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I am running a free job posting website (postjobfree.com). Every day I receive about a hundred emails with various requests, questions and complaints (from recr

I am running a free job posting website (postjobfree.com). Every day I receive about a hundred emails with various requests, questions and complaints (from recruiters, job seekers and operators of other job boards). Some of these emails are negative or even rude. But that negativity does not really bother me. I evaluate level of "Negativity" in the email to understand the nature of the request better (Is the request realistic? Is the request fair? Could our team realistically prevent that negativity in the first place?) Requests like: “How dare you not (use your free time to) fix this ultra high priority bug that is affecting me?” -- I do not even consider negative. In fact, that is a positive comment to me, because it may indicate an opportunity (to make our job board better or to even add another revenue stream). The complainer in such case already did some of the work for our job board: identified potential problem, described how to reproduce it, defined the use case explaining why fixing that problem is important. If that is not helpful feedback, then what kind of feedback is more useful?

hutzlibu 8y ago
You run a comercial website, with a "free to use part" but want people to use the premium part. Nothing wrong with that, but that has nothing to do with a FOSS maintainer doing his work in his free time and getting insults for it. So if you enjoy insults and like to filter them out for technical feedback, good for you. But you make money with it. (I asume) So please advertise somewhere else.
- dennisgorelik 8y ago
  > nothing to do with a FOSS maintainer "FOSS maintainer" uses similar "fremium" model: basic product is free, but customization and support of that product typically requires to hire maintainer. Alternatively, maintainers are getting hired by BigCo for brand recognition, improving hiring competitiveness of BigCo and other benefits that FOSS product brings.
  - hutzlibu 8y ago
    ""FOSS maintainer" uses similar "fremium" model: basic product is free, but customization and support of that product typically requires to hire maintainer." Not really. With FOSS the whole product and especially the sourcecode, is free. You can "maybe" hire the maintainer to do extra work and support for you, but you don't have to. And the main point was, that this maintainer(and most others) did his work in his free time, not out of comercial interest, but altruism. You are doing your website out of altruism? I doubt it.
jlokier 8y ago
Even though bad faith criticism and complaints can be useful, I find there is a still an insurmountable problem sometimes: it can be too time- and energy-consuming to handle the sheer quantity and/or intensity. Sometimes, especially at "political moments" (like elections in a project I was involved in recently - and I wasn't even a candidate), it can feel like being overwhelmed by a tidal wave. If I only have 1 spare hour per day for a project, there is neither time nor emotional energy to handle emails that are so full of demanding questions that it would take 3 hours to process carefully and reply carefully. And if you don't reply carefully, they send you more, writing longer and getting more obsessive (and sometimes personal) as if they sense you'll engage them in a long conversation, so being careful in the first place is a net win. Even if it only took 1 hour, that's still used up all the time I was going to use on other productive things, the "real work". I am in awe of maintainers who seem to reply to an onslaught of demanding questioners, and somehow satisfy them. For me, these are relevant: "Assholes are Killing Your Project" (Donnie Berkholz) https://www.slideshare.net/dberkholz/assholes-are-killing-your-project-mdc-2017 https://www.slideshare.net/dberkholz/assholes-are-killing-yo... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ZSli7QW4rg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ZSli7QW4rg
- dennisgorelik 8y ago
  > If I only have 1 spare hour per day for a project ... then your project is unlikely to become useful anyway. 5-7 hours per week is just too little in order to make a meaningful progress in a software project. And if you are not getting critical feedback from customers, you are unlikely to know the right direction to develop your project. > https://www.slideshare.net/dberkholz/assholes-are-killing-your-project-mdc-2017 https://www.slideshare.net/dberkholz/assholes-are-killing-yo... According to Donnie Berkholz' definition - I do not communicate with assholes at all, because demanding and even rude feedback does not make me "feel oppressed, humiliated, de-energized, or belittled".

hutzlibu 8y ago

You run a comercial website, with a "free to use part" but want people to use the premium part. Nothing wrong with that, but that has nothing to do with a FOSS maintainer doing his work in his free time and getting insults for it. So if you enjoy insults and like to filter them out for technical feedback, good for you. But you make money with it. (I asume) So please advertise somewhere else.

dennisgorelik 8y ago
> nothing to do with a FOSS maintainer "FOSS maintainer" uses similar "fremium" model: basic product is free, but customization and support of that product typically requires to hire maintainer. Alternatively, maintainers are getting hired by BigCo for brand recognition, improving hiring competitiveness of BigCo and other benefits that FOSS product brings.
- hutzlibu 8y ago
  ""FOSS maintainer" uses similar "fremium" model: basic product is free, but customization and support of that product typically requires to hire maintainer." Not really. With FOSS the whole product and especially the sourcecode, is free. You can "maybe" hire the maintainer to do extra work and support for you, but you don't have to. And the main point was, that this maintainer(and most others) did his work in his free time, not out of comercial interest, but altruism. You are doing your website out of altruism? I doubt it.

jlokier 8y ago

Even though bad faith criticism and complaints can be useful, I find there is a still an insurmountable problem sometimes: it can be too time- and energy-consuming to handle the sheer quantity and/or intensity. Sometimes, especially at "political moments" (like elections in a project I was involved in recently - and I wasn't even a candidate), it can feel like being overwhelmed by a tidal wave. If I only have 1 spare hour per day for a project, there is neither time nor emotional energy to handle emails that are so full of demanding questions that it would take 3 hours to process carefully and reply carefully. And if you don't reply carefully, they send you more, writing longer and getting more obsessive (and sometimes personal) as if they sense you'll engage them in a long conversation, so being careful in the first place is a net win. Even if it only took 1 hour, that's still used up all the time I was going to use on other productive things, the "real work". I am in awe of maintainers who seem to reply to an onslaught of demanding questioners, and somehow satisfy them. For me, these are relevant: "Assholes are Killing Your Project" (Donnie Berkholz) https://www.slideshare.net/dberkholz/assholes-are-killing-your-project-mdc-2017 https://www.slideshare.net/dberkholz/assholes-are-killing-yo... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ZSli7QW4rg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ZSli7QW4rg

dennisgorelik 8y ago
> If I only have 1 spare hour per day for a project ... then your project is unlikely to become useful anyway. 5-7 hours per week is just too little in order to make a meaningful progress in a software project. And if you are not getting critical feedback from customers, you are unlikely to know the right direction to develop your project. > https://www.slideshare.net/dberkholz/assholes-are-killing-your-project-mdc-2017 https://www.slideshare.net/dberkholz/assholes-are-killing-yo... According to Donnie Berkholz' definition - I do not communicate with assholes at all, because demanding and even rude feedback does not make me "feel oppressed, humiliated, de-energized, or belittled".