Dear Open Source Project Leader: Quit Being A Jerk • Hacker News Board

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

#81

Post by Symmetry » Fri, Dec 14, 2012, 6:32 PM UTC

breck wrote: post #77

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?

"This is something I learned through thousands of hours of working in this area"? I'd hope that being able to point to concrete achievements would help people to make peace with gaps like this, something that isn't necessarily available to a scientist trying to explain evolution to laymen - since the laymen might not even be able to get what the scientist has accomplished. Most achievements in programming seem easier from the outside so this isn't perfect, but it might be a good starting point.

The thing is that you should just always be sensitive to the possibility of large inferential distances when you're interacting with people of different opinions. "Don't ascribe to malice what may be due to stupidity. Don't presume stupidity when ignorance is as good an explanation. And try not to be too sure your opponent is the ignorant one until you can prove otherwise." That's very much in descending order of importance, but it's always good to keep the third point in mind if you can.

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

#82

Post by pnathan » Fri, Dec 14, 2012, 6:34 PM UTC

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.

You are. In the IRC channels I frequent, the purpose is one of (1) being social, or (2) being helpful. Some channels tolerate wilful ignorance/trolls less than others though.

Of course, there might be other channels with nastier cultures, but the sole purpose of IRC is not to be nasty to noobs.

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

#83

Post by akkartik » Fri, Dec 14, 2012, 6:34 PM UTC

shrikant wrote: post #44

potatolicious wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When the goal is to change behavior as a whole it helps to not point anyone out. If you linked to a Github pull request that demonstrates this behavior, that guy now becomes the eye of the storm, instead of the community where the focus should be. If the author did that, we'd all be talking about how githubuserxyz is such an ass for belittling contributors and how dissimilar we each individually are from githubuserxy…

> When the goal is to change behavior as a whole it helps to not point anyone out. For some reason, this reminded me of The Racist Tree. http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lzx6xxNlXV1qi049to1_1280.j...

Poignant. But I think it applies less here. For every guy who isn't out there berating the noobs there's multiple noobs engaging with the community. I'm happy to shut them up at that price.

Who was it that said, "I will tolerate anything but intolerance"?

I feel strongly about this because I was traumatized by interacting with Ullrich Drepper at an impressionable age :)

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

#84

Post by kevinh » Fri, Dec 14, 2012, 6:34 PM UTC

debacle wrote: post #11

steele wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anonymous examples would help make the point, but outright pointers to the behavior described is not a not too distant cousin of "hah check out this jerk"

When in society did "Look at what this jerk is doing." become something unwarranted? If people are acting like assholes, they deserved to be called out.

When Internet witch hunts started ruining the lives of people because they made one bad decision.

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

#85

Post by Spooky23 » Fri, Dec 14, 2012, 6:34 PM UTC

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…

I think that everyone who has ambition hits this at some point. There comes a point in time where your domain knowledge lets you speak or act authoritatively with little or no preparation for most things.

The natural tendency at this point is to think "Yup, I'm a just a smart mofo" and pat yourself on the back. The key to moving up the chain of expertise/etc is to transcend that tendency. Humility is a skill, because you need to be willing to leave your comfort zone and listen to people.

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

#86

Post by keithpeter » Fri, Dec 14, 2012, 6:38 PM UTC

codex_irl wrote: post #68

I've called out more than one "leader / boss" out in meetings / code-reviews for being excessively mean & shaming noobs who are genuinely trying their best & are hungry to learn. Constructive criticism is a great thing, but telling someone they will never work again in this industry because they make a small CSS error on their first ever post-college project is another. I've been fired from one job for standing up in…

"I've been fired from one job for standing up in a meeting and calling the boss a self-important asshole & refusing to retract it."

Well, yes, that would cause some difficulties and a slightly chilled air around the coffee machine where I work as well.

There are ways of communicating the sentiment without making it easy for them to get rid of you...

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

#87

Post by gav » Fri, Dec 14, 2012, 6:41 PM UTC

ajross wrote: post #38

gav wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm of the opinion that the best thing for large projects is new blood. If large OSS projects rotated people through triage and new contributor on-boarding, e.g. how to make a patch, how to get it approved, and so on, then in the long-run the number of contributors will grow.

But how do you do that without occasionally handing over the maintainership of some important piece of infrastructure to someone who clearly can't handle it? The people at the top of the ladder right now are there because (and sure, there are exceptions) they are (1) very good at it, and (2) willing to do it. And they have employers who have made bets on those two facts. Those employers aren't really interested in so…

I'm making two assumptions here: firstly that there is a hierarchy of contributors, where triage doesn't have to be handled by the guys right at the top; and secondly that the first few submissions by a new person aren't major--they are going to attempt something small first. If the latter isn't the case, the response should be "sorry, we appreciate your help, but try to get some minor bug fixes in before a major architectural change".

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

#88

Post by codewright » Fri, Dec 14, 2012, 6:51 PM UTC

pnathan wrote: post #82

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. You are. In the IRC channels I frequent, the purpose is one of (1) being social, or (2) being helpful. Some channels tolerate wilful ignorance/trolls less than others though. Of course, there might be other channels with nastier cultures, but the sole purpose of IRC is not to be nasty to noobs.

Some IRC channels I'm in are great. (Hi Clojure! Hi Haskell! You guys are really nice!)

Some are like ##C which is a hive of scum and villainy.

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

#89

Post by marcamillion » Fri, Dec 14, 2012, 7:07 PM UTC

I thought this was exclusive to the Rails community - but it is good to see it's not.

I am glad someone is speaking out against it, because it sucks.

One of the major reasons people don't learn to be better developers is because of "elite developers" that have come before them that take pride in humiliating them.

This article is very on-point. I nearly stopped learning Rails because of the torment from #RubyOnRails on IRC. But then I remembered it is the internet and everybody is probably a dog.

I am glad I didn't stop learning - and I am very conscious of this with "noobs" now.

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

#90

Post by onenine » Fri, Dec 14, 2012, 7:14 PM UTC

codex_irl wrote: post #68

I've called out more than one "leader / boss" out in meetings / code-reviews for being excessively mean & shaming noobs who are genuinely trying their best & are hungry to learn. Constructive criticism is a great thing, but telling someone they will never work again in this industry because they make a small CSS error on their first ever post-college project is another. I've been fired from one job for standing up in…

I really recommend "The No Asshole Rule" by Robert Sutton. It's not just that life is too short. Working with assholes will literally make your life shorter. Kudos for calling somebody out in an attempt to stop the madness.