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> On the contrary, I told you exactly how to change my mind (and that of others): Point to examples that we can read for ourselves and decide that yes, you real

> On the contrary, I told you exactly how to change my mind (and that of others): Point to examples that we can read for ourselves and decide that yes, you really were treated badly in all these cases. That really would change minds. Consider for a moment what you're asking me to do: name names. In several cases, for events over 5 years old. You're asking me to expose myself to more contention and argument to convince you that my feelings are not dirty lies that slander the OSS community. The most respectful thing I can do for all parties is relate my experiences. If you find them to be so outrageously implausible that you feel the need to call me an asshole, there's not much I am willing to do that will change that. You're right, I could link to examples of people behaving badly (and inevitably, cases where I have behaved badly because those exist). But there is very little upside in that for me. Like I said, this demand predetermines the outcome. It asks me to shoulder more commentary like this for the dubious promise of your personal approval. That's not a very compelling value proposition. Add to that that your tone disinclines me to believe you're actually asking in good faith, and I have absolutely no reason at all to reopen these topics.

teddyh 8y ago
I’m sorry, I did not mean to ask for anything you were unwilling to do; your initial text did not give the impression that you were unwilling to name names, it just lacked details or links – on the contrary, you even named “my extensions to the clojure time library”, which could conceivably be used by somebody to look up said details, so I did not see anything to indicate you wanted to avoid “naming names”. Certainly, nobody can force you to name names if you don’t want to, but vague accusations (such as yours) towards a community deserves to at least be questioned and probed for evidence. Some people would say to not say anything which you’re not prepared to back up with evidence, but I’m not sure I would go that far. Unsubstantiated claims have some value if presented carefully and tactfully. But you appeared to be neither; you seemed to make sweeping generalizations (while carefully not literally doing it), but not giving examples or even details. This style is a non-working strategy for effecting change, which I would assume to be the goal of us all. > Add to that that your tone disinclines me to believe you're actually asking in good faith I’m sorry to hear that; I did not mean to give such an impression. I would certainly say that I believe myself to be acting in good faith, such as it is; my goal is to give people what I believe to be a reasonably accurate picture of what kind of treatment they can expect from contributing to FLOSS, to counter the view they might get from your initial comment. In conclusion: There is a good possibility that you were merely unlucky, either with individual authors or toxic projects. That is simply a slightly more unlikely explanation than the simplest one which I gave. Please don’t be offended by it; I actually only offered it as a motivation for you to disprove it by giving us examples, so we might see for ourselves, and I fully expected you to simply give a few links to end the matter. Since you won’t (for reasons I fully accept), the discussion took an unexpectedly unproductive turn, and I am sorry for that. I never accounted for the possibility of you to not wanting to give details or references, but I should have.

teddyh 8y ago

I’m sorry, I did not mean to ask for anything you were unwilling to do; your initial text did not give the impression that you were unwilling to name names, it just lacked details or links – on the contrary, you even named “my extensions to the clojure time library”, which could conceivably be used by somebody to look up said details, so I did not see anything to indicate you wanted to avoid “naming names”. Certainly, nobody can force you to name names if you don’t want to, but vague accusations (such as yours) towards a community deserves to at least be questioned and probed for evidence. Some people would say to not say anything which you’re not prepared to back up with evidence, but I’m not sure I would go that far. Unsubstantiated claims have some value if presented carefully and tactfully. But you appeared to be neither; you seemed to make sweeping generalizations (while carefully not literally doing it), but not giving examples or even details. This style is a non-working strategy for effecting change, which I would assume to be the goal of us all. > Add to that that your tone disinclines me to believe you're actually asking in good faith I’m sorry to hear that; I did not mean to give such an impression. I would certainly say that I believe myself to be acting in good faith, such as it is; my goal is to give people what I believe to be a reasonably accurate picture of what kind of treatment they can expect from contributing to FLOSS, to counter the view they might get from your initial comment. In conclusion: There is a good possibility that you were merely unlucky, either with individual authors or toxic projects. That is simply a slightly more unlikely explanation than the simplest one which I gave. Please don’t be offended by it; I actually only offered it as a motivation for you to disprove it by giving us examples, so we might see for ourselves, and I fully expected you to simply give a few links to end the matter. Since you won’t (for reasons I fully accept), the discussion took an unexpectedly unproductive turn, and I am sorry for that. I never accounted for the possibility of you to not wanting to give details or references, but I should have.