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Mozilla now banning people for grumpy bug reports

bugzilla.mozilla.org

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Re: Mozilla now banning people for grumpy bug reports

#11

Post by vijaydev »

MrUnknown wrote: post #6
jerrya wrote: post #3

Richard Mlynarik is a hacker with a deservedly excellent reputation. And sometimes he has a sharp tongue which in context can be both enjoyable and terrifying. But here's the important part for entrepreneurs: what percentage of users of mozilla products or any product bother to submit bug reports? What Richard is doing here is investing his time into making Mozilla better. I am always amazed at the projects and compa…

He was being a complete idiot in his bug report. The moderator stated that he has been warned many times before. He completely deserved to be banned after being warned that his actions will result in being banned. Sure, he is submitting bug reports, but his childish behavior shouldn't have to be tolerated because of this.

We don't know the earlier instances where he was warned. IMHO, this particular bug report doesn't seem to be out of line with the rules here: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/page.cgi?id=etiquette.html

Re: Mozilla now banning people for grumpy bug reports

#12

Post by sid0 »

Kapelson wrote: post #10
MrUnknown wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Expressing frustrations in a completely smart ass way is being a dick.

Regardless of whether he was being a dick or not, the issue is still there. A helpful dick is still valuable, and banning him is really only hurting the project as a whole.

Not if the negative vibe driving volunteers who might actually fix bugs away outweighs the help provided.

Re: Mozilla now banning people for grumpy bug reports

#14

Post by gojomo »

MrUnknown wrote: post #6
jerrya wrote: post #3

Richard Mlynarik is a hacker with a deservedly excellent reputation. And sometimes he has a sharp tongue which in context can be both enjoyable and terrifying. But here's the important part for entrepreneurs: what percentage of users of mozilla products or any product bother to submit bug reports? What Richard is doing here is investing his time into making Mozilla better. I am always amazed at the projects and compa…

He was being a complete idiot in his bug report. The moderator stated that he has been warned many times before. He completely deserved to be banned after being warned that his actions will result in being banned. Sure, he is submitting bug reports, but his childish behavior shouldn't have to be tolerated because of this.

If this report is representative, I don't think a thousand similar reports would deserve a ban. There's some exasperation, some sarcasm, some foot-stomping while expressing strong opinions. But there's no profanity or insults. The strongest negative word used is 'stupid', and it's applied to a question in the UI, not any person. The details and rationale for considering the software's behavior an interaction faux pas are strong.

It's hard to even see which part of 'Bugzilla Etiquette' this report violates:

https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/page.cgi?id=etiquette.html

If other reports are worse, that's another matter. But if so, it seems odd this relatively mild report would be the final trigger that brings down the banhammer. (If there's a reliable pattern of abuse, just wait for the next non-mild incident.)

Re: Mozilla now banning people for grumpy bug reports

#15

Post by MrUnknown »

Kapelson wrote: post #10
MrUnknown wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Expressing frustrations in a completely smart ass way is being a dick.

Regardless of whether he was being a dick or not, the issue is still there. A helpful dick is still valuable, and banning him is really only hurting the project as a whole.

Most people don't tend to respond well to these types of complaints.

I used to work as customer service for a website and would constantly get sarcastic help requests. It made me hate them and I certainly didn't want to help them. In fact, I either ignored the ticket or just responded slowly as I handled tickets with more reasonable people.

The people saying this is a "great" ticket and wish more reports were given this way are full of it. You will very quickly get tired of it because you realize you are doing everything you can to help them and they really don't care enough to give you enough respect to speak with you as a human being in a conversation. Instead choosing to be sarcastic and insult your efforts to help.

I see this the other way around. I am thankful a huge bunch of volunteers spend many hours of their day creating software I use daily without having to pay for it. They don't deserve to be treated like this.

Re: Mozilla now banning people for grumpy bug reports

#16

Post by masklinn »

BasDirks wrote: post #9

How on earth does that deserve a ban? Mozilla would hate to have Linus Torvalds as a contributor.

> How on earth does that deserve a ban?

That does not deserve a ban in and of itself. Repeated instances of that following warnings of unacceptable behavior, on the other hand, does.

It would seem Richard here was in the second situation:

> You've been warned repeatedly about the Bugzilla Etiquette rules, and you're still failing to respect them.

Re: Mozilla now banning people for grumpy bug reports

#17

Post by sid0 »

gojomo wrote: post #14
MrUnknown wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He was being a complete idiot in his bug report. The moderator stated that he has been warned many times before. He completely deserved to be banned after being warned that his actions will result in being banned. Sure, he is submitting bug reports, but his childish behavior shouldn't have to be tolerated because of this.

If this report is representative, I don't think a thousand similar reports would deserve a ban. There's some exasperation, some sarcasm, some foot-stomping while expressing strong opinions. But there's no profanity or insults. The strongest negative word used is 'stupid', and it's applied to a question in the UI, not any person. The details and rationale for considering the software's behavior an interaction faux pas…

No, if there's a track record of obscene bug reports, then the person involved shouldn't be given even the slightest bit of slack.

edit: if I were dmose, I'd have banned him a year ago for https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=579372#c2.

Re: Mozilla now banning people for grumpy bug reports

#18

Post by Morendil »

gojomo wrote: post #14
MrUnknown wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He was being a complete idiot in his bug report. The moderator stated that he has been warned many times before. He completely deserved to be banned after being warned that his actions will result in being banned. Sure, he is submitting bug reports, but his childish behavior shouldn't have to be tolerated because of this.

If this report is representative, I don't think a thousand similar reports would deserve a ban. There's some exasperation, some sarcasm, some foot-stomping while expressing strong opinions. But there's no profanity or insults. The strongest negative word used is 'stupid', and it's applied to a question in the UI, not any person. The details and rationale for considering the software's behavior an interaction faux pas…

This, exactly. I don't know Richard but this thread has triggered my curiosity, so I've looked at a few of his bug comments and the pattern is that they are funny and strongly worded, but the strong language isn't directed at a person - it's squarely aimed at the problem.

Re: Mozilla now banning people for grumpy bug reports

#19

Post by ChrisNorstrom »

jerrya wrote: post #3

Richard Mlynarik is a hacker with a deservedly excellent reputation. And sometimes he has a sharp tongue which in context can be both enjoyable and terrifying. But here's the important part for entrepreneurs: what percentage of users of mozilla products or any product bother to submit bug reports? What Richard is doing here is investing his time into making Mozilla better. I am always amazed at the projects and compa…

It took Mozilla 10 years to get Sunbird to version 1.0, not to mention how long it took them to iron out Thunderbird's "imperfections". As for FireFox, if it weren't for the extensions and the "open source" sticker no one would care about FireFox. They need all the Richard Mlynariks they can get.

And I am..er... WAS a hard core FireFox user (switched to chrome a year ago) and still am a heavy Thunderbird user. Mozilla needs to haul ass.

Re: Mozilla now banning people for grumpy bug reports

#20

Post by shii »

jerrya wrote: post #3

Richard Mlynarik is a hacker with a deservedly excellent reputation. And sometimes he has a sharp tongue which in context can be both enjoyable and terrifying. But here's the important part for entrepreneurs: what percentage of users of mozilla products or any product bother to submit bug reports? What Richard is doing here is investing his time into making Mozilla better. I am always amazed at the projects and compa…

Richard Mlynarik is one of the developers for XEmacs and has contributed to coreutils in GNU. open up your terminal and type in man whoami.
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