On kernel mailing list behavior [LWN.net]

On kernel mailing list behavior

Posted Jul 18, 2013 23:52 UTC (Thu) by bojan (subscriber, #14302)
In reply to: On kernel mailing list behavior by niner
Parent article: On kernel mailing list behavior

I have worked for Australian, US and Indian companies. All of them had explicit policies that ensured the communication between employees is of a very high standard. No abuse was permitted anywhere.

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On kernel mailing list behavior

Posted Jul 19, 2013 1:43 UTC (Fri) by bloopletech (guest, #71203) [Link] (2 responses)

I have worked for several companies, in Australia and the US, and these policies are generally disregarded by the majority of people.

I'm not saying that's good or bad, but the presence of policies does not imply that (a) the policies are good or (b) that people respect the policies.

On kernel mailing list behavior

Posted Jul 19, 2013 2:10 UTC (Fri) by bojan (subscriber, #14302) [Link] (1 responses)

Well, then these companies you worked for are obviously not "half decent", are they? Abuse should never be condoned.

For instance, examples of hitting children and women were mentioned in the comments. So, I guess it would be OK for me to then smack women and younger people in the office around to get what I want, right? Absolutely not.

Nobody ever claimed that no work needs to be done to reduce the amount of abuse in general society and workplace. In fact, this whole discussion started because there is more work to be done.

Policies must be voluntarily obeyed to be effective

Posted Jul 19, 2013 7:51 UTC (Fri) by tialaramex (subscriber, #21167) [Link]

When a policy doesn't work you have to fix the policy. Some of us care about the real world, not your internal emotional state except in so far as that has consequences in the real world.

The pretence that "We have a policy forbidding X, so X doesn't happen" is a terrible sort of delusion because those too far from the action to see X continue anyway might believe you and act as though it's true.

For example, the current _policy_ here says that track workers will all interrupt what they're doing, stand up and walk off the tracks into a place of safety before any train passes. No doubt in the imagination of whoever wrote this rule there was only one "road" and it was mere "common sense" that track workers would want to get out of the way. But in reality a lot of work happens at complex multi-road sites. The workers can see (or think they can see, or even just guess from experience) that a particular train won't pass near to them, and they wave it through but remain on the railway and thus in danger. Approaching trains are loud and (at night) heavily lit, masking any danger from other trains nearby so that even when they're correct about the train they can see, they may be wrong about whether they're actually safe.

People who don't understand why policies don't work usually insist that workers who disobey the policy should be disciplined. That ought to work, right? But it won't, it just creates the impression that management are capricious, arbitrarily punishing some workers whose behaviour was fine, for a merely technical violation of a rule that makes no sense. Even showing the workers why their current practices are dangerous through the video reconstruction of accidents (including fatal accidents) turns out not to make a dent. Humans are largely oblivious to their mortality and will take small temporary gains for a significant risk of death without qualms. The only way to fix the problem is to come up with a policy that the workers are _willing_ to obey but which is also safe.