Be polite. Be helpful.

[Nils Philippsen]

Hi all,

recently there were discussions on this list (and elsewhere) which stood
out by the sheer lack of social graces some of us occasionally seem to
employ when dealing with others. This wasn't a single, isolated,
incidence but happened every now and again in the past, so here are, in
the hope that we can improve this situation (and in order of what I deem
decreasing significance), some things which deserve some fixing:

1. Calling people names, getting personal: This can only serve to poison
the atmosphere. If you can't get your point across without calling
somebody the "biggest troll under the sun", then it's probably not much
of a point to begin with. Besides that, nothing I've seen here comes
near the level of trolling I've seen elsewhere[2]. It's a good idea to
keep discussions objective. This brings me to...

2. Needless exaggeration, hyperbole: It may be okay to call a program
the "biggest piece of crap I've ever seen" in private, if you know the
person well and can be sure they don't take it personally. Incidentally,
most people you're dealing with around here are more likely strangers
than not, so this exception won't apply very often. It's a good idea to
see (and present) things a little more differentiated, this can only
bolster your credibility.

3. Confusing opinion and truth: Not everything that annoys you is also
an error, some things are matters of preference and in these cases
usually the maintainer's preference trumps others ("who does wins").
That won't change very soon, so better not be grumpy about it. Likewise,
it's good when maintainers care for those who use things differently
than they (or the personae they envisioned) do -- you don't have to
cater for every obscure use case, but acknowledging that some people do
things differently and that their ways are equally valid helps much.
Getting "I don't have the time to do that, but I'm open for patches if
done properly" as an answer to a request leaves someone much more
options than "You're not our target audience". Somewhat related:

4. Lack of patience and perspective: Sometimes things are broken, but
awfully hard to fix correctly. Sometimes there are more pressing things
to do first before the problem you have can be fixed. Sometimes a patch
which helps you breaks stuff for others. That some things take their
time doesn't mean that developers don't care about your problems.
Ironically, developers can experience the same when having problems with
packages maintained by others. Being rude to people usually won't
increase the priority of your issues. Coming up with a patch (or bribing
someone else to do so) might be a good first step here.

I'm aware of the "Tact Filter Theory"[2] but it seems to me that some
people (assuming that they read the piece) just think "That's exactly
how it is." instead of adding "... and this is how I could improve
myself in dealing with others." to the thought, i.e. they haven't read
(or do ignore) the last paragraph.

I'd like to summarize this by quoting Deb Richardson[3]: "Be polite. Be
helpful. You're bright people. Extrapolate."

Thanks,
Nils (covering for Miss Manners for today)

[1]: e.g. the discussions in the Heise Newsticker (sorry folks, this is
not available in English): http://www.heise.de/newsticker
[2]: http://www.mit.edu/~jcb/tact.html
[3]: http://www.dria.org

[Tim Lauridsen]

Nils Philippsen wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> recently there were discussions on this list (and elsewhere) which stood
> out by the sheer lack of social graces some of us occasionally seem to
> employ when dealing with others. This wasn't a single, isolated,
> incidence but happened every now and again in the past, so here are, in
> the hope that we can improve this situation (and in order of what I deem
> decreasing significance), some things which deserve some fixing:
> Calling people names, getting personal: This can only serve to poison
>
> the atmosphere. If you can't get your point across without calling
> somebody the "biggest troll under the sun", then it's probably not much
> of a point to begin with. Besides that, nothing I've seen here comes
> near the level of trolling I've seen elsewhere[2]. It's a good idea to
> keep discussions objective. This brings me to...
> Needless exaggeration, hyperbole: It may be okay to call a program
>
> the "biggest piece of crap I've ever seen" in private, if you know the
> person well and can be sure they don't take it personally. Incidentally,
> most people you're dealing with around here are more likely strangers
> than not, so this exception won't apply very often. It's a good idea to
> see (and present) things a little more differentiated, this can only
> bolster your credibility.
> Confusing opinion and truth: Not everything that annoys you is also
>
> an error, some things are matters of preference and in these cases
> usually the maintainer's preference trumps others ("who does wins").
> That won't change very soon, so better not be grumpy about it. Likewise,
> it's good when maintainers care for those who use things differently
> than they (or the personae they envisioned) do -- you don't have to
> cater for every obscure use case, but acknowledging that some people do
> things differently and that their ways are equally valid helps much.
> Getting "I don't have the time to do that, but I'm open for patches if
> done properly" as an answer to a request leaves someone much more
> options than "You're not our target audience". Somewhat related:
> Lack of patience and perspective: Sometimes things are broken, but
>
> awfully hard to fix correctly. Sometimes there are more pressing things
> to do first before the problem you have can be fixed. Sometimes a patch
> which helps you breaks stuff for others. That some things take their
> time doesn't mean that developers don't care about your problems.
> Ironically, developers can experience the same when having problems with
> packages maintained by others. Being rude to people usually won't
> increase the priority of your issues. Coming up with a patch (or bribing
> someone else to do so) might be a good first step here.
>
> I'm aware of the "Tact Filter Theory"[2] but it seems to me that some
> people (assuming that they read the piece) just think "That's exactly
> how it is." instead of adding "... and this is how I could improve
> myself in dealing with others." to the thought, i.e. they haven't read
> (or do ignore) the last paragraph.
>
> I'd like to summarize this by quoting Deb Richardson[3]: "Be polite. Be
> helpful. You're bright people. Extrapolate."
>
> Thanks,
> Nils (covering for Miss Manners for today)
>
> [1]: e.g. the discussions in the Heise Newsticker (sorry folks, this is
> not available in English): http://www.heise.de/newsticker
> [2]: http://www.mit.edu/~jcb/tact.html
> [3]: http://www.dria.org

+1000

One of the best post i have read on this list ever

Tim

[Dominik 'Rathann' Mierzejewski]

On Wednesday, 19 March 2008 at 19:02, Tim Lauridsen wrote:
> Nils Philippsen wrote:

[...]
> +1000
>
> One of the best post i have read on this list ever

Quoting it in full, however, was neither helpful nor polite.

R.

[Lubomir Kundrak]

On Wed, 2008-03-19 at 19:05 +0100, Dominik 'Rathann' Mierzejewski wrote:
> On Wednesday, 19 March 2008 at 19:02, Tim Lauridsen wrote:
> > Nils Philippsen wrote:
>
> [...]
> > +1000
> >
> > One of the best post i have read on this list ever
>
> Quoting it in full, however, was neither helpful nor polite.

You poor example of human kind!

(Sorry, not really, just couldn't resist :)

[Arthur Pemberton]

On Wed, Mar 19, 2008 at 1:02 PM, Tim Lauridsen
 wrote:
> Nils Philippsen wrote:
> +1000

You're only allocated 1 vote, isn't it impolite to use 1000 votes?

[Hans de Goede]

Nils Philippsen wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> recently there were discussions on this list (and elsewhere) which stood
> out by the sheer lack of social graces some of us occasionally seem to
> employ when dealing with others. This wasn't a single, isolated,
> incidence but happened every now and again in the past, so here are, in
> the hope that we can improve this situation (and in order of what I deem
> decreasing significance), some things which deserve some fixing:

+10

<humor>
And to those who think each contributer gets only 1 vote allocated, I 
personally believe every contributer is entitled to (maintained packages and/or 
translations and/or wiki pages) / 10 votes, with a minimum of one.
</humor>

Oh and infrastructure maintainers get a +10 bonus added to that just for being 
on the infra structure team. Did I ever tell you how much I appreciate all the 
infra work done for Fedora?

Regards,

Hans

[David Nielsen]

2008/3/19, Hans de Goede :
> Nils Philippsen wrote:
> > Hi all,
> >
> > recently there were discussions on this list (and elsewhere) which stood
> > out by the sheer lack of social graces some of us occasionally seem to
> > employ when dealing with others. This wasn't a single, isolated,
> > incidence but happened every now and again in the past, so here are, in
> > the hope that we can improve this situation (and in order of what I deem
> > decreasing significance), some things which deserve some fixing:
>
> +10
>
> <humor>
> And to those who think each contributer gets only 1 vote allocated, I
> personally believe every contributer is entitled to (maintained packages
> and/or
> translations and/or wiki pages) / 10 votes, with a minimum of one.
> </humor>

And with the amount of packages you maintain I suppose we could just skip
the formalities and declare you King Hans of Fedora.

[Chris Weyl]

2008/3/19 David Nielsen :
> And with the amount of packages you maintain I suppose we could just skip
> the formalities and declare you King Hans of Fedora.

When I ascend to the top, I intend my rule to be benevolent... except
where people use "no strict".  No mercy, then.  ;)

But back to the topic at hand....  Nils: A well worded and written
post. Thanks. :)

-Chris

[Hans de Goede]

David Nielsen wrote:
> 2008/3/19, Hans de Goede <[e-mail] 
> >:
> Nils Philippsen wrote:
>  > Hi all,
>  >
>  > recently there were discussions on this list (and elsewhere)
> which stood
>  > out by the sheer lack of social graces some of us occasionally
> seem to
>  > employ when dealing with others. This wasn't a single, isolated,
>  > incidence but happened every now and again in the past, so here
> are, in
>  > the hope that we can improve this situation (and in order of what
> I deem
>  > decreasing significance), some things which deserve some fixing:
>  >
>
>
> +10
>
> <humor>
> And to those who think each contributer gets only 1 vote allocated, I
> personally believe every contributer is entitled to (maintained
> packages and/or
> translations and/or wiki pages) / 10 votes, with a minimum of one.
> </humor>
>
>
> And with the amount of packages you maintain I suppose we could just 
> skip the formalities and declare you King Hans of Fedora.

Nope, that would be King Spot of Fedora :)

Regards,

Hans