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Dear Open Source Project Leader: Quit Being A Jerk

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Re: Dear Open Source Project Leader: Quit Being A Jerk

#71

Post by mnicole »

Karunamon wrote: post #13
mion wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He's not talking about lowering the bar to entry, he's just saying you don't need to humiliate others when they are just trying to help you. You could at least dismiss them in a friendly/neutral way. "Sorry, can't accept this: check out procedure X in the docs."

Hence the "sympathize" part, but then again, I also sympathize with people who are human and eventually want to start inflicting bodily harm on people who can't be arsed to read the FAQ before A'ing the same Q again. Part of the "bar to entry" is that mindset. You don't get a pat on the back and warm encouragement for submitting crap code. You get told your code is crap with the expectation you'll improve before wast…

Sounds more like you love the environment because you feel good shooting people down rather than what's best for the project (and open-source) long-term. This attitude is why more people don't contribute to - and become better at - the process.

Re: Dear Open Source Project Leader: Quit Being A Jerk

#72

Post by munificent »

cloverich wrote: post #20
tinco wrote: post #9

I've never seen an opensource leader make fun of an honest attempt at contribution. What I have seen is a lot of ignoring and rejecting attempts. Miguel de Icaza had a blog post on this I think. The problem with large opensource projects is that they have a lot to do, and simply don't have time to thoroughly follow up on all the small contributions that are ridden with naieve errors and plain formatting issues. Not t…

> Yes it can hurt if your contribution is coldly cast aside, and yes it would be much better if they warmly took you in and taught you in their ways, but if the OSS project leaders don't keep up the constant stream of contributions, improving the project all the time the project will die and all work will have been in vain. Perhaps I'm being naive, but doesn't fostering relationships with contributors promote more co…

It's an investment. The first few patches from a new person will likely require so much hand-holding from the maintainers that it would have taken them less time to just write the patches themselves.

As that new contributor learns the ropes, though, that cost goes does. Eventually they hit break-even where they are adding more value to the project than they cost. But that requires the person to stick around long enough to get there. There's a pretty high chance any new contributor will lose interest and go do something else.

So whenever a maintainer gets a new patch from a new person, it's always an open question as to whether taking it in will ultimately be a win for the project. Unless you can predict the future, you can't tell if that investment will get amortize out and yield something useful.

Re: Dear Open Source Project Leader: Quit Being A Jerk

#73

Post by slurgfest »

kyberias wrote: post #62
joering2 wrote: post #55

My favorite comments I will never forget from my ex-CTO: "you are wrong about this, because I say you are wrong." [turned out: he was dead wrong!] "stay home if you want to answer phonecall from your dad." [knowing he is in the hospital] "today you have been all day on the phone." [after talking with dad for 3 min 35 sec] "stop pinging google to check if the net is working." "ping doesn't tell you anything." "I hate…

Wow! This was really off-topic. Like miles off... miles...

However, it seems the jerk problem is not limited to open source.

Re: Dear Open Source Project Leader: Quit Being A Jerk

#74

Post by Symmetry »

steele wrote: post #23
debacle wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not how the real world works.

What about my reply is contrary to "how the real world works"? I'm fairly confident that if this article had a link to tangible occurrences two things will occur in "the real world": 1) readers will react to those particular incidents 2) the author of the article will be called a hypocrite

The point is, moral authority doesn't help at all in changing the behavior of people who aren't on your side already. It's very important with leadership and group cohesion, so not opening yourself up to calls of being a hypocrite is something the leader of an open source project should consider when dealing with jerks in their project. But it isn't particularly useful in effecting change from the outside.

Re: Dear Open Source Project Leader: Quit Being A Jerk

#75

Post by Symmetry »

I expect a major driver of this is that people always tend to underestimate how much tacit knowledge they're using and so to assume that people who disagree with them are fundamentally stupid, malicious, or crazy when they're really just coming from a different background.

http://lesswrong.com/lw/kg/expecting_short_inferential_dista...

Re: Dear Open Source Project Leader: Quit Being A Jerk

#76

Post by slurgfest »

freditup wrote: post #63
carlisle_ wrote: post #25

I have to wonder how many people see Linus Torvald's behavior and think what he does is OK. Linus walks a VERY fine line, and his insults and demeaning comments are usually directed at people who "know better." I have had a few drinks so it's hard to properly articulate what I mean, but maybe somebody else knows what I'm talking about.

I have Harley Hahn's Unix book (2009 edition I think). In it, he describes some of the reasons Linux grew so quickly. One of them is that "Linus has a pleasing personality... in person or online, Linus pretty much gets along with everyone because he is so easygoing. As he once observed in an interview, 'Unlike Richard Stallman, I really don't have a message.'" This part struck me - as a college student who hasn't bee…

Alternatively, perhaps nothing changed, and the public propaganda about Linus is generated mostly by people who don't interact with him, and flaming about high-level things like driver support is only tangentially related to what it is like to interact with Linus.

Re: Dear Open Source Project Leader: Quit Being A Jerk

#77

Post by breck »

Symmetry wrote: post #75

I expect a major driver of this is that people always tend to underestimate how much tacit knowledge they're using and so to assume that people who disagree with them are fundamentally stupid, malicious, or crazy when they're really just coming from a different background. http://lesswrong.com/lw/kg/expecting_short_inferential_dista...

> people always tend to underestimate how much tacit knowledge they're using

I like how you put that.

Any thoughts on the best way to respond when someone asks you for something that requires hundreds or thousands of hours of tacit knowledge?

Re: Dear Open Source Project Leader: Quit Being A Jerk

#78

Post by tubbo »

kyberias wrote: post #62
joering2 wrote: post #55

My favorite comments I will never forget from my ex-CTO: "you are wrong about this, because I say you are wrong." [turned out: he was dead wrong!] "stay home if you want to answer phonecall from your dad." [knowing he is in the hospital] "today you have been all day on the phone." [after talking with dad for 3 min 35 sec] "stop pinging google to check if the net is working." "ping doesn't tell you anything." "I hate…

Wow! This was really off-topic. Like miles off... miles...

Still a good read though. :)

Re: Dear Open Source Project Leader: Quit Being A Jerk

#79

Post by ynniv »

slurgfest wrote: post #69
ynniv wrote: post #57

I played pull request with a framework recently. There was something that I wanted to do that could only be done if the framework had fully chained a JavaScript function (ie, forwarded all parameters, included "this", and returned the result). It was an easy fix, but it turned out that what appeared to be an omission was intentional due to very specific edge cases in JavaScript that prevented someone from doing somet…

How would you avoid this? If a change is made quickly due to because that other lone guy filed his bug report first, then the solution would have been to, well, ignore his report. However, a project which did that might well ignore your report too.

These are the decisions that build (or do not build) community. The best decision is to look at what is best for the most people, consider as a maintainer where you want the framework to go, and make a careful decision. A cursory glance over someone's suggestion and a dismissal that is ignorant of how the community is working with the project or based on organizational minutia (formatting, variable names, unit tests, etc) erodes other people's interest in making your project a success.

Re: Dear Open Source Project Leader: Quit Being A Jerk

#80

Post by mganon »

jasonkester wrote: post #53

This isn't restricted to open source project leaders, or even open source developers. You'll find the same childish elitism in pretty much every field of human endeavor. Programmers certainly do it. Laughing at noobs and being mean to them is pretty much the sole purpose of IRC, unless I'm mistaken. Surfers do it. Climbers do it. I've even seen rocket scientists do it. The interesting thing is watching which members…

> Laughing at noobs and being mean to them is pretty much the sole purpose of IRC, unless I'm mistaken.

hm, what?

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