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GNOME Shell to support a "classic" mode

Posted Nov 21, 2012 21:10 UTC (Wed) by Zizzle (guest, #67739)
In reply to: GNOME Shell to support a "classic" mode by ovitters
Parent article: GNOME Shell to support a "classic" mode

I don't really consider sarcasm a terrible case of not being nice.

Calling someone a sad person that you pity is more unnice.

But hey, criticism accepted, I will tone it down.

I think the real problem is that team GNOME considers anyone who says something they don't like or don't agree with, or says anything less that total praise for GNOME3 as a troll and not worth listening to.

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GNOME Shell to support a "classic" mode

Posted Nov 22, 2012 7:34 UTC (Thu) by jspaleta (subscriber, #50639) [Link]

Sarcasm is a difficult thing to master well without coming off as hostile.

You are coming off as hostile and perhaps a weebit passive aggressive.

Speaking from my own personal battle with the disorder...
If you are prone to sarcasm, and you don't have the necessarily health care to cover the cost of the meds to control it you can still make a series of choices on when and where you use sarcasm. Control the disorder don't let the disorder control you.

Among many strategies I have tried over the years, the one I find most successful in written communication forums is to keep bulk of the sarcastic comments aimed directly at oneself. I believe the term is self-deprecation. You still might not master right off the bat, unless your British, I'm not so I'm still working on it, but it does help take the edge off a bit when others are reading what I write. Instead of coming off as hostile, when making sarcastic jibes at other people, you just come off as a bit odd, muttering about yourself. And maybe this strategy isn't for you. Maybe you need electroshock therapy. I can't tell you want will work for you. Experiment... maybe try that electroshock stuff a couple of times just to be sure its not the right treatment for you.

-jef

GNOME Shell to support a "classic" mode

Posted Nov 22, 2012 18:21 UTC (Thu) by paulj (subscriber, #341) [Link]

Unfortunately there's no way I know of on LWN either to send private messages, or to look up a user's "Personal Info" (e.g. I have a link to personal details in http://lwn.net/MyAccount/paulj/PersonalInfo, but I don't think anyone else can see that - least, I get a "not allowed" message if I put other usernames in there). So I have to reply to you publically.

As someone who's been on the receiving end of your sarcasm elsewhere a few times, a good while ago, and not particularly enjoyed it: Bravo for recognising it and trying to address it. I hope I could do the same if/when needs be. ;)

Not sure about the electroshock treatment though. ;)

GNOME Shell to support a "classic" mode

Posted Nov 22, 2012 13:41 UTC (Thu) by ovitters (subscriber, #27950) [Link]

It really depends on the tone. There is a lot of feedback given in various ways. If someone people are very aggressive, it tends not to give a good impression.

I am on various mailing lists, mostly just to look for feedback and spot problems. Sometimes one person saying things is enough, sometimes only when many people say something.

Elsewhere the "faster horse" thing was mentioned. If someone gives feedback it can be various things:
- outright bugs
- hardware issues
- something that doesn't work right at the moment
- packaging problem
- performance (known or unknown)
- design/usability problems
etc

All of that is useful to know, but there is not a one on one relation between this. E.g. a "don't drop fallback mode" criticism might be the result of something else, e.g. a hardware issue. Further, if someone doesn't like a nautilus 3.5.92 or even 3.6.0, it could be either a design issue, maybe not. Often what is expected that some suggestion must be implemented immediately. Not always possible... takes quite a bit of time to figure what the feedback really means. E.g. some stuff in gnome-shell 3.0.0 wasn't working nicely, but actually can be difficult to understand if feedback is in the form of "what are you doing?", "idiots", etc.

That's just interpreting feedback, after that knowing what to do, etc.

Not saying things couldn't/shouldn't be improved, just that the expectations are a bit high.

Note that recently I saw a few designers commenting on usability testing, saying that big usability tests (like Sun did) would be very welcome and is a bit lacking atm.

GNOME Shell to support a "classic" mode

Posted Nov 22, 2012 20:58 UTC (Thu) by ovitters (subscriber, #27950) [Link]

Forgot to say: Thanks

I was too aggressive, not only to you. Sorry for that.