most Gentoo devs behave in this way.  I think a lot
> of people care about trying to fix this.  I don't think it is asking too
> much for Gentoo devs to try to keep their behavior reasonably
> professional when using Gentoo media, or Gentoo emails/cloaks/etc.

No, it's not too much to ask and I agree we should all try to keep our
best behaviour - in particular in public. But none of us has any right
demanding that in private mediums.
As an example, even though I use my gentoo cloak online, you don't have
any right to impose a behaviour into me in my private channel.

> No need to start burning people at the stake for slip-ups, but let's at
> least try to agree that we'd like to be associated with a somewhat
> professional-acting distribution?
> 
> Rich

We have a loosely-knit community that is able to provide a reasonable
product "Gentoo Linux". Let's try to avoid killing it by wanting to
impose a certain "mentality" or "behaviour" into others and let's try to
respect each other and learn to live in a community.


- -- 
Regards,

Jorge Vicetto (jmbsvicetto) - jmbsvicetto at gentoo dot org
Gentoo- forums / Userrel / Devrel / KDE / Elections
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Re: [gentoo-dev] Tone in Gentoo

[Richard Freeman]

On 06/19/2010 03:10 PM, Jorge Manuel B. S. Vicetto wrote:
> I can assure you that if someone goes to #gentoo-forums and tries to
> tell the forums team what tone should be used in that channel, we'll
> kindly ask the person to stop or to leave. This is one of the "public"
> and exposed channels and thus we have a tone with that in mind, but
> we're not going to set our tone according to the demands of a developer
> that is not even part of the team.

I was not suggesting that tone in Gentoo was up to the discretion of any 
individual developer - neither myself, nor you, nor the head of 
infra/forums/etc.  The tone in Gentoo is up to Gentoo.  Fortunately we 
have a forum for deciding what Gentoo wants - we elect them annually.

> What would grant
> any non-member of a team the right to demand how the members of the team
> should act amongst themselves in their private room?

Simple - the room belongs to Gentoo as a whole.  You're certainly free 
not to listen to me, but I and others are free to point out that this 
isn't good for Gentoo.  I certainly wouldn't take it upon myself to 
enforce the CofC, but I certainly would urge those responsible for 
governing the distro to do so.

> About the "legal right", that isn't true. There are a few misconceptions
> in your statement. Even though the Foundation is the body which holds
> the Gentoo brand, trademarks and logo, it's not the Foundation that sets
> the rules for joining and be part of the Gentoo Developers Community.
> Furthermore, being a Gentoo developer doesn't mean you can join any team
> you want or that you have a "right" to go to any #gentoo-* channel. In
> case you have any doubt, I can give you a list of quite a few channels
> most developers don't have access to.

Your statement is partially correct - obviously if I am a stockholder in 
Google I can't choose to just waltz onto the corporate campus and go 
around as I please, merely by virtue of being a shareholder.

However, a shareholder of Google certainly is able to speak out about 
actions within the company that they feel damage it, and their elected 
representatives (the board) can give power to anybody (including 
themselves) to waltz around and put things in order.  This starts with 
their authority to hire and fire the CEO at whim.

Ultimately, if anything contains the name "Gentoo" and represents itself 
as being associated with a linux distribution, then it is using a 
trademark owned by the Gentoo Foundation.  In the end, any use of Gentoo 
trademarks is completely at the discretion of the Foundation.

> If you insist, to address the question that access lists for #gentoo-*
> channels can be set by Freenode (our main IRC network), you should know
> that the only people Freenode will listen to regarding that are the
> members of the Freenode Gentoo Group Contacts. The people in that group
> were not chosen by the Foundation nor do they respond to it.

Well, this is getting a bit silly, but they'd certainly answer to a 
cease and desist, or those hosting their servers certainly would.  It 
would obviously never come to that.  Go ahead and try to register 
#microsoft-press-releases and see if being named the official contact 
gets you anywhere.

> Also, please never forget that being part of Gentoo is a "privilege" and
> not a "right".

On that we certainly agree.  It really wasn't my intention to suggest 
that somehow anybody was personally beholden to me.  I really am just 
stating my opinion, as are you.

> As an example, even though I use my gentoo cloak online, you don't have
> any right to impose a behaviour into me in my private channel.

Sure, I cannot, personally.  However, Gentoo certainly can.  At the very 
least I'd expect devs to generally conduct themselves in a manner where 
such things aren't necessary to even bring up.

> We have a loosely-knit community that is able to provide a reasonable
> product "Gentoo Linux". Let's try to avoid killing it by wanting to
> impose a certain "mentality" or "behaviour" into others and let's try to
> respect each other and learn to live in a community.

Well, the whole principle of the CofC is that it imposes behaviors on 
those who wish to use Gentoo media, or be Gentoo staff.

That said, I really don't suggest that anybody need be heavy-handed. 
Nor do I suggest that my personal opinion should be the one that rules 
Gentoo (I would say the same regarding your opinion as well).  In the 
end that's all we're doing - you say that infra decides what happens on 
#gentoo-infra, and I say that they don't (well, not ultimately - 
certainly I'd suggest that the trustees/council should of course 
delegate channel moderation to the team that uses the channel, and only 
intervene if necessary).

What I would say is that I encourage those who are in the trustees and 
council to recognize the importance of this issue, and I ask that they 
consider that tone really does matter.  We elect these bodies to speak 
for Gentoo, and I think that this is an issue where Gentoo could stand 
to be heard.  Gentoo has spoken before in issuing the Code of Conduct - 
perhaps now we just need to actually enforce it.

Rich

Re: [gentoo-dev] Tone in Gentoo

[Arun Raghavan]

If this thread started out at some point as being constructive, it's
certainly stopped being so now. Please kill this, take some cool-off
time, and come back if there is something *constructive* to be said.

-- 
Arun Raghavan
http://arunraghavan.net/
(Ford_Prefect | Gentoo) & (arunsr | GNOME)

Re: [gentoo-dev] Tone in Gentoo

[Patrick Lauer]

> Now that's tone in Gentoo.  Brilliant.

And you're ugly!

Hey, you're doing it yourself. You're using sarcasm (I assume you do,
otherwise the positive "Brilliant." doesn't fit in the context of "Oh
dear, these rude people said that!")

I think we need to remember to tolerate each other more - there's no
need to like people, we're working together on a technical/engineering
problem, not a theater production. As long as it doesn't get actively
hostile we can continue with a pretty large amount of friction. Read the
archives of this mailing list if you want to see how much :)

What I mean to say is: We're a pretty mixed and only loosely connected
group of people. You can't expect everyone to get along with everyone
else. So don't try to force a consensus and get everyone to play by
teletubby sunshine happy happy rules.
Just let us get things done in an efficient way - maybe a bit more
politeness helps that, but sugarcoating everything won't.

And never forget, I don't care if you're upset that I filed 35 bugs for
you. Your feelings are irrelevant to the fact that there are bugs. The
only thing you should do is fix things, not yell at me :)


To infinity, and beyond!

Patrick

Re: [gentoo-dev] Tone in Gentoo

["Paweł Hajdan, Jr."]

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On 6/19/10 8:43 AM, Patrick Lauer wrote:
> As long as it doesn't get actively hostile we can continue with a 
> pretty large amount of friction. Read the archives of this mailing 
> list if you want to see how much :)

I think that is the point. Is just not being actively hostile a success?
I'd say that a really friendly community is much more, and reducing
friction seems to be a good goal to create such a community.

Moreover, we don't just want to get along with ourselves. We want to
encourage other people to join our community. We want to prevent people
more sensitive to the tone (I think it's actually a good thing) from
leaving.

Because we lose their technical contributions as well (if that's the
only thing you care about).

> The only thing you should do is fix things, not yell at me :)

Please remember about the human side of the equation. A large portion of
Gentoo is just keeping it in technically good shape. In my opinion it's
the task we're doing pretty well, probably because everybody agrees this
is important.

What we should improve, are the human communication skills (including
mine, eh).

> Just let us get things done in an efficient way - maybe a bit more
> politeness helps that, but sugarcoating everything won't.

I agree. We're still a technical-focused community, but we should not
forget about politeness.

Paweł


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Re: [gentoo-dev] Tone in Gentoo

[Matti Bickel]

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On 06/19/2010 09:10 AM, "Paweł Hajdan, Jr." wrote:
> I think that is the point. Is just not being actively hostile a success?

Given our past, yes. Given the size of our project, yes. The sheer size
of the project guarantees that not everybody will like everyone. They
merely get along and no thread will change that fact. Maybe a developer
get-together like they happen here in the German conspiracy and
elsewhere will, but that's not something you can force-feed others.

> Moreover, we don't just want to get along with ourselves. We want to
> encourage other people to join our community.

I want and will train people who want to scratch their personal
(technical) itches in gentoo to become a developer. "Joining the
community", otoh, takes as much as a /join #gentoo or logging into the
forums. Yes, you can do that just for fun and that's totally fine. If
something prevents users from "joining the community" in this way,
UserRel should have a look at it. Nothing new here.

But all examples of "tone" I've seen in this lengthy thread revolve
around developer (particularly infra/devrel) communications. As has been
said before, the two should not be confused, as they are different
problems and have different solutions.

As for the latter problem, Jorge and Patrick have said all there is to
say about the issue.

> What we should improve, are the human communication skills (including
> mine, eh).

This is nothing "we" can improve. I can't magically improve anyone's
communication skill (and hell, I wish someone could fix mine!). Everyone
decides if that's something he or she wants or needs to work on and how.
Personally, I've observed that leading by example works best here.

So please join me in killing some bugs (gently) today, kthx?


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Re: [gentoo-dev] Tone in Gentoo

[Ben de Groot]

On 19 June 2010 09:10, "Paweł Hajdan, Jr." <phajdan.jr@gentoo.org> wrote:
> On 6/19/10 8:43 AM, Patrick Lauer wrote:
>> As long as it doesn't get actively hostile we can continue with a
>> pretty large amount of friction. Read the archives of this mailing
>> list if you want to see how much :)
>
> I think that is the point. Is just not being actively hostile a success?
> I'd say that a really friendly community is much more, and reducing
> friction seems to be a good goal to create such a community.
>
> Moreover, we don't just want to get along with ourselves. We want to
> encourage other people to join our community. We want to prevent people
> more sensitive to the tone (I think it's actually a good thing) from
> leaving.
>
> Because we lose their technical contributions as well (if that's the
> only thing you care about).

This is a point that deserves more consideration. One of the top
reasons (as witnessed in forum discussions) many people are not
getting more involved and volunteering to become developers is the
level of in-fighting and the ineffective way that bullies and other
poisonous people are being dealt with. Does Gentoo really prefer to
keep more sensitive people out instead of effectively getting rid of
repeat offenders?

Think about it. What kind of people would you rather have in Gentoo?

Cheers,
Ben

Re: [gentoo-dev] Tone in Gentoo

[Richard Freeman]

On 06/19/2010 06:54 AM, Ben de Groot wrote:
> This is a point that deserves more consideration. One of the top
> reasons (as witnessed in forum discussions) many people are not
> getting more involved and volunteering to become developers is the
> level of in-fighting and the ineffective way that bullies and other
> poisonous people are being dealt with. Does Gentoo really prefer to
> keep more sensitive people out instead of effectively getting rid of
> repeat offenders?

++

http://www.mefeedia.com/watch/30301159
http://opensourcebridge.org/sessions/216

We don't need one-strike-and-you're-out, but tone does matter.

Rich

Re: [gentoo-dev] Tone in Gentoo

[Ciaran McCreesh]

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On Sat, 19 Jun 2010 12:54:25 +0200
Ben de Groot <yngwin@gentoo.org> wrote:
> This is a point that deserves more consideration. One of the top
> reasons (as witnessed in forum discussions)

Unfortunately, that's selecting a rather biased audience. The success
of a forum depends upon the number of active posters it has. The number
of active posters it has depends upon how many people need to post
there to get answers to questions, and how many wrong answers have to
be given before the right answer comes up. Thus, by selecting from the
forums, you're picking an audience that likes talking endlessly about
communities, not one that likes to answer a question once, correctly,
and then change things so the question doesn't need to be answered
again.

> Does Gentoo really prefer to keep more sensitive people out instead
> of effectively getting rid of repeat offenders?

All bringing more sensitive people in does is cripples the
distribution's ability to delivery any technical improvements, since
everyone's time is wasted worrying about the whiners. And let's face
it, the sort of people who moan about that kind of thing are going to
find a reason to moan no matter what.

> Think about it. What kind of people would you rather have in Gentoo?

Personally, I'd like to see Gentoo start having the kinds of people who
deliver a better product, not the kinds of people who worry that using
a gender-ambiguous cow as a logo might be offensive.

-- 
Ciaran McCreesh

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Re: [gentoo-dev] Tone in Gentoo

[Sebastian Pipping]

On 06/19/10 19:59, Ciaran McCreesh wrote:
>> This is a point that deserves more consideration. One of the top
>> reasons (as witnessed in forum discussions)
> 
> Unfortunately, that's selecting a rather biased audience. The success
> of a forum depends upon the number of active posters it has. The number
> of active posters it has depends upon how many people need to post
> there to get answers to questions, and how many wrong answers have to
> be given before the right answer comes up. Thus, by selecting from the
> forums, you're picking an audience that likes talking endlessly about
> communities, not one that likes to answer a question once, correctly,
> and then change things so the question doesn't need to be answered
> again.

This may apply to easy and/or 99%-technical problems with a dictator
around.  That's not what we have here.  It's two black-and-white for my
taste, too.


>> Does Gentoo really prefer to keep more sensitive people out instead
>> of effectively getting rid of repeat offenders?
> 
> All bringing more sensitive people in does is cripples the
> distribution's ability to delivery any technical improvements,

Looking at it the other way around: with more sensitive people around,
collaboration would work better potentially leading to less loss of time
and energy and therefore quicker arrival of improvements.


>> Think about it. What kind of people would you rather have in Gentoo?
> 
> Personally, I'd like to see Gentoo start having the kinds of people who
> deliver a better product, not the kinds of people who worry that using
> a gender-ambiguous cow as a logo might be offensive.

I don't consider that comment respectful.



Sebastian

Re: [gentoo-dev] Tone in Gentoo

[Ciaran McCreesh]

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On Sat, 19 Jun 2010 20:57:03 +0200
Sebastian Pipping <sping@gentoo.org> wrote:
> This may apply to easy and/or 99%-technical problems with a dictator
> around.  That's not what we have here.  It's two black-and-white for
> my taste, too.

No, that's the nice thing about delivering a product based upon
technical merit: most of the time, there are right answers and there
are wrong answers, and careful investigation and good management can
lead to it being determined which is which.

> > All bringing more sensitive people in does is cripples the
> > distribution's ability to delivery any technical improvements,
> 
> Looking at it the other way around: with more sensitive people around,
> collaboration would work better potentially leading to less loss of
> time and energy and therefore quicker arrival of improvements.

Collaboration works when good ideas get kept and bad ideas get dropped.
Collaboration fails when good ideas are rejected because people don't
like who came up with them or the tone in which they were presented, or
when bad ideas are kept around to avoid hurting the feelings of the
people who came up with those ideas.

> > Personally, I'd like to see Gentoo start having the kinds of people
> > who deliver a better product, not the kinds of people who worry
> > that using a gender-ambiguous cow as a logo might be offensive.
> 
> I don't consider that comment respectful.

But do you consider it to be correct?

-- 
Ciaran McCreesh

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Re: [gentoo-dev] Tone in Gentoo

[Sebastian Pipping]

Ciaran,


On 06/19/10 21:16, Ciaran McCreesh wrote:
> No, that's the nice thing about delivering a product based upon
> technical merit: most of the time, there are right answers and there
> are wrong answers, and careful investigation and good management can
> lead to it being determined which is which.

I think you neglect differences in values.

Say the degree of backwards-compatibility: there's no wrong nor right
without values.  Both sides have pros and cons.


> Collaboration works when good ideas get kept and bad ideas get dropped.
> Collaboration fails when good ideas are rejected because people don't
> like who came up with them

If you had better tone it would be much easier to accept the good among
your ideas.


> or the tone in which they were presented, or
> when bad ideas are kept around to avoid hurting the feelings of the
> people who came up with those ideas.

Saying "no" politely is hard, not impossible.


>>> Personally, I'd like to see Gentoo start having the kinds of people
>>> who deliver a better product, not the kinds of people who worry
>>> that using a gender-ambiguous cow as a logo might be offensive.
>>
>> I don't consider that comment respectful.
> 
> But do you consider it to be correct?

No, I don't.  I have said "technical is not our main problem" many times.

Best,



Sebastian

Re: [gentoo-dev] Tone in Gentoo

[Ben de Groot]

On 19 June 2010 19:59, Ciaran McCreesh <ciaran.mccreesh@googlemail.com> wrote:
> On Sat, 19 Jun 2010 12:54:25 +0200
> Ben de Groot <yngwin@gentoo.org> wrote:
>> This is a point that deserves more consideration. One of the top
>> reasons (as witnessed in forum discussions)
>
> Unfortunately, that's selecting a rather biased audience. The success
> of a forum depends upon the number of active posters it has. The number
> of active posters it has depends upon how many people need to post
> there to get answers to questions, and how many wrong answers have to
> be given before the right answer comes up. Thus, by selecting from the
> forums, you're picking an audience that likes talking endlessly about
> communities, not one that likes to answer a question once, correctly,
> and then change things so the question doesn't need to be answered
> again.

That is an incredibly shortsighted and cynic look at the community.
Keep it off this list.

>> Does Gentoo really prefer to keep more sensitive people out instead
>> of effectively getting rid of repeat offenders?
>
> All bringing more sensitive people in does is cripples the
> distribution's ability to delivery any technical improvements, since
> everyone's time is wasted worrying about the whiners

Not at all. Instead of wasting time on flamewars, and people getting
upset and leaving because of the attacks, we'd have a bunch of people
who would know how to work together in a friendly way. That speeds up
the process to come to technical improvements. Once again: keep your
cynic, twisted look off this list. We have no use for it.

>> Think about it. What kind of people would you rather have in Gentoo?
>
> Personally, I'd like to see Gentoo start having the kinds of people who
> deliver a better product, not the kinds of people who worry that using
> a gender-ambiguous cow as a logo might be offensive.

Once again you are derailing the conversation. Nobody brought up
anything about a logo.

It is about whether Gentoo wants to keep around people like you, who
continually attack others, or whether it prefers to have people who
want to work together in a friendlier atmosphere. A smoother
cooperation is in the interest of technical improvements too.

There already is a distro that works like you envision it. It's called
Exherbo. You should try it, you might like it. I would suggest you
spend your time and energy on that, and leave Gentoo to do things the
friendlier way.

Cheers,
Ben

Re: [gentoo-dev] Tone in Gentoo

[Ciaran McCreesh]

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On Sat, 19 Jun 2010 23:03:31 +0200
Ben de Groot <yngwin@gentoo.org> wrote:
> That is an incredibly shortsighted and cynic look at the community.
> Keep it off this list.

I consider that remark disrespectful. By rejecting comments in such an
impolite manner, and without explaining why you think the comment is
incorrect, you are poisoning the development atmosphere and making
Gentoo a hostile place for contributors.

> Not at all. Instead of wasting time on flamewars, and people getting
> upset and leaving because of the attacks, we'd have a bunch of people
> who would know how to work together in a friendly way. That speeds up
> the process to come to technical improvements. Once again: keep your
> cynic, twisted look off this list. We have no use for it.

I would like to know how well that process is working when it comes to
delivering EAPI 4. Or, you know... Anything else for that matter...

> There already is a distro that works like you envision it. It's called
> Exherbo. You should try it, you might like it. I would suggest you
> spend your time and energy on that, and leave Gentoo to do things the
> friendlier way.

That's not very friendly of you. I take it being friendly only applies
to other friendly people, and that the second anyone loses their
friendliness badge all your friends have to jump on them and tell them
to go away?

-- 
Ciaran McCreesh

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Re: [gentoo-dev] Tone in Gentoo

[Patrick Lauer]

On 06/19/10 23:20, Ciaran McCreesh wrote:
> On Sat, 19 Jun 2010 23:03:31 +0200
> Ben de Groot <yngwin@gentoo.org> wrote:
>> That is an incredibly shortsighted and cynic look at the community.
>> Keep it off this list.
> 
> I consider that remark disrespectful. By rejecting comments in such an
> impolite manner, and without explaining why you think the comment is
> incorrect, you are poisoning the development atmosphere and making
> Gentoo a hostile place for contributors.

Eh what?
Ben notices that you're overly negative, and you attack him for noticing
it ... in a thread discussing politeness and all that.

This is pretty hilarious, but maybe this mailinglist is not the place
for wannabe standup comedians.

>> Not at all. Instead of wasting time on flamewars, and people getting
>> upset and leaving because of the attacks, we'd have a bunch of people
>> who would know how to work together in a friendly way. That speeds up
>> the process to come to technical improvements. Once again: keep your
>> cynic, twisted look off this list. We have no use for it.
> 
> I would like to know how well that process is working when it comes to
> delivering EAPI 4. Or, you know... Anything else for that matter...

Quite well, thanks for asking.

>> There already is a distro that works like you envision it. It's called
>> Exherbo. You should try it, you might like it. I would suggest you
>> spend your time and energy on that, and leave Gentoo to do things the
>> friendlier way.
> 
> That's not very friendly of you. I take it being friendly only applies
> to other friendly people, and that the second anyone loses their
> friendliness badge all your friends have to jump on them and tell them
> to go away?

Being the insensitive person I am (as sping has pointed out quite
nicely) I'd say that you've shown repeatedly that you are not interested
in engaging in a proper discussion. So having some negative karma hit
you shouldn't be unexpected. Now please do as Ben said and leave us
amateurs with our stupid moronic stuff (as you've pointed out multiple
times) to do things wrongly while you have a chance to do them right
over there.

kthxbai,

Patrick

P.S. If you find any sarcasm, irony or similar you can keep it. Maybe
you can put it to good use at last.

Re: [gentoo-dev] Tone in Gentoo

[David Leverton]

On Saturday 19 June 2010 22:03:31 Ben de Groot wrote:
> It is about whether Gentoo wants to keep around people [...] who
> continually attack others

Considering the number of attacks directed towards Paludis developers (and 
sometimes users), and lack of corresponding punishment, I can only assume the 
answer is "yes".

Re: [gentoo-dev] Tone in Gentoo

[Patrick Lauer]

On 06/19/10 23:57, David Leverton wrote:
> On Saturday 19 June 2010 22:03:31 Ben de Groot wrote:
>> It is about whether Gentoo wants to keep around people [...] who
>> continually attack others
> 
> Considering the number of attacks directed towards Paludis developers (and 
> sometimes users), and lack of corresponding punishment, I can only assume the 
> answer is "yes".
> 
Look, I know this is pretty redundant ... but ...

you're actively stepping in the way of moving fists to complain that
people punch you. Stop doing that.

Hope that helps you figure out this universe.

Take care,

Patrick

Re: [gentoo-dev] Tone in Gentoo

[David Leverton]

On Saturday 19 June 2010 23:01:33 Patrick Lauer wrote:
> you're actively stepping in the way of moving fists to complain that
> people punch you. Stop doing that.

You mean banning trolls is an invitation for you to snip the trolling and 
publicly accusing me of banning them on a whim?  (excerpt from 
http://www.gentooexperimental.org/~patrick/weblog/archives/2008-03.html#e2008-03-31T20_31_17.txt)

> So things are starting to look quite toasty. The "nice" paludis people even 
> keep the bad vibes away:
>
> [17:12:44] *** Mode #paludis +b *!*@gentoo/user/FamousToaster by dleverton
> [17:13:11] *** Mode #paludis +b D0pamine!*@* by dleverton
> [17:13:15] <-* dleverton has kicked fragalot from #paludis (bye bye)
> [17:13:19] <-* dleverton has kicked D0pamine from #paludis (bye bye)
> [17:13:35] *** Mode #paludis -o dleverton by dleverton
>
> followed by
>
> 17:19 rane> i'm a gentoo developer relations project member
> 17:19 fragalot> Hi. :)
> 17:20 rane> and i want to inform you that if you continue to behave the way 
> you did on #paludis, your  gentoo/user cloak will be 
> removed
>
> Behaving that way meaning joining the channel and saying "Hi" ? Wow, that's 
> great. So I must really recommend to users never to go near that place as
> they will have firebreathing dragons on their behind within minutes.  

Or asking for opinions on a technical issue is a form of trolling?

http://www.gentooexperimental.org/~patrick/weblog/archives/2008-05.html#e2008-05-03T22_15_54.txt

There's plenty more, but I don't think it would be productive to try and track 
down everything.

Re: [gentoo-dev] Tone in Gentoo

[Domen Kožar]

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http://xkcd.com/386/

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Re: [gentoo-dev] Tone in Gentoo

[David Leverton]

On Saturday 19 June 2010 23:05:25 Domen Kožar wrote:
> http://xkcd.com/386/

s/wrong/attacking me in public/ and it might be closer.

Re: [gentoo-dev] Tone in Gentoo

[Dale]

Ben de Groot wrote:
> On 19 June 2010 09:10, "Paweł Hajdan, Jr."<phajdan.jr@gentoo.org>  wrote:
>    
>> On 6/19/10 8:43 AM, Patrick Lauer wrote:
>>      
>>> As long as it doesn't get actively hostile we can continue with a
>>> pretty large amount of friction. Read the archives of this mailing
>>> list if you want to see how much :)
>>>        
>> I think that is the point. Is just not being actively hostile a success?
>> I'd say that a really friendly community is much more, and reducing
>> friction seems to be a good goal to create such a community.
>>
>> Moreover, we don't just want to get along with ourselves. We want to
>> encourage other people to join our community. We want to prevent people
>> more sensitive to the tone (I think it's actually a good thing) from
>> leaving.
>>
>> Because we lose their technical contributions as well (if that's the
>> only thing you care about).
>>      
> This is a point that deserves more consideration. One of the top
> reasons (as witnessed in forum discussions) many people are not
> getting more involved and volunteering to become developers is the
> level of in-fighting and the ineffective way that bullies and other
> poisonous people are being dealt with. Does Gentoo really prefer to
> keep more sensitive people out instead of effectively getting rid of
> repeat offenders?
>
> Think about it. What kind of people would you rather have in Gentoo?
>
> Cheers,
> Ben
>
>    

I would like to say this to the list and then I have no plans to say 
anything else.  This is NOT directed at Ben either, just picked this to 
reply to.  I would love to learn how to do some programing and help 
Gentoo.  I been using Gentoo since the 1.4 days.  I'm not a genius and I 
don't even claim to know a lot much less everything.  Thing is, I was 
here several years ago when even this mailing list was basically out of 
control.  Are things better, you dang right they are.  They are hugely 
better.  Are they where they should be, nope.  A lot of progress has 
been made but it still is not like it should be.  If I owned Gentoo and 
it was my pride and joy, I wouldn't tolerate some of the things that are 
said.  Since most people here have jobs, would your boss knowingly allow 
some of the things said here or on private lists to continue, or would 
someone be looking for a job?  I don't want a answer, just some to think 
about the question a bit.  I understand that people here are volunteers 
too.  No need to point that out.  Thing is, it doesn't matter if you 
volunteer or not.  I volunteer for a lot of things locally but I won't 
volunteer for Gentoo.  I just happen to like the OS.  I wouldn't 
continue to volunteer for the local things if I had to deal with some 
things that happen on the lists either.  Again, it has improved a lot or 
I wouldn't be subscribed at all.  My hats off to the ones that got it 
this far.

To Sebastian, the mailing list has improved a lot and there are still 
occasions where things happen that shouldn't.  The changes you want are 
going to be difficult if not impossible.  Make the decision that I made, 
either let things get better over time then join in or if you feel like 
it, try to help change them slowly.  If you expect this to change 
anytime soon, you will only disappoint yourself.  I fear it will 
eventually lead to a lawsuit from somebody then things will change.  
Eventually, someone will go to far and then Gentoo will be at least 
partially on the hook for it and be forced to change.  I'm not saying 
Gentoo would or should lose but the costs of the defense will force a 
change.  Most small organizations like Gentoo can't afford but one bite 
out of that apple.  As some have said in the past, the mailing list and 
such do belong to Gentoo.  Therefore, Gentoo would be accountable for 
its part of what happens on them.  The lawyers will argue that Gentoo 
allowed it to continue and therefore permitted it to happen.  Again, may 
not work but Gentoo would still have to foot the bill to defend itself.

My $0.02 worth for the day and that ain't much.

Dale

:-)  :-)

Re: [gentoo-dev] Tone in Gentoo

[Sebastian Pipping]

On 06/19/10 08:43, Patrick Lauer wrote:
>> Now that's tone in Gentoo.  Brilliant.
> 
> And you're ugly!
> 
> Hey, you're doing it yourself. You're using sarcasm (I assume you do,
> otherwise the positive "Brilliant." doesn't fit in the context of "Oh
> dear, these rude people said that!")

You got me.  Replace "brilliant" with "That's sad".

> 
> So don't try to force a consensus and get everyone to play by
> teletubby sunshine happy happy rules.
> Just let us get things done in an efficient way - maybe a bit more
> politeness helps that, but sugarcoating everything won't.

This thread has never been about making things up.


> And never forget, I don't care if you're upset that I filed 35 bugs for
> you.

If you mean what you say: that's pretty insensitive.



Sebastian

Re: [gentoo-dev] Tone in Gentoo

[Patrick Lauer]

On 06/19/10 18:20, Sebastian Pipping wrote:
>> And never forget, I don't care if you're upset that I filed 35 bugs for
>> you.
> If you mean what you say: that's pretty insensitive.

But I honestly don't care how you _feel_ about a bug.
There's a defect. It's a fact. The only way to change it is to work on
fixing it. Feelings have nothing to do with it.

It doesn't matter how polite or gentle you describe a malfunction. It is
and will be a bug. There's no place for emotions when you wish to work
with plain boring facts.

And again, I do not care how _you_ feel about it. Actually I don't have
any preference or emotional connection to most packages. All I care
about is that they (1) install properly out of the box and (2) work
reasonably. So if I have to file eleventy dozen bugs for packages you
maintain ... your fault. Don't leave such a mess. Stop whining and fix
those issues.

Yeah, maybe that's insensitive. Maybe I'm a bit rude. But it'll make you
focus more on doing things properly so I don't even have to bother you
in the first place :) And if everyone does a good job it'll be more
awesome for all of us.