Mozilla now banning people for grumpy bug reports • Hacker News Board

Re: Mozilla now banning people for grumpy bug reports

#51

Post by asadotzler » Fri, Jul 08, 2011, 10:36 AM UTC

gojomo wrote: post #43

asadotzler wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You missed the reports where he called developers simians, shouted "screw you" and said he'd like to cut off a specific developers hands so he couldn't code any more. (by the way, bugzilla is totally searchable, so if you want, you can see this stuff for yourself before you step up to defend a bully.)

Then why not announce the ban after those blatant transgressions, or the next blatant one if they arrive reliably, rather than after a mild one? BTW, a simple Bugzilla search for [Richard Mlynarik] returns "Zarro Boogs found". Similarly, a Google search for [site:bugzilla.mozilla.org Mlynarik simian] returns nothing. I'm sure I'll find the right kind of search eventually – I did find a Mlynarik 'screw you' comment vi…

He was given a warning and a second chance after the awful behavior in other bugs. When he failed to heed that warning he was banned. If you had read the report, you'd have seen that he had been given a previous warning. That's key information. Weren't you curious about the previous warning? Didn't it occur to you that he might have already been treading on really thin ice and continued misbehavior, even minor might be enough to tip the balance? It doesn't seem to me that you were. It seemed to me you were stepping up to his defense without all the facts. That's a dangerous thing to do because you might find that you're defending someone that's you'd rather not be.

Re: Mozilla now banning people for grumpy bug reports

#52

Post by felipemnoa » Fri, Jul 08, 2011, 10:38 AM UTC

masklinn wrote: post #16

BasDirks wrote: post #9

How on earth does that deserve a ban? Mozilla would hate to have Linus Torvalds as a contributor.

> How on earth does that deserve a ban? That does not deserve a ban in and of itself. Repeated instances of that following warnings of unacceptable behavior, on the other hand, does. It would seem Richard here was in the second situation: > You've been warned repeatedly about the Bugzilla Etiquette rules, and you're still failing to respect them.

Linus has no qualms of telling someone he is full of BS:

http://pardel.wordpress.com/2007/09/07/90/

Re: Mozilla now banning people for grumpy bug reports

#53

Post by gojomo » Fri, Jul 08, 2011, 10:39 AM UTC

sid0 wrote: post #27

gojomo wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If they need to punish obscene reports, punish for those, specifically. When they happen. Don't punish a mild, non-obscene report some other time. edit for your edit: Thanks for finding an earlier clearer example. That comment was unnecessarily personal and abusive. It deserved reprimand or censure. And if the reprimand(s) are responsible for the less-personal tone of the 2011-06-30 comment, compared to the 2010-07-2…

While we might disagree on the exact mechanics, I think we can agree that any open-source community would be better without such people.

I prefer rehabilitation to exile, if at all possible.

Re: Mozilla now banning people for grumpy bug reports

#54

Post by asadotzler » Fri, Jul 08, 2011, 10:40 AM UTC

Deestan wrote: post #44

asadotzler wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would you like your customers saying "screw you" and "I want to cut off your hands so you can't program any more"? I wouldn't.

Of course not, but the one time they are acceptably civil isn't the time to bring out the ban hammer.

When they continue to be abusive after a warning it doesn't really matter where mechanically the actual trigger was pulled. It was the right call. It was a late call, in my opinion. I'd have banned him at the "cut off his hands" comment with no warning and now recourse. But again, late or not, it was the right call. No project should have to tolerate bullies. They are toxic to the project and they should be excised as soon as possible.

Re: Mozilla now banning people for grumpy bug reports

#55

Post by masklinn » Fri, Jul 08, 2011, 10:42 AM UTC

felipemnoa wrote: post #52

masklinn wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> How on earth does that deserve a ban? That does not deserve a ban in and of itself. Repeated instances of that following warnings of unacceptable behavior, on the other hand, does. It would seem Richard here was in the second situation: > You've been warned repeatedly about the Bugzilla Etiquette rules, and you're still failing to respect them.

Linus has no qualms of telling someone he is full of BS: http://pardel.wordpress.com/2007/09/07/90/

Which really is irrelevant to the subject at hand.

Re: Mozilla now banning people for grumpy bug reports

#56

Post by asadotzler » Fri, Jul 08, 2011, 10:46 AM UTC

[deleted] wrote: post #47

asadotzler wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Being a founding father of GNU does not give you the right to be a bully. Telling a developer that you want to cut off his hands so he can't program is not helpful and people who behave like that are not useful bug reporters. They are bullies and they are toxic to an open source project. No project should tolerate personal attacks like that.

[deleted]

Enjoyment is in absolutely no way a necessary condition for bullying. Bullying is abusive treatment, often directed repeatedly at specific individuals. That's what was happening here. "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" That is about as clear a case of bullying I've seen in the 13 years I've been involved in Mozilla.

You can make all the excuses you want for him, and you can re-define bullying if you like, but he has gone well beyond "not seeing the need to spare people's feelings" here. He has verbally attacked people and he thinks he can get away with it because of his hacker credibility. "Because I'm a great programmer and you're a nobody programmer, I can call you names and tell you to die die die and tell you I'd like to cut off your fingers so you can't code any more. That's about as crisp a case of bullying as I can think of.

Re: Mozilla now banning people for grumpy bug reports

#57

Post by mike-cardwell » Fri, Jul 08, 2011, 10:47 AM UTC

shii wrote: post #40

adw wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why should we accept unnecessarily abrasive behaviour as acceptable anywhere?

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.

Re: Mozilla now banning people for grumpy bug reports

#58

Post by thaumaturgy » Fri, Jul 08, 2011, 10:50 AM UTC

sid0 wrote: post #27

gojomo wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If they need to punish obscene reports, punish for those, specifically. When they happen. Don't punish a mild, non-obscene report some other time. edit for your edit: Thanks for finding an earlier clearer example. That comment was unnecessarily personal and abusive. It deserved reprimand or censure. And if the reprimand(s) are responsible for the less-personal tone of the 2011-06-30 comment, compared to the 2010-07-2…

While we might disagree on the exact mechanics, I think we can agree that any open-source community would be better without such people.

I couldn't agree with that. Imagine what the landscape of software would look like without all those abrasive "bullies" that Mozilla is wringing their hands about: no Theo, no Zed, no Steve, no Richard ... hell, no Linus, for that matter.

So any open-source community would be better without them, eh?

Re: Mozilla now banning people for grumpy bug reports

#59

Post by jasonlotito » Fri, Jul 08, 2011, 10:52 AM UTC

gojomo wrote: post #53

sid0 wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While we might disagree on the exact mechanics, I think we can agree that any open-source community would be better without such people.

I prefer rehabilitation to exile, if at all possible.

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?

Re: Mozilla now banning people for grumpy bug reports

#60

Post by asadotzler » Fri, Jul 08, 2011, 10:53 AM UTC

arihant wrote: post #35

If someone writes that kind of bug report for code that I write, the first thing I would do is take my shoe and beat myself to death. The man being frustrated is your fault. High chances there are million others who feel the same, at least he is conveying it to you. You're shooting the messenger here. If your critics give up on you and stop telling you how much you suck and how much they hate you, that's a very bad p…

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 might even call the cops. Actually, you would call the cops. And you'd be right to.