The end of LWN comment dialog?

Posted Apr 1, 2009 5:31 UTC (Wed) by ncm (guest, #165)
In reply to: That massive filesystem thread by ajross
Parent article: That massive filesystem thread

This is what the beginning of the end for unmoderated LWN commmenting looks like: "Please be polite." "You can't make me." It's really astonishing that LWN has lasted this long. It's not an accident. bojan, you are striking a beautiful, fragile object with a hammer. If you don't understand how destructive you are being, please stop and think until you do understand it.

The end of LWN comment dialog?

Posted Apr 1, 2009 6:07 UTC (Wed) by bojan (subscriber, #14302) [Link] (7 responses)

If you read my original post in this thread, you will find that I am pointing at inconsistencies of what Linus describes as reality check. So, I ridicule (among other things) his conclusion that: ext3 sucks at doing fsync(), hence we should drop fsync().

What exactly is not polite about that? Is sarcasm now verboten on LWN? I see plenty of it. Daily.

In a post not so long ago, someone accused me of hiding behind Ted's authority (although I actually used documentation to support my case - which many don't bother to read, of course). This time, I point out what to me is nonsense coming from an even bigger authority, but that's no good either. I'm not sure what position of mine would satisfy fragile sensibilities here. Only silence, I guess.

This time I was being accused of making snide remarks. So, I replied to ajross using his terminology, although I do not actually agree with that qualification (which you can see from my sarcastic: "see, being snide again" remark) and I should have used "so called snideness" in my reply instead. I am really just being sarcastic, because we are all supposed to rally behind the high priest or something.

Sure, Linus is a genius, but that doesn't mean that whatever he says is beyond criticism. And, I do not see how I am not being polite by exercising criticism with a hint of sarcasm.

What is it exactly that you have the issue with in my posts? What exactly is impolite?

Yup. It's the beginning of the end.

Posted Apr 1, 2009 7:54 UTC (Wed) by khim (subscriber, #9252) [Link] (3 responses)

If you read my original post in this thread, you will find that I am pointing at inconsistencies of what Linus describes as reality check.

Nope. You are being 100% smart-ass. Linus's reality check is not inconsistent. It's description of reality and reality is not consistent. Whenever it was? You have different factors and in different but quite real situations different factors prevail.

So, I ridicule (among other things) his conclusion that: ext3 sucks at doing fsync(), hence we should drop fsync().

That's different facet of reality. When you consider reality from kernel developer POV what the applications are doing is your "unchangeable fact", your "speed of light", when you consider reality from application developer POV what the kernel does is "unchangeable fact" and you should deal with it. This is true even if kernel developer and application developer is the same person. You can only think differently if your application is designed to only be used "in-house" and you can always guarantee control over both kernel and userspace - and git was not designed to only be used "in-house"...

And, I do not see how I am not being polite by exercising criticism with a hint of sarcasm.

You are exercising ignorance with a hint of sarcasm. That's different.

Yup. It's the beginning of the end.

Posted Apr 1, 2009 8:29 UTC (Wed) by bojan (subscriber, #14302) [Link] (2 responses)

> When you consider reality from kernel developer POV what the applications are doing is your "unchangeable fact", your "speed of light", when you consider reality from application developer POV what the kernel does is "unchangeable fact" and you should deal with it.

Let me review.

When another Unix kernel (or Linux) holds your data in buffers and commits metadata only (because it is allowed to), you, as an application developer, deal with it by ignoring that fact.

And, when your file system does crazy things with the perfectly good system call, you also ignore it as a kernel developer.

WOW, is that now the new "very special relativity"? We pick whichever behaviour is the most narrow to a specific file system and go with that?

Yup. It's the beginning of the end.

Posted Apr 1, 2009 14:22 UTC (Wed) by drag (guest, #31333) [Link] (1 responses)

> When another Unix kernel (or Linux) holds your data in buffers and commits metadata only (because it is allowed to), you, as an application developer, deal with it by ignoring that fact.

POSIX allows you never to write data to disk at all. That will make your file system very fast. After all you can have a POSIX-compliant file system that operates off of ramdisk quite easily.

POSIX file system access is designed to describe the interface layer between userland and the file system. It leaves the actual integration between the file system and the hardware, as well as the internals to the file system itself is left up to the developer of the OS.

It is like if you discovered all of a sudden a network service provided by a Apache-based web app uses SSL badly so that all usernames and passwords are transmitted over the Web in plain text... then you complain about it and the developer says back to you that his application's behavior is allowed by TCP/HTTP/SSL and that you should be changing your password with each usage, like people who use his app correctly do. Then he emails you some documentation from a security expert that says you should change your password frequently and that many other protocols like telnet or ftp send your username and password over the network in plain text.

Yup. It's the beginning of the end.

Posted Apr 1, 2009 16:10 UTC (Wed) by foom (subscriber, #14868) [Link]

This is starting to get very repetitive...all these points have been made already at least once in one
of the other article's threads. I'd like to suggest that it might be in everyone's interest to move on to
more useful pass-times than rehashing the same arguments over and over again every time there's
an update on the subject.

sticks & stones

Posted Apr 2, 2009 23:17 UTC (Thu) by xoddam (guest, #2322) [Link] (1 responses)

> In a post not so long ago, someone accused me of hiding behind Ted's authority

I plead guilty and I apologise. That was immediately after replying to someone else's post the gist of which was "Ted wrote ext2 and ext3 in the first place, he is therefore above criticism." It concluded with the words "Know your place", which got me riled.

[proverb: in the midst of great anger, never answer anyone's letter]

Your words were not so condescending but they had much the same emphasis: all ur filesystems are belong to POSIX (not users) 'cos POSIX is the law, and by the way Ted's interpretation is the only correct one because he's the primary implementor.

I hope you understand where I was coming from. Forgive me.

sticks & stones

Posted Apr 2, 2009 23:56 UTC (Thu) by bojan (subscriber, #14302) [Link]

Nothing to forgive. All is perfectly fine. I enjoy a robust discussion.

The end of LWN comment dialog?

Posted Apr 8, 2009 0:05 UTC (Wed) by jschrod (subscriber, #1646) [Link]

Well, I just decided to give you feedback, from someone who is subscribed to LWN quite a bit longer than you and who did not participate in this topic after you took over all its discussion threads: You showed that LWN really needs a KILL file feature where one can put a poster in it; you, in particular. Others have succinctly explained why, no need to repeat this.

But your self-rightousness doesn't allow to understand this, obviously. Luckily, there are still some discussion threads where you don't try to take over. I hope the likes of you will remain few on LWN in the future, this is not Slashdot, after all.

The end of LWN comment dialog?

Posted Apr 1, 2009 15:46 UTC (Wed) by GreyWizard (guest, #1026) [Link] (7 responses)

The comment from ajross above was not some gentle plea for polite discourse. What he actually said included this: "No doubt you've already made yourself heard in the other flame wars on the subject." A more accurate summary would have been, "Be polite you jerk."

People get nasty in the comments here all the time. If there's something beautiful and fragile here it's already in a thousand jagged pieces. But people hector one another about being polite all the time too. That also wrecks the signal-to-noise ratio and solves nothing.

The end of LWN comment dialog?

Posted Apr 4, 2009 9:05 UTC (Sat) by jospoortvliet (guest, #33164) [Link] (6 responses)

Hmmm. Just say whatever your brain produces, and if somebody has a problem
with what comes out, it's on their own plate.

Living in a country where that mode of thinking is the norm, I can tell
you it also has disadvantages... If only because the resulted hurt
feelings can muddy the discussion more than you might think. Besides, it
chases people away who would otherwise have contributed constructively -
it's not acceptable behavior in all cultures. Ever wondered why the FOSS
community is still predominantly western, despite many smart developers in
countries like India?

A little decency now and then doesn't hurt. I know people who, knowing how
blunt they can be, ask someone else to read certain emails before sending
them. After all, reality is that people DO have feelings.

The end of LWN comment dialog?

Posted Apr 5, 2009 3:34 UTC (Sun) by GreyWizard (guest, #1026) [Link] (5 responses)

Pardon me for saying so but you have not understood what I wrote. I did not urge anyone to "say whatever [their] brain produces" or anything equivalent. Nor did I issue a rallying cry against decency. Elevating the level of discourse would be a wonderful thing and if you've got an effective suggestion for how to do so I would be glad to read it.

But saying "be polite you jerk" merely drags things even further down into the muck.

The end of LWN comment dialog?

Posted Apr 5, 2009 12:43 UTC (Sun) by jospoortvliet (guest, #33164) [Link] (4 responses)

I disagree on your argument that saying 'be polite you jerk' merely drags things down, for two reasons.

First of all, some people don't notice their behavior is unnecessarily impolite. Pointing it out can help them (if they are willing to be reasonable in the first place). Never pointing out somebodies failures will make them fail forever.

Second, it shows you care about being polite. If others show they care too, a culture of 'you should be polite' can be maintained. As you might have noticed from the differences between FOSS communities, culture is important and heavily influential. And it can be changed.

Some things to note:
- people DO care about what others think of them. No matter how much they scream 'no I don't', they do. It is our nature.
- people should know their arguments are not supported by being mean - it is the other way around.
- I agree that a 'be polite you yerk' might not always be the best way to correct someone. A personal mail can do more. However, it won't show up in public (unless an apology is made), thus it does not much to influence others who might think it is acceptable behavior because the guy got away with it. Of course, giving a good example is better than anything else.
- Of course discussing without end whether somebody was polite enough or not muddies the discussion and lowers the SNR.

The end of LWN comment dialog?

Posted Apr 5, 2009 15:42 UTC (Sun) by GreyWizard (guest, #1026) [Link] (3 responses)

Both of your arguments could reasonably be applied to a comment that says "please be polite" but both fail for "be polite you jerk." Someone who is accidentally rude is much more likely to respond to the "you jerk" part than the "be polite" part. The contradiction immediately destroys the credibility of the person posting because he or she is not willing to be held to the standard set for others.

A truly polite request for more courtesy might help but it's difficult to be sure because such things are quite rare. Giving in to the temptation to scold even just a little makes the comment worse than useless. Unless you are absolutely certain you can do it right it's better to focus on substantive issues and avoid appointing yourself a courtesy cop.

The end of LWN comment dialog?

Posted Apr 5, 2009 16:20 UTC (Sun) by jospoortvliet (guest, #33164) [Link] (2 responses)

True, if you meant to point out that 'be polite YOU JERK' isn't very effective, I agree. I do however think that it's better than nothing. Nothing changes nothing.

The end of LWN comment dialog?

Posted Apr 5, 2009 16:27 UTC (Sun) by GreyWizard (guest, #1026) [Link] (1 responses)

It's better to change nothing than to make the situation worse.

The end of LWN comment dialog?

Posted Apr 5, 2009 17:11 UTC (Sun) by jospoortvliet (guest, #33164) [Link]

Maybe. Probably for this one response. However, as I pointed out, there are wider repercussions to be expected from such behavior, and it is worth to show, as a community, that we disapprove of such ways of communicating. Even if that is done in a rather unfriendly manner.

On re-reading the thread, I think you are right in that ajross was more impolite than bojan, which often leads to a downward spiral and isn't helpful... bojan's post wasn't that far off from the normal tone on this site.

Anyway. This is went pretty far off-topic, and I think we mostly agree. For as far as we don't, we at least agree on that ;-)