Sharp: Closing a door [LWN.net]

Sharp: Closing a door

Posted Oct 7, 2015 13:44 UTC (Wed) by malor (guest, #2973)
In reply to: Sharp: Closing a door by dskoll
Parent article: Sharp: Closing a door

If you're looking for validation and warm fuzzies, there are, quite literally, millions of places you can get them.

There's only one Linux kernel, and its impact on the world is hard to overstate. A loss of code quality to make a few people feel better would be an enormous loss to the world.

to post comments

Sharp: Closing a door

Posted Oct 7, 2015 14:14 UTC (Wed) by rahulsundaram (subscriber, #21946) [Link] (21 responses)

There is no contradiction between being civil and insisting on code quality.

Sharp: Closing a door

Posted Oct 9, 2015 17:26 UTC (Fri) by nevets (subscriber, #11875) [Link] (10 responses)

In a perfect would I would agree. But there are times that people just don't get it. Pretty much every time Linus blew up and it made headlines, was due to this. After lots of civil communication, the point is not getting across. People (especially Linus) will then exert a bit of nastiness. Amazingly, people usually will take a step back and look at the bigger picture when that happens. Linus's rant about ARM is a perfect example of things getting done afterward.

Motivation is driven by emotion. The more passionate you are about something, the more you work at it. Fear of being yelled at can also motivate. There was a time that I wasn't listening to a major maintainer about something and he totally ripped into me (it wasn't Linus). It took several times at being yelled at for me to get a clue. As a result, I now have probably the best personal self made test suite that I run on my code before posting any patch to linux-next. I didn't make this because of civil conversation. I made it because I was terrified of being yelled at again.

Private vs public

Posted Oct 10, 2015 8:39 UTC (Sat) by marcH (subscriber, #57642) [Link] (8 responses)

> There was a time that I wasn't listening to a major maintainer about something and he totally ripped into me (it wasn't Linus). It took several times at being yelled at for me to get a clue.

Thanks for sharing this, which - as has been said many times - isn't a usual type of events yet always gets reported.

I think it's possible to mitigate even these rare events: simply by switching to private communication. I know that private emails are "just bad" the vast majority of the time, but all good rules have exceptions and IMHO this is one. I mean: when everyone gets it but the person too passionate (or else) to listen, why keep in public the (lack of) dialogue? Yelling "Now will you at last listen to me?" at someone in public is orders of magnitude more embarrassing and problematic than the same thing in private, and not just because the former is archived forever.

I've heard and seen more than one manager practice: "praise publicly, criticize privately". While it does not completely apply in this context there's still a lesson to take from it.

BTW there's often reference to the higher value given to respect in Asian vs Western cultures but it's always about public contexts; curious about private exchanges.

Now of course there's the risk the tone raises up a bit higher in a private communication. It typically still feels much better than being scolded in public. And wait: who said private communication has to be email, which *everyone* knows to be flame-prone? What happened to the good old telephone? The Internet star killed it? A lot of this entire debate actually comes down to just "email sucks" for all the well known reasons - mainly lack of oxytocin: https://youtu.be/ReRcHdeUG9Y?t=2149

Private vs public

Posted Oct 10, 2015 14:06 UTC (Sat) by nevets (subscriber, #11875) [Link] (7 responses)

Actually, there is a lot of criticism in the private. We just don't see it because, well, it's private.

But private criticism may not work as well either. When you are in a private forum, you can make claims that just wont hold up water. But doing that in a public setting has a bigger impact and both sides really need to have the facts straight before they post. Otherwise, if you yell at someone and are incorrect yourself, you can have others yell at you. This has happened, and kept the one that was yelling in check.

Escalating to public shaming really should be the last resort, but should still be on the table. Everyone that posts code to the Linux kernel should be a little nervous about it. That nervousness keeps one in check. Once you can post code without any anxiety then you can easily post low quality code. I've been submitting code to the Linux kernel for over 10 years, and I'm still nervous with every patch I send out. That drives me to make sure my patch can stand on its own, and keeps me from doing something stupid. If you can't handle that, and want to be able to send out "no worries" patches, where if you totally screw up, nobody will criticize you, I'm sorry, you are not fit to submit to a project as serious as the Linux kernel.

Private vs public

Posted Oct 10, 2015 14:09 UTC (Sat) by nevets (subscriber, #11875) [Link] (2 responses)

BTW, when I said "you" at the end, I don't mean you :-) That was just a generalization. I like German because it has a separate word for that "man", which doesn't mean the English "man".

Private vs public

Posted Oct 10, 2015 15:51 UTC (Sat) by cebewee (guest, #94775) [Link]

I should be able to use "one" in (most of) those case.

Private vs public

Posted Oct 15, 2015 8:02 UTC (Thu) by paulj (subscriber, #341) [Link]

You can use "one" as a general abstract pronoun for people, as a contraction of 'someone', in conjunction with "they", "them" to reference that abstract person, etc., e.g.:

"If someone can't handle that, and they want to be able to send out "no worries" patches, where if they totally screw up, nobody will criticize them, I'm sorry, they are not fit to submit to a project as serious as the Linux kernel."

"one" just happened not to fit easily in there, but often used in "One might think", "If one wants to avoid criticism". Note that "one" can come across as a bit stilted, just using "someone" usually sounds better IMO. "someone" is pretty much the same as the germanic "jemand" / "iemand".

Private vs public

Posted Oct 11, 2015 16:38 UTC (Sun) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link] (3 responses)

> If you can't handle that, and want to be able to send out "no worries" patches, where if you totally screw up, nobody will criticize you, I'm sorry, you are not fit to submit to a project as serious as the Linux kernel.

That is tantamount to saying that most people from huge chunks of the Earth (where the culture militates against public criticism of people and where people will go to great lengths to avoid such criticism) are not fit to submit to "a project as serious as the Linux kernel".

There's nothing wrong with criticizing the *patches*. There's something wrong with criticizing the *person* -- and you claim above that criticizing the person is just fine. That's pretty horrendous (if you meant it, rather than being a sloppy way of phrasing "nobody will criticize your patches". Obviously if the code is crap, you should say so, but that's not the same thing. Everyone totally screws up now and again. This does not reflect on them except to prove that they are human, and attacking them for that is wrong.)

Private vs public

Posted Oct 11, 2015 19:43 UTC (Sun) by lsl (subscriber, #86508) [Link] (2 responses)

> There's nothing wrong with criticizing the *patches*. There's something wrong with criticizing the *person* -- and you claim above that criticizing the person is just fine,

I don't think criticizing a person is generally inappropriate. Sometimes the actual problem is not as much the patches but the mindset that lead to their existence. This is, I think, what Steven's saying.

If you go to great lengths to avoid it, but slip up anyway, well, that happens. The *patch* gets torn apart, you clean it up and everything's fine. But when submitters don't do their due diligence and send crap to the list where it's obvious that they didn't even bother to read the relevant docs, then that's a totally different situation. If you don't even get the most basic stuff right and send one broken patch after another, there's no point in criticizing the individual patches. Until that *person* understands that touching kernel code requires a more careful mindset, looking at the patches is just a waste of time.

So telling those submitters to stop until they change their approach to programming is not only appropriate, but desperately needed. There's more than one way to do that, of course, and no one said you're supposed to scar them for life. With a bit of empathy, you can probably do it without causing all too much pain.

Private vs public

Posted Oct 11, 2015 20:55 UTC (Sun) by neilbrown (subscriber, #359) [Link] (1 responses)

> ...where it's obvious that they didn't even bother to read the relevant docs....

It is *never* obvious what someone else has or hasn't done in private. "They didn't read the relevant docs" may be the simplest explanation that you can think of given your perspective and values.
But people are different and complex. And they change from moment to moment.

Maybe they didn't ready, maybe they read but misunderstood. Maybe they forgot. Maybe they were hasty and careless. Maybe they are having a bad day and they pushed the wrong branch.

That is why attacking the person is such a bad idea. What you are really attacking is your mental model of the person, which is probably quite different in many details to the actual person. You may know what they did publicly,. You never know for certain why. So only attach the actions (i.e the code) not the person.

> If you don't even get the most basic stuff right and send one broken patch after another, there's no point in criticizing the individual patches.

There certainly comes a point where criticizing the patches doesn't seem worth while. But that does not justify attacking the person.

"I'm sorry but I won't be reviewing your patches any more because doing so doesn't appear to help. If you stop posting patches here for at least one month I may then look at future patches you post. If they appear to address my previous review comments, then I may proceed with them"

This talks about what "I" will do, how I see the patches, and specific public actions that you may or may not perform. This is all safe territory. It does not say anything about "you" or the reasons for "your" behaviour. It just identifies the problem and outlines the rules for engagement.

> So telling those submitters to stop until they change their approach to programming

Make that "stop until their patches address the identified issues" and I'll agree with you.

Private vs public

Posted Oct 11, 2015 21:50 UTC (Sun) by neilbrown (subscriber, #359) [Link]

Just a quick addendum...
Modern technological cultures like ours claim to value science over superstition.

Science is about that which is observable and measurable.
Superstition is about whatever we suppose to be the case - untested by measurement.

I'm just suggestion that we should be scientific, not superstitious, in our responses to each other.

Sharp: Closing a door

Posted Oct 11, 2015 16:43 UTC (Sun) by rahulsundaram (subscriber, #21946) [Link]

>But there are times that people just don't get it. Pretty much every time Linus blew up and it made headlines, was due to this.

He didn't get on news for being critical but because of the way it is being expressed. Yes, he usually doesn't respond that way but the price of being a celebrity (even if you wear that hat uncomfortably) is that you have to that much more careful.

>Motivation is driven by emotion. The more passionate you are about something, the more you work at it. Fear of being yelled at can also motivate

True but studies have shown that intrinsic motivation is often more powerful compared to external pressure. If you are involved in development in a public way, you should be open to public criticism. That by itself isn't the problem. You do have to watch out for how you do it though. You can very easily drive off other contributors by doing it poorly.

Sharp: Closing a door

Posted Oct 9, 2015 17:42 UTC (Fri) by nevets (subscriber, #11875) [Link] (9 responses)

I will admit that not everyone can work in that type of environment. Sarah obviously has the talent for kernel development, but unfortunately, she is not one that can work in this environment.

There's talk about weighing "code quality" with "human wellness". I had this conversation with someone in Seattle, and at first I couldn't find a reply. Then later I was in a room where the presenter was talking about all the things that were using Linux to solve medical diseases, and such. Then it hit me. Quality of code is directly related to "human wellness". When the quality is not there, people can die. Whether directly or indirectly, Linux is used to save lives.

Try going into the medical field (several of my friends are). You think LKML is nasty? Residents are very much belittled in order for them to understand the full seriousness of their job. The more serious the project is, the harsher the environment.

The problem with Linux is that it is not a company. If someone is constantly sending in abysmal code, there's no performance review to correct that. Same goes to someone not following the standards. The only real tactic we have is to yell at someone. Otherwise you may waste days, weeks or months trying to be civil about it. As Linus always states, "in the internet, nobody can hear you being subtle".

Note, most of the time, civil conversation is all that is needed. The yelling is the exception and not the norm. Read LKML or even just Linus's emails. You'll find them mostly boring. It's only those rare occurrences that things had to escalate to set things straight again. Unfortunately news sites don't talk about the 1000's of boring "civil" emails. They only hone in on the one rant where civility didn't work.

Sharp: Closing a door

Posted Oct 11, 2015 16:41 UTC (Sun) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link] (8 responses)

But Sarah was *not* sending in absymal code, so it seems unlikely she was getting too much criticism herself. What you're saying is that if you can't cope with the stress of watching others be publically belittled (and it *is* stressful), sod off, we don't want you no matter how good a developer you are?

I have to say, any company I've ever heard of that had that policy would have been sued into the ground by now by ex-employees, and rightly so.

Sharp: Closing a door

Posted Oct 12, 2015 15:53 UTC (Mon) by ksandstr (guest, #60862) [Link] (7 responses)

>But Sarah was *not* sending in absymal code, [...]

She was, though. A "simple, trivial" patch, rejected off-hand for being obviously broken, with a comment to the effect of "did you even compile this?".

Look it up. It concerns USB3, of course.

Sharp: Closing a door

Posted Oct 12, 2015 22:34 UTC (Mon) by PaXTeam (guest, #24616) [Link] (6 responses)

> Asked for evidence, a concrete reference to the public communication by which the condemners formed their opinion, what do they answer? "Go search for it yourself."

the irony is just too rich.

Sharp: Closing a door

Posted Oct 12, 2015 22:41 UTC (Mon) by bronson (subscriber, #4806) [Link] (3 responses)

Ha, that is funny. The reference: https://lwn.net/Articles/660365/

Sharp: Closing a door

Posted Oct 12, 2015 22:42 UTC (Mon) by corbet (editor, #1) [Link] (2 responses)

Funny or not, it's looking to me like it might be about time to close the door on this discussion. I think the important stuff has been said at this point...

Sharp: Closing a door

Posted Oct 12, 2015 22:52 UTC (Mon) by dlang (guest, #313) [Link] (1 responses)

while I agree that the important stuff has probably been said, has this been open to non-subscribers? (today it would have come out of the escrow so I'm not sure)

Sharp: Closing a door

Posted Oct 12, 2015 22:59 UTC (Mon) by corbet (editor, #1) [Link]

This wasn't a feature article, so it's been open to the world since it was first posted.

Sharp: Closing a door

Posted Oct 18, 2015 11:14 UTC (Sun) by ksandstr (guest, #60862) [Link] (1 responses)

Well, you could've asked.

Sheesh.

Sharp: Closing a door

Posted Oct 18, 2015 17:45 UTC (Sun) by bronson (subscriber, #4806) [Link]

Are you reading what you're writing? Obviously that applies to you too.

Sharp: Closing a door

Posted Oct 7, 2015 15:01 UTC (Wed) by dskoll (subscriber, #1630) [Link] (38 responses)

You (and others) keep bringing up a false dichotomy. Behaving decently is not incompatible with producing an excellent kernel.

Sharp: Closing a door

Posted Oct 7, 2015 15:09 UTC (Wed) by malor (guest, #2973) [Link] (4 responses)

We're not, though, in the sense that you're explicitly prioritizing people's feelings over every other consideration.

We can all feel wonderful about ourselves, and put out a worthless project.

The code comes first. If it doesn't, there's no point to writing it. There's nothing wrong with being polite, but by your loudly stated goals, it would be best to wreck the code if that resulted in more civil behavior.

That would be an extraordinarily bad idea. Design correctness and code quality are what matter most, and developers should be as polite as possible within that constraint.

Honestly, it's probably not that severe a constraint. But the code comes first. It has to. Your stated priorities are more than a little scary.

Sharp: Closing a door

Posted Oct 7, 2015 16:50 UTC (Wed) by raven667 (subscriber, #5198) [Link]

> We can all feel wonderful about ourselves, and put out a worthless project.

You can keep repeating that to yourself louder and louder but it still isn't true, being an a**hole to people does not bring the best work from people, or attract the most competent people, what brings quality is competent people who are invested in a goal, projects with a**holes operate in spite the productivity drain, drama and distraction from the goal they cause and not because of it. It is in fact possible to be highly critical and demand quality without either being an a**hole or being crippled with an inability to give feedback due to fear of other peoples egos, it's not being an a**hole to reject a patch due to it not meeting the quality standards or pointing out the problems with a design.

> But the code comes first. It has to.

You act as if there is some absolute quantifiable rank that every other consideration is subservient to, but that is not how anything in life works, there are always multiple competing factors and trade-offs to be made between them, and every priority is only the "first" priority to a point.

Sharp: Closing a door

Posted Oct 7, 2015 18:00 UTC (Wed) by dskoll (subscriber, #1630) [Link]

No, I am not "explicitly prioritizing people's feelings over every other consideration". I cannot for the life of me see how you've read that into anything I'm saying. I did say that people are more important than code and I stand by that.

We can all feel wonderful about ourselves, and put out a worthless project.

Once again, the logical fallacy of false dichotomy. This is really getting tiresome. Using "the code must come first!" as an excuse for disgusting behavior is lame. It's simply a distraction scheme to get people to stop thinking about the pervasiveness of aggression and rudeness in some open-source development projects.

Sharp: Closing a door

Posted Oct 7, 2015 23:15 UTC (Wed) by luto (subscriber, #39314) [Link]

> The code comes first. If it doesn't, there's no point to writing it. There's nothing wrong with being polite, but by your loudly stated goals, it would be best to wreck the code if that resulted in more civil behavior.

I've reviewed plenty of code that might be, in the words of some people, excrement of some sort. This includes a lot of code that I really don't want to see in the kernel as is. If I review code that I don't want to see in the kernel, I often speak up.

Nonetheless, I've tried to do my best not to personally insult the people who write such code. Some of them are great contributors who add a lot of direct value to the community and to the code base. All of them, without exception, are human beings who ought to be entitled to better treatment than being shat on, whether on a mailing list or otherwise. [1]

It's more than possible that I've still said things that I probably shouldn't have said. Once or twice, I've typed a nasty email, but I think I've done a pretty good job of letting those nasty emails languish in my drafts folder.

So, yes, code reviewers should speak up, but speaking up does not require opining that a piece of code was written by an [insert derogatory term here] or came out of some orifice or other.

[1] There's actually a robot that sends me patches on occasion. They tend to be of remarkably high quality, and the people who feed said robot should be commended. Nonetheless, if the robot were to send me a bad patch, I would try to avoid insulting its parents.

Sharp: Closing a door

Posted Oct 8, 2015 19:04 UTC (Thu) by PaulMcKenney (✭ supporter ✭, #9624) [Link]

> The code comes first.

Instead of attempting to prioritize people against code, I suggest prioritizing groups of people against other groups of people. In the case of the Linux kernel, this might mean prioritizing the needs of the users of the code against those of the developers of that code.

This is not a simple tradeoff, and different communities are going to choose differently. For the tiny piece of the Linux kernel that I maintain, I try to meet the needs of both groups. Being human, I don't always succeed. But if someone forces me to make a choice, I must prioritize the needs of the users over those of the developers. Naturally, I expect to increasingly favor the users over the developers as the Linux kernel sees increasing usage in safety-critical systems. After all, although I don't feel good when my interactions with other developers falls short, I suspect that I would feel far worse if my code ended up killing someone.

Sharp: Closing a door

Posted Oct 7, 2015 15:10 UTC (Wed) by malor (guest, #2973) [Link] (32 responses)

Also possibly worth pointing out: you're the one banging the drum about politeness, and then calling people sociopaths in the next breath.

You may not be the best spokesperson for the issue.

Sharp: Closing a door

Posted Oct 7, 2015 16:57 UTC (Wed) by raven667 (subscriber, #5198) [Link] (1 responses)

Pointing out the truth, the comments by jack represented an anti-social worldview, is not impolite, but your comment represents a fundamental misunderstanding of what politeness means for people with conflicting ideas, politeness doesn't demand subservience to the loudest talker in a room just to avoid conflict.

Sharp: Closing a door

Posted Oct 7, 2015 17:09 UTC (Wed) by pizza (subscriber, #46) [Link]

> politeness doesn't demand subservience to the loudest talker in a room just to avoid conflict.

It may not require it, but that's the typical outcome nonetheless.

Sharp: Closing a door

Posted Oct 7, 2015 18:01 UTC (Wed) by dskoll (subscriber, #1630) [Link] (29 responses)

I very politely called someone who prioritizes his or her own selfish interests above all other considerations a sociopath/psychopath. I believe I was merely repeating the dictionary definition.

Don't try to deflect the argument, please.

Sharp: Closing a door

Posted Oct 7, 2015 22:04 UTC (Wed) by malor (guest, #2973) [Link] (28 responses)

> I very politely called someone [for reasons] a sociopath/psychopath.

Yeah, okay, whatever. I think you've just disqualified yourself from the discussion.

Sharp: Closing a door

Posted Oct 7, 2015 22:39 UTC (Wed) by bronson (subscriber, #4806) [Link] (26 responses)

Please don't bring selective edits to LWN. That's an awful way to discuss things.

Sharp: Closing a door

Posted Oct 7, 2015 23:03 UTC (Wed) by malor (guest, #2973) [Link] (25 responses)

Eliding the dependent clause to highlight the main part of the sentence seems quite reasonable to me. I suppose I could have used HTML highlighting, but the original text is right there, and it's not exactly a long comment.

The upshot is that if you're calling someone a sociopath, particularly in a thread about politeness, you are way off the reservation. And failing to back down when it's pointed out, instead doubling down on the rudeness, strikes me as a total disqualifier from this particular conversation. If you cannot recognize the behavior in yourself, you shouldn't be throwing stones at others.

It's also, perhaps, worth pointing out that the target of the sociopath comment was expressing one of the most fundamental values of the free software community: he wants to scratch his own itch.

Sharp: Closing a door

Posted Oct 8, 2015 2:00 UTC (Thu) by dskoll (subscriber, #1630) [Link] (21 responses)

The very definition of a sociopath or psychopath embraces someone who puts his or her own goals ahead of everything else and sublimates or ignores or indeed cannot even sense other people's feelings. That's what the person I was replying to was talking about.

Sharp: Closing a door

Posted Oct 8, 2015 3:17 UTC (Thu) by malor (guest, #2973) [Link]

So, in other words, it's perfectly okay to call someone a sociopath, as long as you're really sure you're right?

You do realize that your exact argument applies to most of the negative interactions that you claim to hate so fervently? You are doing precisely, exactly what you say is bad behavior, but gosh, Wally, it's okay for me, because I'm right.

That's probably what's going through the mind of everyone being insulting online.... if they're even aware it's an insult, well, it's justified, because they're correct about how terrible a coder their target is, or how awful a behavior that was, or what a pile of wreckage their ethical standards must be.

It seems to me that if you're going to try to impose a code of behavior on others, the very first step needs to be holding yourself to at least that strict a standard, and preferably one much stricter.

Sharp: Closing a door

Posted Oct 8, 2015 12:37 UTC (Thu) by fuhchee (guest, #40059) [Link] (19 responses)

"That's what the person I was replying to was talking about."

"ahead of everything else ... ignores ... cannot sense ..."
No, you're exaggerating in order to silence him with some armchair psychiatry.

Sharp: Closing a door

Posted Oct 8, 2015 13:06 UTC (Thu) by malor (guest, #2973) [Link] (18 responses)

So, it's okay to call people sociopaths when you don't agree with them?

In threads about civility??

Sharp: Closing a door

Posted Oct 8, 2015 13:09 UTC (Thu) by fuhchee (guest, #40059) [Link] (1 responses)

(Sorry, that was a misthreaded reply to dskoll.)

Sharp: Closing a door

Posted Oct 8, 2015 13:20 UTC (Thu) by malor (guest, #2973) [Link]

Ah, okay, that makes more sense.

Yeah, it's easy to get lost in the narrow indendation in LWN threads, but it makes them a lot more readable most of the time, so the occasional bit of confusion is probably worth it.

Sharp: Closing a door

Posted Oct 8, 2015 13:51 UTC (Thu) by dskoll (subscriber, #1630) [Link] (15 responses)

What I wrote was this:

Showing such disregard for people's feelings in relation to some selfish goal is something I'd expect from a sociopath or a psychopath

and I stand by it.

Next, your creative little editing of my quote was the equivalent of this:

Original: "People who murder for fun and profit are evil."

Creatively quoted: "People who [do something] are evil."

So yeah... I stand by what I said and I think you are being disingenuous.

Sharp: Closing a door

Posted Oct 8, 2015 13:59 UTC (Thu) by malor (guest, #2973) [Link] (14 responses)

Well, okay, you've tripled down on your abusive behavior, so I'll just leave it to the readers to judge.

This, folks, is the world he's championing: he gets to be abusive, because he's right, you see.... but other people don't.

Sharp: Closing a door

Posted Oct 8, 2015 15:07 UTC (Thu) by dskoll (subscriber, #1630) [Link] (12 responses)

...he gets to be abusive, because he's right, you see.... but other people don't.

She, not he.

And no, I am not being abusive. You are simply being over-sensitive. I doubt jackb really is sociopathic. I'm sure he's a really nice person in real life as are most people who get involved in online discussions.

I was merely pointing out the logical consequences of the belief that only the code matters and that everything else should be subservient to code quality.

I'm done with this particular subthread because I doubt we'll ever see each other's point of view. Have a good day.

Sharp: Closing a door

Posted Oct 8, 2015 17:14 UTC (Thu) by shmget (guest, #58347) [Link] (4 responses)

"She, not he. "

Is it relevant to the discussion at hand ?

"You are simply being over-sensitive."

Is that a joke ? If it was the other way around you would be screaming bloody-murder, denouncing a 'blaming the victim' situation.

"I doubt we'll ever see each other's point of view"
Oh but we see it, do not worry.. you seems to be impervious to the fact that your position is asymmetric.
Everything you reproach to Linus, your are doing and more.. but of course in your case it is different.. because _you_ are right!

Sharp: Closing a door

Posted Oct 8, 2015 18:01 UTC (Thu) by dskoll (subscriber, #1630) [Link] (3 responses)

Is it (she vs. he) relevant to the discussion at hand ?

Not particularly, but I do strive for accuracy.

Is that a joke ? If it was the other way around you would be screaming bloody-murder, denouncing a 'blaming the victim' situation.

Congrats; you got it. It wasn't specifically a joke, but it was a pointed comment to make malor understand a little better.

Everything you reproach to Linus,

The remarks to which malor so strenuously objected were not aimed at Linus. I was simply saying that pursuing one's selfish interest above all others' feelings is the mark of a sociopath. I don't believe Linus does this nor actually anyone else on the LKML. I was just trying to point out the logical consequence of believing that the only thing that matters is code quality. I'm attacking that idea, not any specific person. I'm sorry if that hasn't been clear during this discussion.

Sharp: Closing a door

Posted Oct 8, 2015 23:04 UTC (Thu) by shmget (guest, #58347) [Link] (2 responses)

"Not particularly, but I do strive for accuracy. "
you strive for accuracy over irrelevant details ?
Beside this is the internet, for all I know you could be one of these reviled 'ex-young-geek-now-white-middle-man', or an 80 years old grandma from Indonesia, or a teenage transgender from Cameroon. The good news is that none of it matter nor has any bearing on the validity or lack there-thereof of your argument. But it beg the question... why do you feel compelled to insist on irrelevant alleged trivia ?

"Congrats; you got it."

no, do not get me wrong. Me pointing out that you should at the very least hold yourself to the standard that you aim to impose on others, does not in any way, shape or form imply that I accept such 'standard' as valid.
I find the whole 'right not be offended' meme whereas the lowest common denominator of all readers or imagined readers is the unimpeachable standard of what is 'acceptable', idiotic and impossible to apply.. as your foray in sociopatic behavior definition illustrated pointedly.

"The remarks to which malor so strenuously objected were not aimed at Linus"
of course it was not... When I said 'everything you reproach to Linux' I was referring to your style of discourse, and the justification for it is exactly the style you reproach to Linus - albeit with a more passive-aggressive tone, and contrary to Linux you do not own-up your discourse.

I do not care if you resort to name-calling, I bet malor does not really either..
What I care about, in this instance, is the hypocrisy, the do-as-I-say-not-as-I-do attitude.... whereas Linus is not allowed to chose the tone he wants, and need to account for all sort of potentially offended peoples.. but _you_ are dispensed of such considerations.

I'll give you a US political analogy:

you can have whatever sexual lifestyle as you want, I do not care
you can preach all day long that some of these styles are a road to hell according to your favorite imaginary friend.. I do not care -- well, as long as you do not try to coerce me into sharing your delusions.
but when you do both at the same time... you will get called on it, even by people that do not care about either.

Sharp: Closing a door

Posted Oct 8, 2015 23:34 UTC (Thu) by bronson (subscriber, #4806) [Link]

Wow, I guess you get offended really easily.

> why do you feel compelled to insist on irrelevant alleged trivia?

To correct a pronoun, obviously.

Sharp: Closing a door

Posted Oct 9, 2015 12:11 UTC (Fri) by dskoll (subscriber, #1630) [Link]

why do you feel compelled to insist on irrelevant alleged trivia

OK, ma'am. I'll stop. shmget shows her focus on the topic by not caring which pronoun is used to refer to her.

Anyway, this really is going nowhere. You can't accept that I'm criticizing a philosophy, not a particular person. So we're done.

Sharp: Closing a door

Posted Oct 8, 2015 17:14 UTC (Thu) by madscientist (subscriber, #16861) [Link]

> And no, I am not being abusive. You are simply being over-sensitive.

The point malor is making (I believe) is, that's exactly the same argument being made by many of the people defending the status quo on LKML.

Sharp: Closing a door

Posted Oct 9, 2015 2:15 UTC (Fri) by malor (guest, #2973) [Link] (5 responses)

And no, I am not being abusive. You are simply being over-sensitive.

Are you even reading yourself?

I mean, you could be on LKML right now. You sound exactly like the people you profess to dislike. You're jumping up and down about protecting people's feelings, and then you post things like that.

Something seems quite amiss here. Are you trolling?

Sharp: Closing a door

Posted Oct 9, 2015 5:13 UTC (Fri) by raven667 (subscriber, #5198) [Link]

> You sound exactly like the people you profess to dislike.

Are you gaslighting or putting on a performance for the crowd of some schoolyard taunt, "I know you are but what am I", like a culture warrior behind a paper shield of false "both sides doitism". Maybe you have such cripplingly sensitive feelings as to make you incapable of engaging in an honest and open conversation about this topic, to the point where you consider dskoll's mild tone and criticisms to be abusive. I think I understand your point enough that I can't take your stated position that dskoll has abused you very seriously, it seems more likely that you in fact are trolling than the other way around.

Sharp: Closing a door

Posted Oct 9, 2015 12:13 UTC (Fri) by dskoll (subscriber, #1630) [Link]

*sigh*. I guess no-one really got my "you are over-senstive" comment. Of course I was being ironic. Sheesh.

Sharp: Closing a door

Posted Oct 9, 2015 18:30 UTC (Fri) by bronson (subscriber, #4806) [Link] (2 responses)

I will remind you that your whole argument depends on selective editing. The sentence you've been harping on for ages (in its original form, obviously) might be overly harsh, but it isn't terribly offensive. It's certainly not worth all the effort you've put in.

If you're wondering who's trolling here, well, it might be you.

Sharp: Closing a door

Posted Oct 9, 2015 20:23 UTC (Fri) by shmget (guest, #58347) [Link] (1 responses)

"The sentence you've been harping on for ages (in its original form, obviously) might be overly harsh, but it isn't terribly offensive."

But the argument of dskull and few others is that you or anyone else is not allowed to determine _what_ is offensive.. if you do, you are accused of 'blaming the victim'. In their world, whomever complain is de facto right to complain, the complain is, ipso facto, proof positive that there _is_ a 'problem'... denying the premises make you part of _the_ problem and not part of _the_ solution (to the alleged problem)... and of course they have 'the solution' ready. And dare you not challenge it you sexist-middle-age-white-chauvinistic-privileged-sociopathic-pig....

Sharp: Closing a door

Posted Oct 9, 2015 21:02 UTC (Fri) by bronson (subscriber, #4806) [Link]

Please show me an actual person offended by dskoll's actual statement?

Gotta say, this has turned into a weird conversation. I disliked her statement, but I also dislike how you two have boiled up a sea of hypotheticals and implications around it. I don't get it. Probably time for me to tune out.

Sharp: Closing a door

Posted Oct 8, 2015 17:18 UTC (Thu) by raven667 (subscriber, #5198) [Link]

I don't see how this can be considered abusive, unless you consider any challenge to your ideas to be abuse. If you want to be in an environment where no one ever questions your thoughts then maybe LWN isn't the place you want to be?

Sharp: Closing a door

Posted Oct 8, 2015 2:02 UTC (Thu) by dskoll (subscriber, #1630) [Link] (2 responses)

he wants to scratch his own itch

What? No. He wants others to scratch his itch for him, no matter how badly they're treated. You are completely taking things out of context. Please go back and read the article that elicited my initial response.

Sharp: Closing a door

Posted Oct 8, 2015 3:27 UTC (Thu) by malor (guest, #2973) [Link] (1 responses)

>What? No. He wants others to scratch his itch for him, no matter how badly they're treated. You are completely taking things out of context. Please go back and read the article that elicited my initial response.

Well, the specific quote that you pulled out, and called him a sociopath for, was this:

>If you're unable or unwilling to do this, then you'll have to work on achieving your preferences without my help, and possibly while I am helping people who are trying to achieve an opposite preference because they did make a convincing case.

What he's saying is this: he wants good quality code. That's his itch. If you convince him that your approach results in better code, he'll lend whatever help he has to offer. (he will help you scratch your itch because it helps him scratch his.) If someone else convinces him that their approach will produce better code, he'll help that person. (he'll scratch their itch because it helps him scratch his.)

This is one of the most fundamental parts of open source. People see a problem and want to solve it, and team up with other people who want to achieve similar goals. If he's a sociopath, then most of open source is, as well.

As far as I can see, not only are you way out of bounds on polite behavior, but also incorrect in your accusation. All he's saying is: "I want a good product. I'll support whoever convinces me their approach does that better."

And instead of trying to convince him, which is what he's asking you to do, you call him a sociopath.

In a thread about toxic behavior, no less.

Sharp: Closing a door

Posted Oct 9, 2015 16:58 UTC (Fri) by mathstuf (subscriber, #69389) [Link]

> And instead of trying to convince him, which is what he's asking you to do, you call him a sociopath.

OK, so did I miss something? He was never called a sociopath. This seems to be the quote this whole thread spawned from:

> Showing such disregard for people's feelings in relation to some selfish goal is something I'd expect from a sociopath or a psychopath.

There's nothing here about a *person* being a sociopath, but *behaviors* being sociopathic in nature. One may have behaviors which indicate all kinds of mental afflictions or other problems without actually having the problem itself (e.g., nervous ticks can be *indicators* of OCD, but are not a diagnosis[1]).

Is there some other comment I missed here?

[1]Actual OCD can be *debilitating* whereas what is called OCD in common terms is usually nothing of the sort. Dislike of light switches not being "all the same way" is not the same as severe anxiety attacks about them not having been turned off "right" while you're out shopping.

Sharp: Closing a door

Posted Oct 9, 2015 17:10 UTC (Fri) by Wol (subscriber, #4433) [Link]

> > I very politely called someone [for reasons] a sociopath/psychopath.

> Yeah, okay, whatever. I think you've just disqualified yourself from the discussion.

Excluding someone for telling a truth (however unpleasant) rather disqualifies the discussion from having a point, don't you think?

There are polite and nasty ways of saying things, but I think dskoll was putting it politely. And if you can't accept unpleasant facts, politely put, then you shouldn't be discussing that sort of thing ...

Cheers,
Wol