The only thing worse than not having any users for your open source project...
Toxicity in Open Source Discussions
21–30 of 61 posts
Re: Toxicity in Open Source Discussions
#22One thing I learned from playing video games is that online, you can just ignore and block anyone. Seriously, everything is detached. What's the difference between a stranger on the internet yelling at you versus a crazy homeless man in San Francisco yelling at you? Absolutely none, their thoughts affect in you in 0 ways, feel free to ignore and carry on with your day. Edit, because a lot of replies are getting off-t…
Just ignoring someone, IRL or online can have its consequences. The homeless guy can attack you physically. The online troll can try to cancel you digitally.
If the last few years have taught us anything, it is that no one is safe from abusive behavior by people who feel entitled to something you have (money, time, etc.) and seem to have nothing better to do than go after you for the slightest thing.
Online they can badmouth you and your project to everyone they contact. They can leave nasty comments on your blog or in open forums like HN. They can give your product bad reviews. They can issue takedown notices to social media sites.
Re: Toxicity in Open Source Discussions
#23Leaning on a code of conduct to fix a cultural problem seems like a losing battle. In the sense that it establishes a framework for moderation, a CoC has some value, although if I'm being honest I think the CoC concept is more about signalling than anything else. But this article already hits on the core problem:
We're living in a culture where a large amount of people think that it's OK to be rude to service workers because it's their job. People who don't return the shopping cart because there's no incentive.
I think that engaging a beurocratic process every time you get a toxic comment will in fact not make your job as a maintainer less stressful. I also suspect that it won't reduce the volume of abuse anymore than just blocking/muting abusive folks. If anything, for most first time offenders, they're probably just tilted and telling them to stop is the most productive thing to do. But abusive asshats don't care about your rulebook very much other than to use it against you, so I really think it's not as valuable as it's being made out to be.
I don't know if we can improve the cultural problem. It really did feel, at least from what I can recall, that "netiquette" was stronger at some point. Exactly what was "toxic" was tuned very differently, but that's not the point. The point is that there were SOME baseline tenets that most people expected out of eachother in a lot of situations. These days, it feels like everyone has completely different standards and really long, complex justifications for their standards on what conduct is OK and when. I dunno if that's good or not. All I know is, "don't be an asshole" is deprecated, but its replacement doesn't appear to be ready yet, whatever it is.
So what do we do? Frankly, my recommendation is to detach harder. I know the "just grow a thick skin" bit has gotten stale, but that's not really the point. The point is to try to not be vulnerable. Detach. Block and mute as you need if politely asking people to stop acting like an ass doesn't work. Try not to take it personally; recognize that most people don't actually mean what they're saying. Etc, etc. Changing the world is hard and slow. Changing your own behavior is also hard, but at least you have more personal control over it.
I feel bad for open source maintainers getting burnt out over this. It's a shame. But, it'd be impossible to have all of the amazing upsides of the internet and open source without some coinciding downsides. You have to be realistic to some degree.
Re: Toxicity in Open Source Discussions
#24One thing I learned from playing video games is that online, you can just ignore and block anyone. Seriously, everything is detached. What's the difference between a stranger on the internet yelling at you versus a crazy homeless man in San Francisco yelling at you? Absolutely none, their thoughts affect in you in 0 ways, feel free to ignore and carry on with your day. Edit, because a lot of replies are getting off-t…
Well, back in my day we didn't have the ability to "block anyone", we just smiled knowing we were the man.
Re: Toxicity in Open Source Discussions
#25One thing I learned from playing video games is that online, you can just ignore and block anyone. Seriously, everything is detached. What's the difference between a stranger on the internet yelling at you versus a crazy homeless man in San Francisco yelling at you? Absolutely none, their thoughts affect in you in 0 ways, feel free to ignore and carry on with your day. Edit, because a lot of replies are getting off-t…
It is interesting to see the differences in how people handle negativity online. Some people have no problem ignoring negativity and moving on. Others get satisfaction in hitting the block button. Others can't let it go and will eventually let negativity consume them and burn them out. Learning how to shrug it off is imperative for anyone who wants to post something online. If you can't ignore negative comments and m…
> If you can't ignore negative comments and move on without getting worked up
Expecting everyone to have your opinion is literally entitlement.
Perhaps consider empathizing and addressing the complexities root cause rather than just shrugging it off as, "boys will be boys."
Re: Toxicity in Open Source Discussions
#26I had a couple of popular repos. Eventually I just started charging for issues. No payment? Issue closed. Stress went way down. If I see an issue I want to fix, I will fix it, for free or otherwise. But the default is "pay me", which helps set expectations. The code is still available and free, support is not free.
I agree this sounds like a reasonable solution, though I can imagine projects with this policy may hear about fewer security issues.
Re: Toxicity in Open Source Discussions
#27One thing I learned from playing video games is that online, you can just ignore and block anyone. Seriously, everything is detached. What's the difference between a stranger on the internet yelling at you versus a crazy homeless man in San Francisco yelling at you? Absolutely none, their thoughts affect in you in 0 ways, feel free to ignore and carry on with your day. Edit, because a lot of replies are getting off-t…
Just ignoring someone, IRL or online can have its consequences. The homeless guy can attack you physically. The online troll can try to cancel you digitally. If the last few years have taught us anything, it is that no one is safe from abusive behavior by people who feel entitled to something you have (money, time, etc.) and seem to have nothing better to do than go after you for the slightest thing. Online they can…
Never interact online with your real name. The internet is not a real place. Block the people who are annoying and get on with doing what you enjoy. They can try to cancel your online name all they want. It doesn't matter.
Re: Toxicity in Open Source Discussions
#28I stopped contributing to Open Source in any meaningful way in 2004 due to the incredible amount of non-stop entitlement and toxicity. I am working on a project with a few other folks and the subject of “to open source or not” has come up a few times, and in principle I think we should open source, but in practice I can do without the meaningless drama in my life.
You can always go the SQLite way and refuse to accept patches: https://www.sqlite.org/copyright.html . Or go further and refuse to accept feature requests, or even turn down bug reports!
The SQLite guy is a master class in ignoring the idiots complaining online. I particularly like this page https://sqlite.org/codeofethics.html
Re: Toxicity in Open Source Discussions
#29One thing I learned from playing video games is that online, you can just ignore and block anyone. Seriously, everything is detached. What's the difference between a stranger on the internet yelling at you versus a crazy homeless man in San Francisco yelling at you? Absolutely none, their thoughts affect in you in 0 ways, feel free to ignore and carry on with your day. Edit, because a lot of replies are getting off-t…
Just ignoring someone, IRL or online can have its consequences. The homeless guy can attack you physically. The online troll can try to cancel you digitally. If the last few years have taught us anything, it is that no one is safe from abusive behavior by people who feel entitled to something you have (money, time, etc.) and seem to have nothing better to do than go after you for the slightest thing. Online they can…
It is fairly straightforward to outlaw this kind of thing.
Extend the same laws that we have about commercial speech to the public, to any speech that is to the public. Not speech that is in public, speech that is to the public at large. Must be warrantied, with due diligence.
You know how people talk in the court, so they don't accidentally lie (and get the punishments that that would entail)? Imagine if politicians (or anyone) had to abide by that when they speak to the public. I have a feeling their bombastic claims (and lies) used to incite and defraud people would be greatly tempered and have more qualifying statements. Fraud, libel, and slander laws restored.
Re: Toxicity in Open Source Discussions
#30I made something I know for a fact a lot of people under 20 use, and the entitlement in the community is really something else when compared to other projects. In this particular project it helps to remind yourself that people are most likely under 20 as you don't let children and teenagers get to your head the same way an adult would.
The internet is a weird place where you'd think everyone is probably around your own age.
Personally I've just learned to ignore negative feelings in bug reports and general entitlement over wanting features.
A pattern I picked up from all of this and even caught myself thinking a few times is if more than 2 or 3 things are not working as it should you'd think everything is broken. You end up with a bug report that is 95% negative emotions about you and your project and the remaining 5% describe what the actual 2 bugs are.
It usually happens when you decide to rewrite something for a better future. You're told to roll it all back rather than fixing what's wrong.
I think it helps to find people in the community that act more like adults and involve them in the project more. They will often help you in return to manage entitlement from other people.