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Betterbird: a fine-tuned version of Mozilla Thunderbird

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Re: Betterbird: a fine-tuned version of Mozilla Thunderbird

#191

Post by buscoquadnary »

ensignavenger wrote: post #187
FeepingCreature wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's more the idea of an organization claiming they have the authority to forbid you from tweeting at members . It's like they're trying to split the world into two halves, organization members and outsiders, draw a fence around the organization membership and assume control over who is allowed to cross that fence and how. To be clear: I don't think any organization should ever have that sort of power. If it was just…

"No talking about people" is a bit too much in some cases though. For example, depending on how it is applied, it might forbid introducing new contributors or project leaders, because such posts are about 'people' and not code. Or, perhaps worse, if a major contributor fall on illness or other hard time, it would forbid the community from using official channels to rally to their support, because they can't talk abou…

Why should the community use official channels to rally for support? I am involved in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu there was recently an incident that happened where a notable BJJ figure was shot by another BJJ practitioner after an altercation in a bar. Several people felt that the gym of the shooter should provide a statement. I asked them why? What does it do to have an organization "make a statement".

I feel the same way in this instance, why should a FOSS project in an official capacity rally around maintainers, why can't the people who are part of the project do it individually? In fact the more I think about it the more I like this idea, if an organization can be used to help an individual (or to hurt an individual which is the necessary corollary to that) there will be those that seek to use the organization for personal ends, whereas if the organization is solely focused on it's mission and only that, there will be fewer people seeking to weaponize the organization for their own ends, and the organization will be better of.

For example if Mozilla focused on their freaking web browser I would be happy to donate to them but those at the helm felt that Mozilla need to go outside of their mission to support other causes that I may not be in alignment with, and so I don't donate.

This constant need for everyone to foist responsibility onto organizations needs to end, organizations exist for the purpose the organization exists for, if you want an organization that makes the world a better place in a specific way you think it should be better go and start a non-profit to do it, stop trying to co-opt other avenues to do so. At the end of the day if someone feels that organization X should do something about Y, all they are doing is trying to shirk their personal responsibility while still feeling morally superior.

Re: Betterbird: a fine-tuned version of Mozilla Thunderbird

#192

Post by rekabis »

CJefferson wrote: post #132
FeepingCreature wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems deeply unreasonable, infantilizing and arrogant to me. Different preferences, maybe. It's the sort of thing I'd expect from a religion. > I've seen plenty of harassment which in principle insults code. It easy to say things like "Part X of the code base is a piece of * and should be deleted", or "Recent PR 1234 is awful" -- no-one's name is mentioned, but everyone knows who is in charge of X, or who wrote PR…

To me, there is a huge difference between "negative feedback" -- I don't think any project is saying you can't reply something like "This PR should not be merged, because there are significant problems. For example, line Q causes a memory leak, and lines A-B are so complicated I can't figure out if there is a buffer overflow or not". If you have examples where this kind of factual complaints are causing people to get…

Hostile feedback is a great way to push anyone away. I tried to submit a big report to DD-WRT involving a somewhat important feature completely failing to function. I gave them all the details required to fully reproduce the bug on their end, which has been the standard for bug reports at every single company I have ever worked for.

They threw it back in my face, demanding that I find the actual place in the code where the bug was happening, and that it wasn’t a proper “bug report” without that information. Sorry, but I just don’t have time for that level of arrogance. I provided exactly what the software industry demands for a bug report (workflow + reproducibility), it’s the support team’s job to use that spoon-fed info to dig into the code itself.

I mean, it’s different if I was making or requesting a specific code change, but I wasn’t. While I am a programmer myself, I wasn’t going to swan-dive into a completely unfamiliar codebase written in an unfamiliar language and built using unfamiliar tooling and spend weeks (if not months) of my own time learning it, just to reach a conclusion that they could probably reach in an hour or three with their own experience and familiarity with the product.

Re: Betterbird: a fine-tuned version of Mozilla Thunderbird

#193

Post by buscoquadnary »

alexiaa wrote: post #168
FeepingCreature wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am fine with any judgment Mozilla make on infrastructure that they run and that belongs directly to the project, such as mailing lists, official chatrooms, etc. It's the addition of "unofficial" social platforms that irks me; it seems totalitarizing. Interaction of contributors outside the project ecosystem is none of their business. I prefer for society to be sliced "horizontally", rather than "vertically". I am n…

It very much depends on the situation. Sure, some harmless things you do outside work shouldn't have any effect on your work. But if we're talking about someone literally not believing that certain people (e.g. LGBT) should exist or have rights then I very much believe they can and should be shunned from everywhere regardless of whether they bring that bigotry to work or not. People have a right to not want to intera…

Let's be clear here, he merely believes that marriage should be between a man and a woman. Not that he advocates for a gay pogrom, or that they should be deprived of due process or anything.

This type of hyperbole is just as bad as calling him a Nazi.

Re: Betterbird: a fine-tuned version of Mozilla Thunderbird

#194

Post by tomrod »

867-5309 wrote: post #181
tomrod wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "go home and stop being a Thunderbird member" That's what being banned by an organization is. If it feels similar to a cult, it's because cults are organizations too (I say this as a former cult member from birth who was shunned for leaving). Regardless of the merits of the organization, there aren't other effective ways to guide acceptable behavior by its acolytes -- even criminal punishment by governments (organi…

>former cult member attention acquired. please proceed

LOL! Apologies, my intent is not to threadjack, just to show a different perspective. Another time, over beers perhaps.

Re: Betterbird: a fine-tuned version of Mozilla Thunderbird

#195

Post by im3w1l »

beAbU wrote: post #24

It's usually not a good idea to position your product's entire value prop as "better than x" What happens when X actually improves? Then the whole reason for your existence evapourates.

I agree, but for a different reason. Go to some random person and say this is Thunderbird but better and I'm pretty sure the response you'll get is thunder-what?. Thunderbird's marketshare seems to be below 0.1%.

Re: Betterbird: a fine-tuned version of Mozilla Thunderbird

#197

Post by FeepingCreature »

rekabis wrote: post #192
CJefferson wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To me, there is a huge difference between "negative feedback" -- I don't think any project is saying you can't reply something like "This PR should not be merged, because there are significant problems. For example, line Q causes a memory leak, and lines A-B are so complicated I can't figure out if there is a buffer overflow or not". If you have examples where this kind of factual complaints are causing people to get…

Hostile feedback is a great way to push anyone away. I tried to submit a big report to DD-WRT involving a somewhat important feature completely failing to function. I gave them all the details required to fully reproduce the bug on their end, which has been the standard for bug reports at every single company I have ever worked for. They threw it back in my face, demanding that I find the actual place in the code whe…

I didn't really mean to push it that far, but it's actually really fun trying to formulate this without even using "you" or "I" or "they". All I can come up with is "This is not a proper bug report without a line number." - "Actually, it is." Which really says it all. :)

Re: Betterbird: a fine-tuned version of Mozilla Thunderbird

#198

Post by FeepingCreature »

jasonlotito wrote: post #188
FeepingCreature wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's more the idea of an organization claiming they have the authority to forbid you from tweeting at members . It's like they're trying to split the world into two halves, organization members and outsiders, draw a fence around the organization membership and assume control over who is allowed to cross that fence and how. To be clear: I don't think any organization should ever have that sort of power. If it was just…

> It's more the idea of an organization claiming they have the authority to forbid you from tweeting at members. Unless the members agreed to give them that authority. Let me ask you this: are you a member of that community, or merely an outsider imposing your opinions on others that did not consent? If the former, that's fine. If not, why do you feel it's fair to do to others what you think is wrong for them to do?

Well, it doesn't say anything of the sort in the CPG, that I can see: https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/about/governance/policies/part...

If this is truly happening with informed consent, I'll say that it's morally acceptable to me - but still creepy, to a similar degree as, say, Scientology. In that case my question becomes, "what possessed you to give them that sort of power?"

Re: Betterbird: a fine-tuned version of Mozilla Thunderbird

#199

Post by runlevel1 »

FeepingCreature wrote: post #79
Tepix wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Linux is doing well. We don't know how what would have happened if Linus hadn't frozen out several kernel contributors before working on himself. I've seen the effect of a brilliant jerk first hand. People leave. I'm sure it's often a net negative. Btw, calling this discussion a "lie" comes across as overly aggressive.

I'm not sure it's that simple. Consider a situation where only one of two people A and B can stay; but if A causes B to leave it's obvious (because A is rude), and if B causes A to leave it's non-obvious (because B writes bad code and lowered the project standard enough to torpedo A's enthusiasm). In that situation, if iterated, it would look like 1. jerks clearly cause people to leave, but 2. projects get worse over…

That would be a failure in leadership. Two people conflicting doesn't necessarily mean either are toxic. If a legitimate complaint falls on deaf ears, even people who aren't toxic can become rude in their frustration.

It could be a legitimate problem with the underperforming person (that may or may not be fixable), an overreaction to a perceived problem, an interpersonal conflict between two people, a toxic employee, or some combination of the the above.

If you have a toxic person and an underperformer dragging the team morale down, you have two problems that need to be fixed.

A good leader will dig deeper to try to understand what's really going on and act accordingly. In the scenario you've described, digging deeper would mean having the person making the claim present concrete examples and soliciting outside opinions if folks on the team are unwilling to give theirs.

In my experience, things usually fall apart due to a failure to act rather than acting on false positives.

Re: Betterbird: a fine-tuned version of Mozilla Thunderbird

#200

Post by FeepingCreature »

esperent wrote: post #157
FeepingCreature wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sorry to hear that. I fully believe in people's right to cut off contact, even across platforms. It's more that in this case this power seems to have been centralized by the project, whereas I believe it should rest only with the individual - cutting off contact for another member, using community participation as a threat to enforce it, is what raises my hackles.

> whereas I believe it should rest only with the individual You are free to believe that. Just as an organization is free to believe differently, and to set their rules accordingly.

Sure, and I'm free to complain about them on HNews. :)

Anyone may believe what they want; that's not a shield from criticism.

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