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Not impressed. I'm pretty sure being an asshole is more frequently harmful than helpful. I myself have been one from time to time and I understand the motivatio

Not impressed. I'm pretty sure being an asshole is more frequently harmful than helpful. I myself have been one from time to time and I understand the motivation to paint it as a strength. It's not. Even pretending that, "We need a few like me to protect all the nice ones," is specious. We must resist attempts to justify our bad behavior with pseudo-reasoning.

cwan 17y ago
I do think he makes a good point though that "Your patient, non-bastard supporters are the lifeblood of your community" and these are the people who have to be protected. Whether his approach is the right one is arguably questionable.
- houseabsolute 17y ago
  Sure, but it's hardly novel: "productive, peaceful people make a good community." Can't argue with that.
- mst 17y ago
  It is extremely questionable. However, on the occasions I stopped doing what I do (usually because I felt that I was starting to burn out and be too much of an asshole even for my own tastes) nothing anybody else did helped very much and eventually I got asked to come back by a number of the nice people because the standard of behaviour was sliding and they weren't being listened to because they were, well, being too nice. So I can't claim my approach is right, only that it works and that in the absence of somebody finding a better one I'll continue to follow it - and I'm reasonably comfortable that in this case the ends -do- justify the means, at least according to my own moral calculus.
mst 17y ago
If you find what I'm saying specious and pseudo-reasoning. perhaps you could outline specifically which arguments you find unconvincing and why; I'm aware that what I have here is very much a working hypothesis backed up only by anecdata, but I thought it was a reasonably consistent hypothesis and any holes you can poke in it would be very welcome.
- jrockway 17y ago
  YOU USED ALL CAPS, DUMBASS!!!! ;)
- houseabsolute 17y ago
  Thanks for replying. I'm not really an IRC person, but I find that the best online communities are ones in which real names and adherence to real life social norms are encouraged. You're a rare person if you would say what you did to the newbie in your example in real life. Personally, I feel it would be just as good if the conversation went this way: newbie: I'm trying to parse out the td tags in this HTML and I can't get the regexp right expert: Please don't parse HTML with regexps - try HTML::TableExtract. newbie: my regexp is /<td>(.*)</ but it doesn't work mst: newbie: You can't use regexps to parse HTML. Look at this module: ... Now we've answered you twice. If you ask again, you'll be muted for a few minutes. Continued persistence on the part of the newbie should be met the same way you would in real life. Tell him if he keeps bothering you, you'll uninvite him from your club, and then follow through. The community's purpose is not to educate outsiders who don't wish to receive an education, but for the enrichment of people who will participate as equals. Establishing a norm of unpleasantness, even on the periphery, for the sake of a dubious chance at helping out is not a tradeoff I'd make.
  - mst 17y ago
    The next line in that conversation is: newbie: WTF. But I just wanted help with my regexp! Quit being a nazi! You have no right to ban me I'm just trying to ask a question! or them quitting immediately. Or at least, it has usually been one of the two in my experience. But I'm not going to claim that means the technique doesn't work; just that it hasn't, for me, so far. I should probably experiment more with it but I suspect it will, oddly, come across far more heavy handed than a bout of profanity.
    - dagw 17y ago
      if you took a few seconds to explain why regexp is the wrong solution rather than just saying "don't use it", I'm sure the user would not only leave a lot more enlightened, but would also stop asking the same question.
jrockway 17y ago
I have seen mst in action, and his techniques are pretty effective. I think I have had just as much luck with newbies by being nice, however... but perhaps not. (My reaction upon being yelled at would be to leave, but this is not the behavior I observe in other people. mst has quite a few fans that started off as "victims" of the techniques he describes in the artice.)
- houseabsolute 17y ago
  I'm glad that this technique worked for a few people that are now friends with mst, but I think an even better outcome might have been achieved with a gentler approach. Naturally, how mst goes about his business is his own affair, but I think it's worth having the opposing viewpoint especially in an article like this.
  - jrockway 17y ago
    The thing is, the people he yells at tend to stick around. There is not some tiny in-group of mst fans. To be fair, though, you can only have so many msts in a community. When the other people are nice, a dialog like: newbie: I'm dumb and can't read, do my work for me mst: PASTE YOUR CODE IDIOT!! nicer_person: newbie: good idea... although to be fair, there isn't much to read on this subject often emerges. Now newbie has a friend in nicer_person; someone who probably wouldn't have said anything if mst hadn't yelled at the newbie.
mock 17y ago
While I agree that being an asshole is more frequently harmful than helpful, I don't think the behaviour in question here is actually assholic in nature. Every community needs to have a way of enforcing community values or that community will dissolve. That enforcement can be a police officer, a drill sergeant, a moderator, or just a loud mouthed member of the community that expresses the group's scorn for the behaviour in question. What is important is that everyone who witnesses the policeman deliver a lecture to delinquent teens, the sergeant chew out a new recruit, the moderator remove a troll or flamebait, or the loud mouth deliver an invective laced screed to the newbie who just doesn't get it, gets the message that "certain behaviours aren't tolerated here" and by extension, other (more polite) behaviours are. When the policeman gives you the nod on the street corner on your way to work, when the sergeant says, "Nice work", when the moderator uses something you wrote as an example of what a good post looks like, or when the community loudmouth bastard says "SHUT UP AND PAY ATTENTION TO HIM" and you realize he's talking about you - that's the point when you realize you're part of the community.
- mst 17y ago
  Exactly!

cwan 17y ago

I do think he makes a good point though that "Your patient, non-bastard supporters are the lifeblood of your community" and these are the people who have to be protected. Whether his approach is the right one is arguably questionable.

houseabsolute 17y ago
Sure, but it's hardly novel: "productive, peaceful people make a good community." Can't argue with that.
mst 17y ago
It is extremely questionable. However, on the occasions I stopped doing what I do (usually because I felt that I was starting to burn out and be too much of an asshole even for my own tastes) nothing anybody else did helped very much and eventually I got asked to come back by a number of the nice people because the standard of behaviour was sliding and they weren't being listened to because they were, well, being too nice. So I can't claim my approach is right, only that it works and that in the absence of somebody finding a better one I'll continue to follow it - and I'm reasonably comfortable that in this case the ends -do- justify the means, at least according to my own moral calculus.

mst 17y ago

If you find what I'm saying specious and pseudo-reasoning. perhaps you could outline specifically which arguments you find unconvincing and why; I'm aware that what I have here is very much a working hypothesis backed up only by anecdata, but I thought it was a reasonably consistent hypothesis and any holes you can poke in it would be very welcome.

jrockway 17y ago
YOU USED ALL CAPS, DUMBASS!!!! ;)
houseabsolute 17y ago
Thanks for replying. I'm not really an IRC person, but I find that the best online communities are ones in which real names and adherence to real life social norms are encouraged. You're a rare person if you would say what you did to the newbie in your example in real life. Personally, I feel it would be just as good if the conversation went this way: newbie: I'm trying to parse out the td tags in this HTML and I can't get the regexp right expert: Please don't parse HTML with regexps - try HTML::TableExtract. newbie: my regexp is /<td>(.*)</ but it doesn't work mst: newbie: You can't use regexps to parse HTML. Look at this module: ... Now we've answered you twice. If you ask again, you'll be muted for a few minutes. Continued persistence on the part of the newbie should be met the same way you would in real life. Tell him if he keeps bothering you, you'll uninvite him from your club, and then follow through. The community's purpose is not to educate outsiders who don't wish to receive an education, but for the enrichment of people who will participate as equals. Establishing a norm of unpleasantness, even on the periphery, for the sake of a dubious chance at helping out is not a tradeoff I'd make.
- mst 17y ago
  The next line in that conversation is: newbie: WTF. But I just wanted help with my regexp! Quit being a nazi! You have no right to ban me I'm just trying to ask a question! or them quitting immediately. Or at least, it has usually been one of the two in my experience. But I'm not going to claim that means the technique doesn't work; just that it hasn't, for me, so far. I should probably experiment more with it but I suspect it will, oddly, come across far more heavy handed than a bout of profanity.
  - dagw 17y ago
    if you took a few seconds to explain why regexp is the wrong solution rather than just saying "don't use it", I'm sure the user would not only leave a lot more enlightened, but would also stop asking the same question.

jrockway 17y ago

I have seen mst in action, and his techniques are pretty effective. I think I have had just as much luck with newbies by being nice, however... but perhaps not. (My reaction upon being yelled at would be to leave, but this is not the behavior I observe in other people. mst has quite a few fans that started off as "victims" of the techniques he describes in the artice.)

houseabsolute 17y ago
I'm glad that this technique worked for a few people that are now friends with mst, but I think an even better outcome might have been achieved with a gentler approach. Naturally, how mst goes about his business is his own affair, but I think it's worth having the opposing viewpoint especially in an article like this.
- jrockway 17y ago
  The thing is, the people he yells at tend to stick around. There is not some tiny in-group of mst fans. To be fair, though, you can only have so many msts in a community. When the other people are nice, a dialog like: newbie: I'm dumb and can't read, do my work for me mst: PASTE YOUR CODE IDIOT!! nicer_person: newbie: good idea... although to be fair, there isn't much to read on this subject often emerges. Now newbie has a friend in nicer_person; someone who probably wouldn't have said anything if mst hadn't yelled at the newbie.

mock 17y ago

While I agree that being an asshole is more frequently harmful than helpful, I don't think the behaviour in question here is actually assholic in nature. Every community needs to have a way of enforcing community values or that community will dissolve. That enforcement can be a police officer, a drill sergeant, a moderator, or just a loud mouthed member of the community that expresses the group's scorn for the behaviour in question. What is important is that everyone who witnesses the policeman deliver a lecture to delinquent teens, the sergeant chew out a new recruit, the moderator remove a troll or flamebait, or the loud mouth deliver an invective laced screed to the newbie who just doesn't get it, gets the message that "certain behaviours aren't tolerated here" and by extension, other (more polite) behaviours are. When the policeman gives you the nod on the street corner on your way to work, when the sergeant says, "Nice work", when the moderator uses something you wrote as an example of what a good post looks like, or when the community loudmouth bastard says "SHUT UP AND PAY ATTENTION TO HIM" and you realize he's talking about you - that's the point when you realize you're part of the community.

mst 17y ago
Exactly!