7 ms·

It's a sad state of affairs when a high profile open source maintainer like Matz has to literally say "don't ruin our lives."

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
BenoitP 8y ago
Is he referring to something specific?
- vanderZwan 8y ago
  I think that would miss the point; the toxicity of Internet corrodes the sanity of people like Matz or Guide slowly over time. Not all at once
  - Cthulhu_ 8y ago
    How does this tie in with Linus Torvalds, who himself is accused of being toxic and rude? Personally, while on the one side it's toxic, rude, not very welcoming etc etc etc, I do believe it's an effective form of leadership - a dictatorship where he can keep the kernel from becoming everyone's party, and where he can avoid years of discussion with a curt "You are wrong, I am right, shut the fuck up" - and from what I've read, often with a list of arguments, so he's not just yelling at people to shut up but yelling at people to be better. Mind you that's all my superficial interpretation, I don't know the guy, am not involved at all, etc.
    - vanderZwan 8y ago
      I think it's strongly related, although I would take a different interpretation (also purely speculative of course). The fundamental issue here is the asymmetrical one-to-many connection, where "many" is basically "gigantic anonymous blob". This creates an enormous power imbalance - not to mention makes it almost impossible for the lone individual on one side to manage the blob on the other, since it only takes a few rotten apples to completely ruin your day. Becoming more blunt, rude or even toxic in response is basically a form of self-defense. It is a way of setting boundaries, of pushing back. In some sense it might work because it can even out the power imbalance in that one-to-many connection, at a cost of course (and it probably doesn't matter much whether or not the person already had that attitude to begin with - the result is the same).
    - blattimwind 8y ago
      > How does this tie in with Linus Torvalds, who himself is accused of being toxic and rude? My kitchen sink psychology take on this would be that sometimes doing something unnice can emotionally compensate for being on the receiving end of un-niceness. You see this a lot in online games where nice players will grief from time to time after they have been griefed. Linus gets a lot of public and presumably also private criticism for basically everything he does, and writing a rude mail every couple weeks may compensate. That being said I personally have written some (in my perception) rude mails and almost always regretted it, apologizing in some cases even. With that in mind I don't envy anyone whose name is prominently associated with a popular open source project. I wouldn't want to be in their skin.
    - 0xdeadbeefbabe 8y ago
      It's a fact that he chose the style on purpose because the diplomatic/nice approach failed horribly at least once.
      - pas 8y ago
        Huh, could you please point to the specific instance of horrible failure? Or at least explain what happened, when, etc?
        0xdeadbeefbabe 8y ago
        Here it is https://youtu.be/MShbP3OpASA?t=2142 https://youtu.be/MShbP3OpASA?t=2142
        pas 8y ago
        Thanks! Very interesting to see that in the light of recent CoC adoption and Linus hiatus and so on. Being firm, stating the goals, requirements, laying out a roadmap and so are very important and can be done without being abusive/abrasive. And similarly, asking for a plan and other project/engineering management basics should be the method of steering developers instead of shouting at them when they don't go on the correct way.
- config_yml 8y ago
  I believe it was this post: https://www.reddit.com/r/ruby/comments/ad46f9/whining_ruby_evolution_is_taking_too_long/ https://www.reddit.com/r/ruby/comments/ad46f9/whining_ruby_e...
  - ablation 8y ago
    > I believe it was this post Incredibly entitled AND toxic? Yeesh. What a combination.
  - rboyd 8y ago
    The OP or one of the replies? Seems pretty civil what am I missing?
  - petercooper 8y ago
    As a moderator of that sub-Reddit, I wish to note that while I disagree with this post, I think the poster is both free to express this opinion as they have done and Matz to reply as he has done. I think it shows that the Ruby community is open for debate and discussion, as it always has been, and is no sign, as some have suggested, of any sort of toxicity.
    - the_af 8y ago
      I don't see any toxicity in that post either. Frustration, sure.
dustingetz 8y ago
Is it the People's fault, or is it Twitter's?
- PurpleRamen 8y ago
  Both? People learn from experience and feedback and adapt to their environment. But on digital platforms like twitter the feedback is reduced and you are constanly confrontated with people from very different groups, cultures, environments; which are also constanly change.. It's a permanent grinder for everyone.
- protomyth 8y ago
  People. Twitter doesn't read your mind and post without permission. Its on the person who wrote it. Now, of course, language can be a barrier and regional conventions, but I doubt those are the issue. This reminds me a bit on the discussion of https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3633985 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3633985 where some folks were trying to justify that it was ok to throw their used paper towel on the floor instead of the trash. A person is responsible for the pain they intentionally bring others.
- WarDores 8y ago
  People. You don't get a free pass on being an arsehole just because the platform makes it easy to do.
  - Touche 8y ago
    Ok, people are terrible. Now what? The platform that brings out the worst in us is something that can be changed.
    - glitcher 8y ago
      I get frustrated at times, but still never go on any twitter/social rants. I hate to break it to you, but the platform is merely allowing every individual to behave as they please. There are plenty of folks who never have their worst brought out.
netcan 8y ago
Maybe it just means that a lot of this isn't perfect. The medium is the message and our medium has evolved rapidly recently, the message has gotten overly prone to bickering and meanness. It's not a trivial thing, for 8bn people to learn to speak to each other directly. If Matz is having trouble... it's a sign this isn't about bad people. We've got a system that's prone to it.
- wpietri 8y ago
  I don't think it's anything new. Usenet had plenty of terrible. So did the early web. At best, it's a problem with computer-mediated communication in general, which has a broken feedback loop between saying something and seeing its impact. And, frequently, it allows for anonymity, which removes the social consequences of malicious actions. But that's not really new either. Consider the historic concept of the poison pen letter: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poison_pen_letter https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poison_pen_letter I'd certainly be interested in your proposed systemic fixes. But I don't think the problem is our communications system. I think it's much broader.
  - gglitch 8y ago
    I assume the same dynamic produces road rage too.
  - rectang 8y ago
    Fully agreed that the problem of internet abuse originates with human nature but is amplified by the medium. And yes, this problem was actually much worse a decade or two ago. You should see archives some of the old private open source forums! Holy moley were people horrible to each other. At least now we have some awareness of the problem and better understanding of its mechanisms.
  - ChrisSD 8y ago
    > And, frequently, it allows for anonymity, which removes the social consequences of malicious actions. I don't think anonymity is a problem per se. Real people engage in all kinds of shitty trolling using their real names. And their real friends egg them on. The difference is perhaps that their local real life community don't know about it, outside of their friends.
dudul 8y ago
I've never been the maintainer of a widely successful project, and I have troubles imagining how this can "ruin your life". And I'm not naive or anything, I know people can be real POS on Twitter, GitHub issues, etc. But is it really difficult to just say (or at least, think) "fuck off" and ignore them? I'm not trying to troll or anything, I'm genuinely curious and would love for somebody who's experienced this to share a little bit how you can get so dragged into it that you literally lose sleep over something like that. What's the thought process that makes you eventually believe that you owe these people anything? Edit: Damn, wasn't expecting such a harsh downvote for trying to understand what goes through a high profile maintainer's head. I guess everybody is expected to just naturally know and understand what it feels like :) Next time, I'll keep my curiosity to myself.
- jakobegger 8y ago
  People come and tell you that you are doing things wrong. You think about what they said, start to doubt yourself, wonder if you are indeed wrong, decide that you are not wrong, tell the person your decision, and feel exhausted. Then the next person shows up to tell you that you are doing something wrong. It's not an issue when it just happens occasionally. But it is an issue when it keeps happening again and again. The worst people are the really argumentative people, those who don't stop trying to convince you. You tell them no, and they come up with yet another argument. And they try to make you feel bad for ignoring your audience or something. Most decisions are somewhat subjective, so no matter what you decide someone is going to complain. And you don't want to ignore those people, since they use your product after all. But it's just so tiring...
- fundamental 8y ago
  If you're deeply involved in open source, then odds are it's in part because you find the process enjoyable. It can take a lot of time to have built up a project. It takes a large amount of dedication to encourage community members and try to help others have an organized effort. In the end it's easy to put a lot of value in having everything working well. If you get a crowd that over the years is harshly negative towards you as an individual, situations where there are many forks which attacks your ability to help the community by fracturing it, or other toxic behavior, then it saps the fun out of things. If there are enough people that drain the fun from your profession or hobby then that can indeed "ruin your life" if it's core enough to you as a person. As a maintainer of a moderately successful project, I will say that a small number of toxic community members can have a noteworthy negative impact on your general happyness when heavily involved in a project.
dgudkov 8y ago
It's a strange thing about humans - paid users tend to be way more positive than free users. Even if you would expect it to be the other way around.
- biql 8y ago
  And the more they pay, the more respect they show. Payment is the reflection of how much value they think they get.

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

BenoitP 8y ago

Is he referring to something specific?

vanderZwan 8y ago
I think that would miss the point; the toxicity of Internet corrodes the sanity of people like Matz or Guide slowly over time. Not all at once
- Cthulhu_ 8y ago
  How does this tie in with Linus Torvalds, who himself is accused of being toxic and rude? Personally, while on the one side it's toxic, rude, not very welcoming etc etc etc, I do believe it's an effective form of leadership - a dictatorship where he can keep the kernel from becoming everyone's party, and where he can avoid years of discussion with a curt "You are wrong, I am right, shut the fuck up" - and from what I've read, often with a list of arguments, so he's not just yelling at people to shut up but yelling at people to be better. Mind you that's all my superficial interpretation, I don't know the guy, am not involved at all, etc.
  - vanderZwan 8y ago
    I think it's strongly related, although I would take a different interpretation (also purely speculative of course). The fundamental issue here is the asymmetrical one-to-many connection, where "many" is basically "gigantic anonymous blob". This creates an enormous power imbalance - not to mention makes it almost impossible for the lone individual on one side to manage the blob on the other, since it only takes a few rotten apples to completely ruin your day. Becoming more blunt, rude or even toxic in response is basically a form of self-defense. It is a way of setting boundaries, of pushing back. In some sense it might work because it can even out the power imbalance in that one-to-many connection, at a cost of course (and it probably doesn't matter much whether or not the person already had that attitude to begin with - the result is the same).
  - blattimwind 8y ago
    > How does this tie in with Linus Torvalds, who himself is accused of being toxic and rude? My kitchen sink psychology take on this would be that sometimes doing something unnice can emotionally compensate for being on the receiving end of un-niceness. You see this a lot in online games where nice players will grief from time to time after they have been griefed. Linus gets a lot of public and presumably also private criticism for basically everything he does, and writing a rude mail every couple weeks may compensate. That being said I personally have written some (in my perception) rude mails and almost always regretted it, apologizing in some cases even. With that in mind I don't envy anyone whose name is prominently associated with a popular open source project. I wouldn't want to be in their skin.
  - 0xdeadbeefbabe 8y ago
    It's a fact that he chose the style on purpose because the diplomatic/nice approach failed horribly at least once.
    - pas 8y ago
      Huh, could you please point to the specific instance of horrible failure? Or at least explain what happened, when, etc?
      - 0xdeadbeefbabe 8y ago
        Here it is https://youtu.be/MShbP3OpASA?t=2142 https://youtu.be/MShbP3OpASA?t=2142
        pas 8y ago
        Thanks! Very interesting to see that in the light of recent CoC adoption and Linus hiatus and so on. Being firm, stating the goals, requirements, laying out a roadmap and so are very important and can be done without being abusive/abrasive. And similarly, asking for a plan and other project/engineering management basics should be the method of steering developers instead of shouting at them when they don't go on the correct way.
config_yml 8y ago
I believe it was this post: https://www.reddit.com/r/ruby/comments/ad46f9/whining_ruby_evolution_is_taking_too_long/ https://www.reddit.com/r/ruby/comments/ad46f9/whining_ruby_e...
- ablation 8y ago
  > I believe it was this post Incredibly entitled AND toxic? Yeesh. What a combination.
- rboyd 8y ago
  The OP or one of the replies? Seems pretty civil what am I missing?
- petercooper 8y ago
  As a moderator of that sub-Reddit, I wish to note that while I disagree with this post, I think the poster is both free to express this opinion as they have done and Matz to reply as he has done. I think it shows that the Ruby community is open for debate and discussion, as it always has been, and is no sign, as some have suggested, of any sort of toxicity.
  - the_af 8y ago
    I don't see any toxicity in that post either. Frustration, sure.

dustingetz 8y ago

Is it the People's fault, or is it Twitter's?

PurpleRamen 8y ago
Both? People learn from experience and feedback and adapt to their environment. But on digital platforms like twitter the feedback is reduced and you are constanly confrontated with people from very different groups, cultures, environments; which are also constanly change.. It's a permanent grinder for everyone.
protomyth 8y ago
People. Twitter doesn't read your mind and post without permission. Its on the person who wrote it. Now, of course, language can be a barrier and regional conventions, but I doubt those are the issue. This reminds me a bit on the discussion of https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3633985 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3633985 where some folks were trying to justify that it was ok to throw their used paper towel on the floor instead of the trash. A person is responsible for the pain they intentionally bring others.
WarDores 8y ago
People. You don't get a free pass on being an arsehole just because the platform makes it easy to do.
- Touche 8y ago
  Ok, people are terrible. Now what? The platform that brings out the worst in us is something that can be changed.
  - glitcher 8y ago
    I get frustrated at times, but still never go on any twitter/social rants. I hate to break it to you, but the platform is merely allowing every individual to behave as they please. There are plenty of folks who never have their worst brought out.

netcan 8y ago

Maybe it just means that a lot of this isn't perfect. The medium is the message and our medium has evolved rapidly recently, the message has gotten overly prone to bickering and meanness. It's not a trivial thing, for 8bn people to learn to speak to each other directly. If Matz is having trouble... it's a sign this isn't about bad people. We've got a system that's prone to it.

wpietri 8y ago
I don't think it's anything new. Usenet had plenty of terrible. So did the early web. At best, it's a problem with computer-mediated communication in general, which has a broken feedback loop between saying something and seeing its impact. And, frequently, it allows for anonymity, which removes the social consequences of malicious actions. But that's not really new either. Consider the historic concept of the poison pen letter: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poison_pen_letter https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poison_pen_letter I'd certainly be interested in your proposed systemic fixes. But I don't think the problem is our communications system. I think it's much broader.
- gglitch 8y ago
  I assume the same dynamic produces road rage too.
- rectang 8y ago
  Fully agreed that the problem of internet abuse originates with human nature but is amplified by the medium. And yes, this problem was actually much worse a decade or two ago. You should see archives some of the old private open source forums! Holy moley were people horrible to each other. At least now we have some awareness of the problem and better understanding of its mechanisms.
- ChrisSD 8y ago
  > And, frequently, it allows for anonymity, which removes the social consequences of malicious actions. I don't think anonymity is a problem per se. Real people engage in all kinds of shitty trolling using their real names. And their real friends egg them on. The difference is perhaps that their local real life community don't know about it, outside of their friends.

dudul 8y ago

I've never been the maintainer of a widely successful project, and I have troubles imagining how this can "ruin your life". And I'm not naive or anything, I know people can be real POS on Twitter, GitHub issues, etc. But is it really difficult to just say (or at least, think) "fuck off" and ignore them? I'm not trying to troll or anything, I'm genuinely curious and would love for somebody who's experienced this to share a little bit how you can get so dragged into it that you literally lose sleep over something like that. What's the thought process that makes you eventually believe that you owe these people anything? Edit: Damn, wasn't expecting such a harsh downvote for trying to understand what goes through a high profile maintainer's head. I guess everybody is expected to just naturally know and understand what it feels like :) Next time, I'll keep my curiosity to myself.

jakobegger 8y ago
People come and tell you that you are doing things wrong. You think about what they said, start to doubt yourself, wonder if you are indeed wrong, decide that you are not wrong, tell the person your decision, and feel exhausted. Then the next person shows up to tell you that you are doing something wrong. It's not an issue when it just happens occasionally. But it is an issue when it keeps happening again and again. The worst people are the really argumentative people, those who don't stop trying to convince you. You tell them no, and they come up with yet another argument. And they try to make you feel bad for ignoring your audience or something. Most decisions are somewhat subjective, so no matter what you decide someone is going to complain. And you don't want to ignore those people, since they use your product after all. But it's just so tiring...
fundamental 8y ago
If you're deeply involved in open source, then odds are it's in part because you find the process enjoyable. It can take a lot of time to have built up a project. It takes a large amount of dedication to encourage community members and try to help others have an organized effort. In the end it's easy to put a lot of value in having everything working well. If you get a crowd that over the years is harshly negative towards you as an individual, situations where there are many forks which attacks your ability to help the community by fracturing it, or other toxic behavior, then it saps the fun out of things. If there are enough people that drain the fun from your profession or hobby then that can indeed "ruin your life" if it's core enough to you as a person. As a maintainer of a moderately successful project, I will say that a small number of toxic community members can have a noteworthy negative impact on your general happyness when heavily involved in a project.

dgudkov 8y ago

It's a strange thing about humans - paid users tend to be way more positive than free users. Even if you would expect it to be the other way around.

biql 8y ago
And the more they pay, the more respect they show. Payment is the reflection of how much value they think they get.