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Betterbird: a fine-tuned version of Mozilla Thunderbird

betterbird.eu

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

#81
post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The email reprinted in that PDF makes me irrationally angry to read. I hope there's an ebuild for Betterbird soon, because after reading that I'm not sure I want anything to do with Thunderbird anymore. Quote: > * No interaction with any of the people involved. This includes > o No interactions with Thunderbird community members, paid contributors, and Thunderbird Council members. > o No interactions in any official…

What would you propose as an alternative to people who just… constantly fill mailing lists with attacks on people or the like? Reasonable people don’t need to have such harsh actions applied of course. But reasonable people don’t end up getting to this point! I am a bit partial to messaging when someone is banned like this, but there are definitely cases where people will just keep on arguing about something forever…

> What would you propose as an alternative to people who just… constantly fill mailing lists with attacks on people or the like?

ignore them on the client side. it's easy. there's a field called FROM.

Someone else might be interested in reading what these people have to say.

Who knows.

> Reasonable people don’t need to have such harsh actions applied of course

Define reasonable in a global way.

I think maybe you were looking for "people who do not engage in heated discussions"

Right or wrong, it's unreasonable to think that everyone will always be in absolute control.

It's simply words, there's nothing slightly alarming in what I've read.

For example:

where you have been called out for communicating disrespectfully, you counter by stating what you said is a fact. While in many cases it is truly a fact, the way in which you convey these facts has not been appropriate

Maybe if you don't acknowledge facts and focus on wording, people will get upset.

You can't actually know if you're talking to a Tourette Syndrome patient, but you can totally know if what they are saying makes some sense or not.

Besides, are we kids in church that should be schooled?

But the most alarming bits are

No interactions in any official Thunderbird channels, as well as external or unofficial channels like social media (Twitter, Facebook, Telegram).

No attendance at Thunderbird events during this period (virtual or physical)

WHAT?

Are they kidding?

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

#82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The email reprinted in that PDF makes me irrationally angry to read. I hope there's an ebuild for Betterbird soon, because after reading that I'm not sure I want anything to do with Thunderbird anymore. Quote: > * No interaction with any of the people involved. This includes > o No interactions with Thunderbird community members, paid contributors, and Thunderbird Council members. > o No interactions in any official…

What else do you do with someone who is relentlessly rude?

You ask yourself what you have done wrong to upset that person.

Because it's the only thing you can control.

If you start canceling, you will be cancelled.

Look where this brought Mozilla...

Do you still trust them?

Do people still trust them?

They are on the verge of oblivion, I only use Firefox because I do not want to live in a browser mono culture.

But I've stopped my donations to Mozilla years ago.

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

#83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What else do you do with someone who is relentlessly rude?

You ask yourself what you have done wrong to upset that person. Because it's the only thing you can control. If you start canceling, you will be cancelled. Look where this brought Mozilla... Do you still trust them? Do people still trust them? They are on the verge of oblivion, I only use Firefox because I do not want to live in a browser mono culture. But I've stopped my donations to Mozilla years ago.

> You ask yourself what you have done wrong to upset that person.

Some people seem to just inherently be a bit nasty, even if it’s the very first time you interact with them and so nothing you’ve done at all.

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

#84
post #5

I really love Thunderbird; I've been using it for at least a decade now. There are definitely places where it still needs improvement, after years and years. While Betterbird seems exciting in theory, the attitude of the project leader (who it seems is a banned former contributor to Mozilla Thunderbird), and honestly even the arrogance in the name itself gives me pause. The issues laid out in this[0] email thread are…

The problem with open-source is that reaching responsibility or leadership positions requires as much office politics, or more, than normal corporate jobs. When a leader is incompetent, you can't talk to his boss, stirring up the community is the only way to cause change. But then you get accused of "lacking civility". Wikipedia is another example of this, where the Foundation is notorious for its flaws and for not c…

> stirring up the community is the only way to cause change. But then you get accused of "lacking civility".

Exactly this.

This is the key point of every community, you can't have them without conflict.

If you ban conflict, you ban the social, collective, aspect and it becomes a corporate project with bosses and employees.

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

#85
post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You mean like Linus or countless others did with Linux eh and a bunch of other world class open source projects? This is the lie people like you keep purporting in those VC money firehoses that have no grounds in the real world.

Well, Linus himself did think that his behavior was a big enough issue that he took serious steps to do something about it, and is now a completely different person in mailing lists. But note that your parent comment said "almost always", not "always". The Linux project isn't exactly typical.

> Linus himself did think that his behavior was a big enough issue that he took serious steps to do something about it

He really did not.

He simply aged and had kids.

With age everything looks "not important enough to be upset by"

Believe me.

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

#86
post #52

I am a Thunderbird user since forever, but... I don't know. I want to like Betterbird, but the fact that the author gives so many details about his crusade against Mozilla, puts me off. It looks like revenge-driven development. I don't want to take sides. I just want to read my emails.

No post body was provided.

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

#87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You ask yourself what you have done wrong to upset that person. Because it's the only thing you can control. If you start canceling, you will be cancelled. Look where this brought Mozilla... Do you still trust them? Do people still trust them? They are on the verge of oblivion, I only use Firefox because I do not want to live in a browser mono culture. But I've stopped my donations to Mozilla years ago.

> You ask yourself what you have done wrong to upset that person. Some people seem to just inherently be a bit nasty, even if it’s the very first time you interact with them and so nothing you’ve done at all.

> Some people seem to just inherently be a bit nasty

Those people could think the same thing about you.

"amount of nastyness" it's not an internationally recognized standard unit of measure and it depends a lot on culture, status, social class, and a lot of other more subtle things.

You can't even imagine how many stereotypes on Italians I have to endure in a normal, professional, conversation with North Americans, who don't even notice that they are doing it.

And yet I don't get defensive all the times.

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

#88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What else do you do with someone who is relentlessly rude?

You ask yourself what you have done wrong to upset that person. Because it's the only thing you can control. If you start canceling, you will be cancelled. Look where this brought Mozilla... Do you still trust them? Do people still trust them? They are on the verge of oblivion, I only use Firefox because I do not want to live in a browser mono culture. But I've stopped my donations to Mozilla years ago.

> You ask yourself what you have done wrong to upset that person.

Are you perfectly sure that people always start from "neutral" or "positive" attitude, even when contacted for the first time?

I have been rudely dismissed more than once from some members of some communities over the years, even with very neutral mails.

I'm personally very against loaded (in tone) emails, and can be considered even a pacifist, but being polite, kind and open never guarantees people won't yell at you at first contact.

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

#89
post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The email reprinted in that PDF makes me irrationally angry to read. I hope there's an ebuild for Betterbird soon, because after reading that I'm not sure I want anything to do with Thunderbird anymore. Quote: > * No interaction with any of the people involved. This includes > o No interactions with Thunderbird community members, paid contributors, and Thunderbird Council members. > o No interactions in any official…

What would you propose as an alternative to people who just… constantly fill mailing lists with attacks on people or the like? Reasonable people don’t need to have such harsh actions applied of course. But reasonable people don’t end up getting to this point! I am a bit partial to messaging when someone is banned like this, but there are definitely cases where people will just keep on arguing about something forever…

There's also toxic organizations that have hostile retaliation as a response to criticism or improvements.

I don't know thunderbird's internals but I've certainly been institutionally bullied and stood up for others that were.

There's a lot of petty tyrants in all kinds of organizations who respond to their insecurities through administrative pedantry as a substitute for being an adult.

It's best to choose to use your time elsewhere so you don't suffer through them scapegoating you in a futile attempt to ameliorate their personal problems.

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

#90
post #5

I really love Thunderbird; I've been using it for at least a decade now. There are definitely places where it still needs improvement, after years and years. While Betterbird seems exciting in theory, the attitude of the project leader (who it seems is a banned former contributor to Mozilla Thunderbird), and honestly even the arrogance in the name itself gives me pause. The issues laid out in this[0] email thread are…

The email reprinted in that PDF makes me irrationally angry to read. I hope there's an ebuild for Betterbird soon, because after reading that I'm not sure I want anything to do with Thunderbird anymore. Quote: > * No interaction with any of the people involved. This includes > o No interactions with Thunderbird community members, paid contributors, and Thunderbird Council members. > o No interactions in any official…

I was in the unfortunate position of having to ban someone from an online tech support forum of which I was the mod. This was after weeks of myself and other mods trying to resolve the issues with them. Issues like name calling, trying to stir up racial issues, making fun of new users for being noobs, trying to stir up other users against the mods, all that teenage BS (although the person was in their 20s or 30s).

The result was that they followed me on to Twitter and other social medias and started calling me names like Nazi and so on. I blocked them there but it was frustrating - we were just trying to run a small help forum for an open source library and I spent way too much time in good faith trying to help this person and still got publicly name called from it.

I ended up feeling totally burned out by this and stopped moderating the forum soon after.

Because of following me and other mods onto Twitter we made the temp ban permanent. I have no idea if the person is still banned.

If I had to deal with this kind of situation a lot I can totally see adding a rule that the banned person can't follow you onto social media and complain as a requirement for the ban remaining temporary.

Contrary to this being weaponized shunning, I see it as "we need space from you for a while and if you don't give it to us and come back with a better attitude we're gonna permanently remove you from the community".

That all said, it probably could be worded less severely.

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