Re: [gentoo-project] ComRel membership vs politeness on mailing lists

[David Seifert <soap@gentoo.org>]

On Wed, 2019-06-19 at 14:06 -0400, Matt Turner wrote:
> On Wed, Jun 19, 2019 at 8:38 AM Michał Górny <mgorny@gentoo.org>
> wrote:
> > On Wed, 2019-06-19 at 08:03 +0300, Andrew Savchenko wrote:
> > > On Tue, 18 Jun 2019 20:33:09 +0200 Michał Górny wrote:
> > > > On Tue, 2019-06-18 at 19:20 +0300, Andrew Savchenko wrote:
> > > > > On Tue, 18 Jun 2019 09:43:05 +0200 Michał Górny wrote:
> > > > > > On Sun, 2019-06-16 at 23:00 +0000, Robin H. Johnson wrote:
> > > > > > > Only active Gentoo developers who are also Foundation
> > > > > > > members may be
> > > > > > > nominated. [1]
> > > > > > > 
> > > > > > > Nominations MUST be made by posting to 
> > > > > > > gentoo-nfp@lists.gentoo.org, and
> > > > > > > the nominated candidate must accept not later than the
> > > > > > > end of the
> > > > > > > nomination period.
> > > > > > 
> > > > > > Ok, let's try someone else.  I nominate:
> > > > > > 
> > > > > > David Seifert (soap)
> > > > > > Mikle Kolyada (zlogene)
> > > > > 
> > > > > You violated the rules:
> > > > >   Nominations MUST be made by posting to 
> > > > > gentoo-nfp@lists.gentoo.org
> > > > > 
> > > > > But you sent them to gentoo-project@lists.gentoo.org mail
> > > > > list.
> > > > > Hereby they are not valid. Please perform your duty properly
> > > > > and
> > > > > send nominations to the aforementioned NFP mail list.
> > > > > 
> > > > 
> > > > You could also have understood it was a honest mistake and be
> > > > nice about
> > > > it.  But I suppose that's too much to expect from a ComRel
> > > > member.
> > > 
> > > I politely pointed out your mistake and nicely asked you to fix
> > > it.
> > > I even used the word "please". I honestly don't see what was not
> > > nice about my previous e-mail. Maybe we have a language barrier
> > > issue here.
> > > 
> > > My comrel membership has nothing to do with this discussion and
> > > I'm participating in it as a common Gentoo developer with my
> > > comrel
> > > hat off.
> > > 
> > 
> > Do you really believe that a ComRel member (read: a person whose
> > duty
> > involves judging other people's behavior) can just take ComRel hat
> > off
> > and stop caring about providing exemplary behavior?  Following that
> > logic, I could join ComRel claiming that all the things I've said
> > and done were 'with my comrel hat off' (since I don't have any)!
> > 
> > I understand that there might be a language barrier.  However,
> > since you
> > decide to perform a very specific and important role, I'm afraid
> > you
> > need to learn to use English in a way that's actually polite rather
> > than
> > using the excuse of a language barrier.
> > 
> > Let me explain.
> > 
> > A neutral (i.e. not really polite but acceptable) way of saying
> > that
> > would be to say 'you have posted the nominations to the wrong
> > list'.
> > That's plain and factual.
> > 
> > You said 'you violated the rules' which is an
> > accusation.  Accusations
> > tend to render one as guilty of doing something very
> > bad.  Accusations
> > are not polite.
> > 
> > Furthermore, 'perform your duty properly' is passive
> > aggressive.  Adding
> > 'please' doesn't make it any more polite -- in fact, given just
> > before
> > a insulting statement it may have the exact opposite effect.
> > 
> > The polite way of saying that would be to strip the first part
> > of the sentence and just say 'please send nominations ...'  In
> > fact,
> > as you can see the passive aggressive part is completely
> > unnecessary to
> > convey the meaning, so what's the purpose of adding it besides
> > intentionally offending someone?
> 
> As a native English speaker I agree with Michał's assessment.
> 

so do I.