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

[Alec Warner <antarus@gentoo.org>]

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.
>
>
>