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Mozilla now banning people for grumpy bug reports

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Re: Mozilla now banning people for grumpy bug reports

#91

Post by grandinj »

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…

No, if he was really "investing his time", he'd be producing good, well-written bug reports, and, since he's such an awesome hacker, writing patches.

Instead, he vents his frustrations on bugzilla and generally acts like an ass.

Re: Mozilla now banning people for grumpy bug reports

#92

Post by thedeuce »

Wow....what a bunch of weenies we are on the internets today. Just ignore the parts you don't like and take whats valuable... Sure some people say "why should such bullying be accepted", well you just have to ignore it to not accept it! It's called free speech, and he expresses himself in a certain manner, get over it. A truly open community wouldn't act like this and would come to a better resolution IMO. Hell maybe mozilla should give the guy a call and try to talk things over? Anyway, this is about my fill for drama llama for today :P

Re: Mozilla now banning people for grumpy bug reports

#93

Post by mjstumpf »

thaumaturgy wrote: post #79
asadotzler wrote: post #21

It's my opinion that when you call a Thunderbird developer "some simian" and when you tell them to "Die die die die" and "Seriously, screw you" and you say things like "You know, every time I see a comment from [a specific Thunderbird developer] I just want to reach out through the intertubes and cut off his damned fingers to prevent him ever writing any code..." and when you're warned in a very civil tone with a cle…

OK, so I read this bug report. I think it says a lot that the focus from you (and, it looks like, the representative rest of Mozilla) is on the perceived "bullying" (it's not bullying) and the "incivility" (give me a break), and not on the actual problem being reported by the user. You want us to consider context when talking about his most recent bug report being banned? OK, then we should also consider context when…

Most other people here are discussing the degree to which he was/was not a bully. You've actually hit the nail on the head: this bug submitter is _absolutely right_ (old bug and new bug). Why not also remap ctrl-c to paste and ctrl-v to delete line?

I'm not sure if it is a sense of humor thing, but I don't get anger from his bugs at all. A bit of frustration, and colorful language. But that's not rage.

He's profoundly wasting his time by bothering to talk to Mozilla developers. I learned long ago that they are extremely cliquish, and don't care what you think. They will do whatever they feel like doing, whether or not it makes sense. Personally I quit using thunderbird when they pushed an updated, it broke the client, and their reply on the forum was more or less "too bad, sucker".

Re: Mozilla now banning people for grumpy bug reports

#95

Post by jasonlotito »

gojomo wrote: post #76
jasonlotito wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quip's like that don't help matters. I prefer peace to war, but it's meaningless. How do you propose rehabilitating someone who has demonstrated no desire to be rehabilitated within this context ? Also, is it really the job of the developers to fix the bugs in a user rather than focus on the bugs in the product the user is using?

The worst thus-far-linked example of Mlynarik's Bugzilla comments is from July 2010, after which one or more warnings were made. The June 2011 example that got him banned shows him as sarcastic and excessively dramatic, but he refrains from personal insults. So the idea that he is rehabilitating, after warnings, is one interpretation of the linked reports. Asa Dotzler has mentioned other quotes, but without dates/lin…

I understand what you are saying, and it sounds reasonable, but I disagree. Your basically suggesting that in every case of a banning, they need to publicly shine the light on every infraction. They also need to spell out an exhaustive list of "strikes," and beware if they forget to include CAPS-YELLING in the list.

No. This is an adult we are referring to here. We can reasonably expect that he knew exactly what he was doing, and was merely pushing the line as far as he could go, and just happened to cross it. This wasn't the first time; he was a repeated offender. This wasn't the start of the problem. It was the final straw (which, in my experience, is usually a minor straw when compared to the haystack beneath it).

Edit: Thank you for responding with a more clear comment than you original, btw. =)

Re: Mozilla now banning people for grumpy bug reports

#96

Post by kahawe »

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…

So because allegedly he is some "rock star", he should be allowed to violate their etiquette repeatedly?

Re: Mozilla now banning people for grumpy bug reports

#97

Post by jabkobob »

asadotzler wrote: post #21

It's my opinion that when you call a Thunderbird developer "some simian" and when you tell them to "Die die die die" and "Seriously, screw you" and you say things like "You know, every time I see a comment from [a specific Thunderbird developer] I just want to reach out through the intertubes and cut off his damned fingers to prevent him ever writing any code..." and when you're warned in a very civil tone with a cle…

In defense of the bully, at least he is completely clear about his feelings, and it is obvious that he is just insulting.

I know from experience that is is extremly frustrating and deeply insulting when a developer marks a valid bug report as "NOTABUG" or "WONTFIX", no matter how friendly he is while doing so. When somebody closes a bug report without taking any action whatsoever, without even acknowledging the problem, this feels to me just as if he said: "Shut the fuck up, we developers have better things to do than care about stupid users." It doesn't matter if the developer uses polite wording, I'm still insulted.

Re: Mozilla now banning people for grumpy bug reports

#98

Post by evilduck »

arihant wrote: post #67
asadotzler wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If your critic is a bully and he comes into your workplace saying he'd like to physically maim you so you can't work any more and calls you names and think it's OK because he was, (in his own words, while he's verbally abusing you) "the second person after Stallman to ever write any GNU code" then I think you'd call him a bully, treat his attempts at participation as toxic, and kick him out of your workplace. You mig…

Sure I will. But if he writes me a letter letting me know that I suck and that I should rather die than writing buggy code making millions of lives miserable everyday, I'd be fine. He didn't throw stones at Mozilla labs, he filed and commented on a bug report. Its just text, not a man in their office. Virtual != Real. Its a mind over matter issue. And as Twain would agree..if you don't mind, it doesn't matter.

If a frustrated user repeatedly sent me threats of physical violence packaged in a complaint letter, I'd turn it over to the police in a heartbeat. That's absolutely not a helpfully frustrated user, that's a real threat. This behavior is not just socially unacceptable, it's so unacceptable that there are longstanding legal structures in place that make it illegal. There are no distinctions between virtual and physical here, it's a real person communicating a threat to another real person using a digital medium instead of a physical one. Filming yourself committing a crime in digital format vs. physical tape/film is basically the same idea. "It's just bits" doesn't hold water or we'd not have most of the internet child porn laws, or most of the copyright and patent law cases going on, none of the internet censorship laws, Wikileaks wouldn't feel threatened, etc.

People are routinely arrested and convicted for basically the same type of behavior directed at public officials spawned from aggravations and frustrations of similar sources..."bugs" in laws, perceived unfairness, disagreements on important decisions, racism, xenophobia, etc, etc, etc (I suspect enforcement is greater in this situation because public officials tend to know the law and exercise their rights against this behavior more often).

Re: Mozilla now banning people for grumpy bug reports

#99

Post by lawnchair_larry »

mike-cardwell wrote: post #57
shii wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because sometimes actually helpful bug reports come packaged with snarky people. I see little problem with that. There's guys like zedshaw who always flame and get flamed, yet still provide lots of value. Plus it livens things up a bit. Nothing wrong with a little sarcastic banter here and there. Some people have their panties in a tight knot sometimes over some silly things. Not everything has to be so srs bznss all…

If you let people treat you this way because they also happen to provide some value, then you're enabling them and encouraging the behaviour. People who behave in this manner should be ostracised.

Be careful about who you may have just ostracized. To play devil's advocate, do you have any idea where we would be without Linus Torvalds, Theo De Raadt, and Ulrich Drepper?

They are somewhat known for their public moments sounding just like this guy.

Personalities are complex. We can't just cherry pick the attributes of a person and separate those from those which we perceive to deviate from the ideal.

Whether this particular guy is a net gain for the community isn't for me to decide (though I do love emacs, and use a lot of core GNU software), but if colorful language is the price I have to pay for their contributions to society, that value proposition is still a no brainer.

Anecdote: many of the brilliant developers I've worked near (the major outliers, 100x productivity types) have some kind of quirk. This could be that they snap sometimes, or that they don't shower, or that they neglect their paperwork. Give them some feedback, grow a thick skin, but don't ostracize them.

Re: Mozilla now banning people for grumpy bug reports

#100

Post by kstenerud »

I see this as the open source equivalent of firing your customer.

Just as there exists a certain kind of customer who increases the difficulty in running a business, so too there exists a certain kind of user who increases the difficulty in running an open source project. The project as a whole will be much healthier in the long run with the small percentage of users who generate the largest amount of grief removed from the equation.

Richard is deliberately making things difficult for Firefox. It doesn't matter that he's "taking the time to highlight a bug". It doesn't matter what his street cred is. He's behaving like a spoiled child throwing a tantrum. If he started stomping his feet and screaming at someone in my house for serving the potatoes too soft, I'd throw him out.

For reference (firing your customer): http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2006/04/the_customer...

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