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There are nice communities out there. It seems more naive to me to think that we might as well just throw our hands up in the air than to think that we can iden

There are nice communities out there. It seems more naive to me to think that we might as well just throw our hands up in the air than to think that we can identify ways to move ourselves forward. You've also shifted your criticism here to "Ok, but how?" from the original criticism that sounded like "Well, humans suck. Boo hoo." So, here's one answer to how: as I am doing right now, we can encourage others to be optimistic about growing and developing ourselves and our communities into better people. Here's another: as I am about to do, we can pinpoint unhelpful claims that hold us back from improvement rather than moving us forward. Your comments so far have largely been the former, in that they treat the people the article's author criticises as though they couldn't behave any differently. One key step is adopting the belief that people, including the people who have been really nasty so far, can in fact choose to behave differently. Here's another: We can be vocal about the importance of maintainers standing up for respectful communication within their communities. We can create and spread resources that help empower people to do this. We can institutionalize roles such as "community maintainer" whose job revolves less around code and more around discourse. These are coming off the top of my head. So on that note, here's another: we can encourage people to do one more thing before posting a comment or article – check in about whether what they're saying is truly constructive, and redirect their efforts if not. I'm sure you could have come up with some of these approaches, and I'm sure you could come up with more that I haven't thought of. But you need to push yourself to try. You need to push yourself to get better. And the rest of us need to be here to help you and each other and everyone else do just that.

jasode 10y ago
>You've also shifted your criticism here to "Ok, but how?" from the original criticism that sounded like "Well, humans suck. Boo hoo." It's not shifting positions. My 1st post was general commentary on JK's post. My 2nd post was asking Mouq to clarify his "solution" since he didn't actually state a concrete solution. >So, here's one answer to how: as I am doing right now, we can encourage others to be optimistic Yes, did you notice that I already made that suggestion in my post that you replied to and you just repeated it?
- magicalist 10y ago
  > > So, here's one answer to how: as I am doing right now, we can encourage others to be optimistic > Yes, did you notice that I already made that suggestion in my post that you replied to and you just repeated it? Hmm, let's see... > Ok... so exactly how do we address it? Do we repeat, "From now on, let's all be nicer with more positive energy and feedback!" Ok, now that we've done that, is the problem solved? Why not? yeah, no, that's not the same thing at all.
  - jasode 10y ago
    >, no, that's not the same thing at all. Are you being literal? I wasn't saying that "repeated" meant lexical equality: string.compare("more positive", "optimistic") == TRUE Instead, I meant this: semantic_intent("more positive", "optimistic") == TRUE It's naive to think GavinMcG's "solution" of disapproving others negativity hasn't already been done thousands of times before across other disciplines and other forums including Linux/Lisp/C++/PHP/physics/autism/etc. Yes, nice communities do exist (often because of heavy-handed moderation/censorship) but that's orthogonal to the inevitable formation of other uncensored communities that freely share negative criticisms. Therefore, the reasons that motivated JK's original post will always exist.
    - GavinMcG 10y ago
      Another big difference is that I'm not advocating for us to "repeat" that we should all be positive. It's not about public proclamation – it's about addressing individuals and their individual acts. That's what the communal discourse is made up of. Like you're saying, simply shouting "let's be nice" obviously doesn't work. I'll add another thing to my list of suggestions: be really deliberate about educating people on the principle of charity. Instead of assuming that the other person is dumb/shortsighted/etc., assume that you're not giving their thinking enough credit. > that's orthogonal to the inevitable formation of other communities So what? Drive the downers out of JS-land, or whatever community you care about. You had been saying that even that shouldn't be bothered with. But if it can be accomplished, who cares if they all go off to learn Brainfuck, if that's the only community that will accept their behavior?

jasode 10y ago

>You've also shifted your criticism here to "Ok, but how?" from the original criticism that sounded like "Well, humans suck. Boo hoo." It's not shifting positions. My 1st post was general commentary on JK's post. My 2nd post was asking Mouq to clarify his "solution" since he didn't actually state a concrete solution. >So, here's one answer to how: as I am doing right now, we can encourage others to be optimistic Yes, did you notice that I already made that suggestion in my post that you replied to and you just repeated it?

magicalist 10y ago
> > So, here's one answer to how: as I am doing right now, we can encourage others to be optimistic > Yes, did you notice that I already made that suggestion in my post that you replied to and you just repeated it? Hmm, let's see... > Ok... so exactly how do we address it? Do we repeat, "From now on, let's all be nicer with more positive energy and feedback!" Ok, now that we've done that, is the problem solved? Why not? yeah, no, that's not the same thing at all.
- jasode 10y ago
  >, no, that's not the same thing at all. Are you being literal? I wasn't saying that "repeated" meant lexical equality: string.compare("more positive", "optimistic") == TRUE Instead, I meant this: semantic_intent("more positive", "optimistic") == TRUE It's naive to think GavinMcG's "solution" of disapproving others negativity hasn't already been done thousands of times before across other disciplines and other forums including Linux/Lisp/C++/PHP/physics/autism/etc. Yes, nice communities do exist (often because of heavy-handed moderation/censorship) but that's orthogonal to the inevitable formation of other uncensored communities that freely share negative criticisms. Therefore, the reasons that motivated JK's original post will always exist.
  - GavinMcG 10y ago
    Another big difference is that I'm not advocating for us to "repeat" that we should all be positive. It's not about public proclamation – it's about addressing individuals and their individual acts. That's what the communal discourse is made up of. Like you're saying, simply shouting "let's be nice" obviously doesn't work. I'll add another thing to my list of suggestions: be really deliberate about educating people on the principle of charity. Instead of assuming that the other person is dumb/shortsighted/etc., assume that you're not giving their thinking enough credit. > that's orthogonal to the inevitable formation of other communities So what? Drive the downers out of JS-land, or whatever community you care about. You had been saying that even that shouldn't be bothered with. But if it can be accomplished, who cares if they all go off to learn Brainfuck, if that's the only community that will accept their behavior?