Well, presumably a job well done is the primary motivation, or perhaps the recognition of your peers. It is only when you have previously achieved importance and are now in a position to have face to lose; here is where shame can come into play.
Constructive criticism is helpful and should always be the first stop on the train. But if you should already know better, or that ground has already been well-trodden, then it just sounds patronizing. This is where being told to shape the fuck up is the kind of message I would expect to receive.
What would be even worse is being ignored or shunned.
This debate exists on a spectrum of gray areas, but I'm pretty sure "you should be retroactively aborted" crosses the line from "shaking someone's cage" to "flagrantly excessive verbal abuse", if for no other reason than it equate's the target's worth as a human being with their skill as a developer, which is obviously not a healthy viewpoint.
I'm a big believer in 'spectrum of gray areas'. This particular quote from Linus is particularly bad.
What I want to firmly point out is the general community's level of acceptance of verbally abusive language.
There could be a debate about what constitutes verbal abuse, on a case by case basis. And that would turn into a mess.
What I'd love to see is the community acknowledge that using and even encouraging such language is bad for everybody, and it's bad for the open source movement, big time.
I agree with you. The problem I'm seeing in this thread relates to this point:
> There could be a debate about what constitutes verbal abuse, on a case by case basis. And that would turn into a mess.
Right now, a lot of people simply do not make the distinction between verbal abuse and direct language. In other words, they are arguing that we should not bother discouraging verbal abuse because it "shouldn't" affect targets any more adversely than direct but non-abusive language.
I guess it's a debate one can approach from many angles. But maybe you're right, perhaps focusing on highlighting why one thing constitutes verbal abuse and others don't is too semantic of an argument, and it's more productive to focus on the fact that just because one person has never been truly bothered by verbal abuse doesn't mean that should be the universal expectation.
Universal expectation? It seems you two are railing against a straw man. Abusive behavior, even on the LKML, even by Linus, is rare. If you feel as strongly as you seem to, please subscribe, form a first-hand opinion, and maybe contribute to positive change. (I contributed around 2001-2003 and really enjoyed it; I don't subscribe now).
Too many misunderstandings have been caused by well-meaning people reading too much into cherry-picked HN comments.
Hm. Because these comments are WAY off topic and have now drowned out the article and any rational discussion, I won't comment any further. Diederich, I hope you'll show more restraint with the Reply button.
The problem isn't that it's too abundant. The problem is that people make excuses for it every time it happens, instead of just saying, "Yeah, that was really verbally abusive."
I'm not trying to be pedantic here but, despite your quote marks, Linus never said that.
My interpretation of that email chain reads: anyone who is stupid enough to continue reading byte-by-byte after being told that it's a bad idea should be retroactively aborted.
The implied subject makes a big difference. (I still think it's over the line but I understand that everyone makes mistakes in the heat of the moment)
WRT what specifically Linus did and didn't say, that's a fair reading.
And everybody, myself included, says things out of frustration, in the heat of the moment. That's not what I'm talking about here.
I'm talking about how many (most?) open source technical communities are very much ok with language that is abusive. Indeed, many take pride in that fact.
When I say something that's inappropriate, I'll make a point of retracting it later on when I'm calm.
Genuine question: Did you read the article? I feel like the author's main point is that there seems to be a higher abundance of toxic interactions in Open Source than other communities.
> Genuine question: Did you read the article? I feel like the author's main point is that there seems to be a higher abundance of toxic interactions in Open Source than other communities.
I'm not the same person you responded to, but regardless I'd argue that there probably isn't much more toxic interactions in open-source then there is in any other communities. People tend to fight and get angry over stuff they care about, that happens everywhere. The thing with open-source is that all of those communications are open, and thus it's much easier to see.
The thing is though, how many times do you think anybody on here has actually looked at the Linux Kernel mailing list for a reason other then a post on here about Linus getting angry? I'd wager not many. Everybody loves to see a good fight, but it's rare to see someone being helpful and nice highlighted. I've only seen one post on HN highlighting Linus being nice and helpful, even though that's the bulk of the posts he makes, and I see one every time he gets angry. For example, looking at some ones he sent yesterday, I'm seeing this (https://lkml.org/lkml/2014/10/5/96), this (https://lkml.org/lkml/2014/10/5/112), and this (https://lkml.org/lkml/2014/10/5/107), all of which are generally nice and well mannered questions, and explanations of things people may need to do differently.
I don't think the Open Source community is nearly as toxic as people make it out to be.
It is trying to refactor Vim and update it. If those sources are all too "hand-wavey", here's the consolidated feed for the development in the last months: http://neovim.org/news/archive/
If you know that Buy It Now disappears as soon as someone bids, then you're more likely to Buy It Now because if you don't Buy It Now, you can't buy it later; you can only bid on it later, and then you might not get it. So if you want it, eBay wants you to Buy It Now.
Don't make critical purchases from random people on the Internet? We should never blame the victim, nevertheless everyone should be thaught a basic level of "Internet street smarts".
