Ah yes. I wonder if an OSS project should set forth a time budget in some way? Hard to “enforce” though. And goes counter to wanting contributors to feel free to contribute on their terms.
The best I’ve seen is have additional contributors (often who just like the project but aren’t coders themselves) who run interference for the dev team. They can triage feature requests, filter out the spam and repeat issues, etc.
Also, and this can be the hard part, is sometimes you have to have someone who (even politely!) can be a bit of a dick when necessary. People scan be quite entitled and want to boss everyone around and tell them the project is run wrong - if you don’t actively run at least some of them off the devs will curl up and disappear.
Also having a defined procedure for “hiatus” helps quite a bit - make it easy for a dev to say “I’m off” and it can be indeterminate - this allows them to easily come back later. Encourage devs to use it liberally.
> People scan be quite entitled and want to boss everyone around and tell them the project is run wrong - if you don’t actively run at least some of them off the devs will curl up and disappear.
As an Eastern European I always found fascinating how many Westerners are struggling hard with this. To me and many of my peers (and apparently to Linus Torvalds and a good chunk of the entire Nordic culture, probably?) it's the easiest thing in the world to say something like:
"Listen up dickhead, I do this in my free time. If you don't like the direction of the project or the urgency with which your issues are [not] being addressed, you are free to not use it, and it also costs you nothing to not comment at all. I got better things to do than to reply to entitled cunts, now piss off."
It's very amusing what a huge drama many Westerners make out of just... being direct. Honest. Straight to the point.
"But he won't ever contribute and he might infect others with the opinion that the project leaderships is toxic!"
OK. That's a price I am willing to pay. My mental health > the second-hand opinion of people who were only 0.1% likely to contribute anyway. The math is very easy yet so many Westerners struggle so much with these [to me and many] mega obvious solutions, like "be a bit of a dick when necessary".
This is really very similar to the discussions I had with a lot of women long time ago. It goes like this: they tell me:
"I have to go tell X and Y about event A because otherwise Z will tell them lies and they'll think something wrong about me."
To which I reply with a cold expression: "Then you don't need X and Y in your life, if they can be so easily influenced by lies and won't even ask you about what truly happened."
Their expressions were priceless. The cognitive dissonance can hit us all VERY hard.
Back to the topic at hand, yes, I firmly believe all open-contribution projects need a Linus type of person. It's also a fact that many devs are introverted and can be chased away by entitled and insolent loud people. So somebody must put a shield in front of the devs.
I did not, but I have my doubts as to whether he was made to do it or if he truly meant it. I tend to believe in the former because it's always accompanied by "stepping back for a while" and "get help on how to behave better". Seems like a standard procedure after somebody manages to overpower you (in whatever hierarchy they have there).
Were cursing and expletives necessary? Absolutely no. They don't drive any point forward.
But: is showing people the door when they are entitled or unprofessional necessary? Very, very much yes.
Feel free to read into the article as your beliefs incline you to. I've known many people like Linus and they don't get "change of hearts". They simply get sick and tired of being misunderstood and just remove themselves from the situations that cause it.
There's more to the Linus-style jerk phenomenon than just telling entitled people to piss off (I would be reluctant to call that being a jerk if that's all it was). See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33058906 for an example thread and associated comments. If you're just ranting or passing off subjective POVs as truth and obvious and those disagreeing with you as doing so out of incompetence or malfeasance, that isn't being direct, honest, or straight to the point. It's being a dick.
I've seen brilliant colleagues for whom I have the utmost technical admiration completely fail to improve bad designs implemented by others, because the brilliant person was so dickish about how they communicated to others.
> And the reality is that there are no absolute guarantees. Ever. The "Rust is safe" is not some kind of absolute guarantee of code safety. Never has been. Anybody who believes that should probably re-take their kindergarten year, and stop believing in the Easter bunny and Santa Claus.
It's an exaggeration. Means that he disagrees with people who blindly repeat something that, on the level Linus operates, is objectively not true.
I have no context on the broader discussion but it seems both sides haven't equalized the plane on which they discuss. In that context I'll agree Linus was a dick.
But, consider what was said upthread: many high-profile open source contributors hear the same crap every day. No matter how gracious you start off, you'll start rolling your eyes and ultimately resort to sarcasm. And some go even further: start insulting. Ask anyone who works in retail.
So again, to me Linus' statement basically uses an exaggeration to illustrate a point: "Stop repeating something as if it's unequivocally true. It's true only in your context (userland application development). It's not true in kernel context."
That people get offended by that says more about them than about Linus.
Finally, I'll agree it can and should be toned down. Not disputing that. But it's also not so difficult to extract out the true point in such a rant and move on.
We probably won't get much further going back and forth on this. For what it's worth, you seem very reasonable, I've appreciated your comments for a long time, and I'm sure we'd get along fine if we were to work together.
I think you could let Linus off the hook by trying to find the kernel of truth as you suggest, and that seems to be the way key Rust team members work. There's been plenty of needless rancor in HN comments about Rust and you can see people like @pcwalton just not engage with the emotional content while still continuing to engage with the technical points. I'm personally impressed by this, but wouldn't be surprised if it contributed to the burnout.
Should we all aspire to be like that? Doing so seems like the human communication equivalent of Postel's Robustness Principle, which sounds great but in practice leads to shitty implementations getting away with being shitty because of the "robustness" on the other side. Maybe the better play here, especially with asynchronous communication, is to expect people come back to their message draft when they are not so pissed/emotionally triggered and then snip out tangential emotional crap. Especially the ragey condescending stuff.
> I'm personally impressed by this, but wouldn't be surprised if it contributed to the burnout.
I think that people who contribute to languages are of a certain psychological type. They are generous, nice, kind, they want to contribute and are not interested in the social and people drama. They are a special breed of people whom I admire.
At the same time, and as you point out, that makes them more vulnerable to burnout because the social / people drama always creeps in, and they seem less well equipped to deal with it (though I've known of very impressive exceptions).
Personally I found out that bottling up negative emotions is futile; they inevitably erupt and the longer you have bottled them up, the more violent the explosion and the worse the ramifications for your mental health.
That's my main reason for not mincing words anymore. I prioritize my mental health. I am OK if that means I part ways with people and companies. I was a victim of FOMO for most of my conscious life; I want to live my remaining years being more at peace.
> Maybe the better play here, especially with asynchronous communication, is to expect people come back to their message draft when they are not so pissed/emotionally triggered and then snip out tangential emotional crap.
Obviously that's best but I can bet each and every one of us has been in a situation where they knew they had to do that and still didn't. :D Myself included, not proud of some of my comments on HN during Corona time...
But expecting most people to be like that? Super tall order, turns out. :(
--
> We probably won't get much further going back and forth on this.
Likely not, but I am grateful that you entertained it as much as you did. :)
> For what it's worth, you seem very reasonable, I've appreciated your comments for a long time, and I'm sure we'd get along fine if we were to work together.
That's an extremely surprising and very warm message that I couldn't predict if I lived for 1000 years. Thank you! Still very surprised and your message is definitely the highlight of my day now.
> "Westerners are struggling hard with this [...] it's the easiest thing in the world"
But why pride yourself on taking the easy way out?
It isn't being honest and direct and straight to the point, it's a power move being deliberately rude/offensive/cruel hiding behind "just being honest and direct". Which only works as long as you have the power behind the powerslam putdown (in a personal project you do) and can deal with the consequences of cutting people off (which you say you are willing to). For everyone who doesn't have that power, and needs to work with others, it's not an option. Compare a physically large man saying "I find it funny that people don't just stare others down and threaten them like I do" and thinking that will work for everyone in every situation.
If that's your project selection criteria - "don't be thin skinned, man up, grow a pair!" - it's not-meritocratic; like a selection based on wealth or social class or accent or nationality isn't. If you want X and Y's skills (public project) or contacts or signoff (professional work) then you will have to face their susceptibility to Z's manipulations and deal with it. If you need help to do more work than you can do alone, you will have to work with other people's issues. "If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go a long way, go together".
> To which I reply with a cold expression:
> Their expressions were priceless.
That story shape is a perfect fit for "everybody clapped" meme, you feel superior to the stupid women who didn't even think of this power move, and wait for your applause. Were their priceless expressions "you solved my problem, my hero!" or were they "you have no clue that my life is different to yours and with no attempt to empathise or understand, you expect the first thing you thought of will solve my problems and want me to be impressed?" Women generally have less power in society, in companies, far less physical intimidation, less respect, fewer options, and need to depend more on social networks and support and building consensus to get along in life or get things done. Cutting off the network and getting a reputation as difficult to be friends/work with risks a lot more for women than it does for you.
That "I'm colder, more vicious, than you so I win. Empathy and emotions are weakness." is so ... last season.
> "It's also a fact that many devs are introverted and can be chased away by entitled and insolent loud people. So somebody must put a shield in front of the devs."
It isn't a shield, it's a counter-offensive. Many devs don't want their workplace turned into a battlezone by people trying to shout the loudest. Again, fine for your personal project, but having a shouty vicious bouncer is turning away the porentially useful contributions of unknown people who don't want to fight their way into that kind of workplace. Consider @dang here at HN doesn't take the easy way out of shouting people down, swearing at them, putting them in their place; instead he patiently links the HN rules and politely explains what he's doing and why (your account is doing A, against the rules here, will be banned in this time, please do this or that specific thing), over and over and over.
Trying to build a community of disparate people is much harder than being a dictator who can tell disagreeable people to piss off. Is it any wonder people who are trying to do that, are struggling with it?
> But why pride yourself on taking the easy way out?
Meaningless question. I can prove that to you by turning it around: why choose a harder path? What is to gain? You only lose mental health. Having to grind my teeth and not telling someone they're being an arse is bad for me.
> It isn't being honest and direct and straight to the point, it's a power move being deliberately rude/offensive/cruel hiding behind "just being honest and direct".
No. That's your interpretation because you are offended. I am in "the Linus camp" and knew many others like me and him and I am telling you that this absolutely is about cutting to the chase and solving the problem at hand on the spot.
I have no motive to lie to you or anybody, nor any face to save.
If you don't believe me and keep arguing that it's "a power move" then you're arguing with fictional people and not the real ones standing in front of you. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
> For everyone who doesn't have that power, and needs to work with others, it's not an option.
Obviously yes, what's your point here? I don't get angry at work (where I don't have the power to tell people off) which is a double win. I got stuff to do, sometimes others get in the way, sometimes I make bad calls. Oh well, I made my peace with the fact that things can't happen as quickly as I want them to. And it's not even about "thick skin", it's more "giving up on perfectionism".
> If that's your project selection criteria - "don't be thin skinned, man up, grow a pair!" - it's not-meritocratic; like a selection based on wealth or social class or accent or nationality isn't.
The hell are you even talking about, and even bringing class / accent / nationality to the picture? It seems you just wanted to get stuff off of your chest and I was a convenient target. You're not even talking to me, again, you are talking to some fictional guy who does not exist.
> That story shape is a perfect fit for "everybody clapped" meme, you feel superior to the stupid women who didn't even think of this power move, and wait for your applause.
Your snark does not change the undeniable fact that I gave them advice that would have helped them with their mental health. Whether they accept it or not is on them. Those who didn't accept it also taught me a good lesson: to mind my own business and only give advice if I am asked to. It was a valuable life lesson that I am utilizing often (though definitely not always).
And yes, some people were mind blown... though they did not clap. :D You got one thing right at least.
> Cutting off the network and getting a reputation as difficult to be friends/work with risks a lot more for women than it does for you.
Context matters a lot here. I was talking about completely optional interactions where zero work / money / influence was involved. They were "buddies" for 10+ years and their main goal was to basically outdo each other. Extremely toxic and I pointed that out to them. Some of them listened and said it felt very liberating to just stop. The rest I was not interested in communicating further with because they had a tendency to bring the same drama to our extremely casual communications, which naturally led to them fading away with time.
> That "I'm colder, more vicious, than you so I win. Empathy and emotions are weakness." is so ... last season.
For the third time: you are not even talking about me. I am not cold at all, I simply learned to pick my battles. Seriously no idea what made you explode with so many assumptions, it must be somebody in your past and I probably reminded you of them. You should probably go talk to them though, not me.
> Again, fine for your personal project, but having a shouty vicious bouncer is turning away the porentially useful contributions of unknown people who don't want to fight their way into that kind of workplace.
Nowhere did I even implied I want a "bouncer" or that he/she must be "shouty". Stop projecting (4th time now).
Also that phrase of yours reeks of FOMO. I am sick and tired of being a victim of FOMO. Somebody doesn't like that I called them out for being entitled and spamming my OSS project's issue tracker and as a result they go away and won't contribute anything ever? Cool! Win for everyone.
You conflate a very classic case of "fear of missing out" with "showing rude a-holes the door".
> Consider @dang here at HN doesn't take the easy way out of shouting people down
I have considered him and other moderators a long time ago and found that I don't have what it takes to be a moderator, I don't want to have it and I am very fine with that. I am impressed by people who manage to keep the peace without alienating anyone except the biggest detractors but this is a non-goal for me, especially in the open-source contributing scene. I don't moderate forums and don't want to, and I'd be terrible at it. Again, I pick my battles.
> Trying to build a community of disparate people is much harder than being a dictator who can tell disagreeable people to piss off.
Another non-goal for me. When I start doing more open-source I'll be looking for people who contribute astute observations ("You made mistake X in file Y") or code. If somebody politely asks "is this feature on the roadmap?" I'll also politely say "yes but it's a low priority for me, what's your use-case?" and we can continue the interaction from there.
But, somebody doing a drive-by saying "I tried your project and it couldn't do X, your project sucks lol" then I have zero qualms blocking them and removing whatever they posted.
Did they have the worst day this year? I don't care. I had days after which I wondered if I even want to continue living, and nobody around me was none the wiser. They only saw a very tired guy who wasn't chatty, nothing else.
I can protect people from my bad moods and bad days. I expect all people I interact with to do the same. And I am very fine with cutting off those that can't do it.
---
No idea why you fixated on me as some sort of an enemy but you have aimed wrongly. Severely so.
What I was saying is that I don't feel the need to smile politely at a-holes and use a soft language. And I don't. The rest is a plethora of projections from your side.
That's one side of the coin. The other side is: if you are Linus, you have heard the same dumb questions or obviously wrong assertions, thousands of times. It's absolutely normal to start telling people to go RTFM and stop talking without thinking things through and without doing the proper due diligence. Ask anyone working in retail.
> "Nowhere did I even implied I want a "bouncer" or that he/she must be "shouty". Stop projecting (4th time now)."
You gave an example of calling someone a dickhead and telling them to piss off, then said "I firmly believe all open-contribution projects need a Linus type of person", someone who will "be a bit of a dick when necessary"; if that isn't describing a "bouncer" role ... what is?
I'm not against showing people the door, I'm against the needlessly provocative and rude Linus style of doing that. You say "Meaningless question. I can prove that to you by turning it around: why choose a harder path? What is to gain?" then you say "I can protect people from my bad moods and bad days. I expect all people I interact with to do the same" - so I can ask the same question back - why choose the harder path when doing that? What is to gain? Obviously you can see it when it suits you, the intangibles of higher standards, trying to build something which is better than dog-eat-dog, might-makes-right, rudest-wins, flamewars everywhere world.
> "No idea why you fixated on me as some sort of an enemy but you have aimed wrongly. Severely so."
As I said repeatedly, you can run your personal project however you like, but you are here in a Rust discussion arguing that Rust shouldn't have problems of coordinating with people because you find it easy to swear at people and get rid of them, and all projects should be run like that. I am arguing against that.
> "The hell are you even talking about, and even bringing class / accent / nationality to the picture? It seems you just wanted to get stuff off of your chest and I was a convenient target. You're not even talking to me, again, you are talking to some fictional guy who does not exist."
I'm talking about the programmy world culture of "piss off dickhead, RTFM noob, I can say that because Linus did!" which permeates too much software development world. It's mistakes of correlation and causation thinking "Linus is clever and that excuses his bad behaviours, I'm clever so that excuses me behaving the same way" or "If Linus is successful and rude, if I'm rude I will be successful" or "If he can get away with it, I should be able to". Those patterns drive a kind of filter which is not meaningfully different from any other filter based on or only "the right people" can be involved - race, class, wealth, etc. being the traditional ones, and rude/smart/technical male being the common one in this scope.
Encouraging projects to be run that way, saying all projects should have someone being rude to people, is objectionable for similar reasons that the others are objectionable.
> "You conflate a very classic case of "fear of missing out" with "showing rude a-holes the door"."
And you conflate a case of "showing rude people the door" with "here's a place I can abuse people and get away with it, which is a good thing". This is showing a rude person the door without invoking flamewars (@dang): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39037519
I'm not saying you have to behave like dang, I'm saying nobody is going to be quoting dang's epic flame putdown win over THIS asshole like people do with Linus' newsgroup posts, and that's a good thing.
> if that isn't describing a "bouncer" role ... what is?
I still wouldn't call it a bouncer; I'd call it a moderator who is not afraid to tell people off.
> I'm not against showing people the door, I'm against the needlessly provocative and rude Linus style of doing that.
If you read my other sibling comments you'll see that I partially agree. To me swearing is unnecessary; if somebody is crossing lines I'll just try and quickly chase them away. I guess for others cursing is one vehicle through which to achieve that.
> As I said repeatedly, you can run your personal project however you like, but you are here in a Rust discussion arguing that Rust shouldn't have problems of coordinating with people because you find it easy to swear at people and get rid of them, and all projects should be run like that.
I see where the disconnect lies now. I haven't argued about how should the Rust project be ran at all. I got off on a tangent that was borne out of my disdain for the "being too nice" thing I am noticing in many Westerners. As a former bullied kid I understand better than many that never retaliating even a little encourages bullies. So in my eyes not showing some teeth just furthers the having a-holes problem.
> I'm talking about the programmy world culture of "piss off dickhead, RTFM noob, I can say that because Linus did!" which permeates too much software development world.
An assumption on your part is that I am imitating / emulating Linus. I don't. I simply understand what it is to have to read and listen to the same BS every day which is taking away from your time, energy and motivation to do what you truly love (in his case: kernel development).
If Linus did not exist I'd be 100% the same person in open-source contribution discussions.
> Those patterns drive a kind of filter...
Yes and that's a good thing. I don't subscribe under the "inclusivity at all costs" ideology. Are you?
> Encouraging projects to be run that way, saying all projects should have someone being rude to people, is objectionable for similar reasons that the others are objectionable.
Why are you so polarizing? I didn't "encourage" any project be run this way. Blindly doing stuff always, no matter the circumstances, is a bad idea regardless on which end of the spectrum you are. I preach for people on the receiving end of toxic (or stupid) posts to NOT shrivel away and strike back whenever necessary.
> I'm not saying you have to behave like dang
Are you not really? I already addressed this. I don't aim to be like him and I already said that I admire people like him. At the same time, I know that having to bottle up certain reactions is destroying my mental health so I simply don't put myself in situations where I have to do it. But I also have plans to start open-sourcing things. And there I know for a fact that I'll just be super cold (not emotional, and won't curse) but would still quickly stop any toxic discourse.
--
Is that the best policy for high-profile stuff like Rust? I can't say. I have witnessed language maintainers engaging in forums and I noticed how some people were EXTREMELY sensitive even to the mildest of "no" answers, very quickly escalating them to "you don't care and your community is full of a-holes" which made me facepalm hard.
I understand they don't want the bad PR. I get that. But I would never want to be in that position. So when I start my open-source projects I'll be like "OK, if you feel that I don't care and I am an a-hole, there's nothing I can do about that. Have a nice life." and will block the person if they keep escalating.
Even if that gives me bad reputation, I absolutely don't care. I get how language maintainers don't want such bad reputation but again and again, I think they overdo do the "be passively polite to the point of being taken for a doormat" behavior.
I ain't telling anyone how to run their projects. But I do have the right to think they're wrong in certain aspects.
