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
-- 
     Nils Philippsen    /    Red Hat    /    nphilipp at redhat.com
"Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary
 Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."  --  B. Franklin, 1759
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