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The language is not diplomatic, in my opinion, since there doesn't appear to be any attempt at diplomacy. To me it reads as an over-worked individual who tried

The language is not diplomatic, in my opinion, since there doesn't appear to be any attempt at diplomacy. To me it reads as an over-worked individual who tried to do something he believed was good for a project he's not affiliated with, but it didn't go according to plan because that project's maintainer didn't agree with his approach, and hence feels extremely frustrated. Likely as a result of his frustration, he is casting part of the blame for his troubles on a entire community of programmers who had absolutely nothing to do with his personal quarrel, because said programmers didn't come out of the woodwork to assist him in his goals. (The only way they could assist anyway is by pitchforks or dog-piles, which are hardly appropriate anyway.) I felt that the maintainer of a fundamental piece of Lisp infrastructure judging and chastising an entire community of uninvolved people was completely inappropriate, and it was airing out dirty laundry to the wrong audience. If he instead said something like: > I have been working hard to push this critical piece of infrastructure forward, but it has been especially difficult with certain downstream maintainers of popular projects who refuse to upgrade, like So-And-So. As a community, this piece of software infrastructure is only valuable if we all upgrade. I don't have the energy or desire to repeatedly argue my case with all downstream users, and as such, I feel it might be time for me to step down from this project as maintainer. then it would be completely appropriate and well-received. But instead he wrote something divisive and almost paternalistic.

robertlagrant 5y ago
You're inventing things like "judging and chastising" - they do not appear to be present in the original text. Mischaracterisation is a bad idea.
- reikonomusha 5y ago
  Let me quote the text for what I consider "judging" (in the sense of making a presumptuous claim about or characterization of a person or group): > What is even worse is that the CL community tacitly accepts [the behavior of the person I am arguing with] as normal behavior. This is making a judgment about what behavior "the CL community" accepts. (Unless you believe "tacit" includes anybody in the world who doesn't participate, in which case it's a vacuous statement.) Let me quote the text for what I consider "chastising" (in the sense of "rebuking"): > [In light of the tacit acceptance of said behavior,] I would like to see the CL open source community pause and consider what constitutes a healthy community. He believes the community had not acted properly or communally, and would like everybody to stop and think about that, almost as a parent might admonish a child for his or her behavior.
  - robertlagrant 5y ago
    > I would like to see the CL open source community pause and consider what constitutes a healthy community. This is in no-one's dictionary "chastising" (random dictionary plucked from search): > chastising (Entry 1 of 2) inflicting, involving, or serving as punishment As for "judging" - this seems proportionate. E.g. while I think your judgment is poor when you use these words, I don't think a valid criticism of your comment is that you are "judging" anything. By this definition, almost everything anyone says is "judging".
    - reikonomusha 5y ago
      Interesting, my dictionary says: > chas·tise > /ˈCHasˌtīz,ˌCHaˈstīz/ > verb > rebuke or reprimand severely. > "he chastised his colleagues for their laziness" I disagree with what you said about "judging" as it pertains to how you interpret what I said, but I don't have anything to further clarify for you. In any case, I hope you can now agree these claims weren't inventions.
CoastalCoder 5y ago
> The language is not diplomatic, in my opinion, since there doesn't appear to be any attempt at diplomacy. Sorry, let me clarify. I don't see message-diplomacy as a binary thing. The phrasing in that mailing-list message is way more diplomatic than comes naturally to me in such situations. Maybe that email has room for improvement, but I still benefit greatly such examples.

robertlagrant 5y ago

You're inventing things like "judging and chastising" - they do not appear to be present in the original text. Mischaracterisation is a bad idea.

reikonomusha 5y ago
Let me quote the text for what I consider "judging" (in the sense of making a presumptuous claim about or characterization of a person or group): > What is even worse is that the CL community tacitly accepts [the behavior of the person I am arguing with] as normal behavior. This is making a judgment about what behavior "the CL community" accepts. (Unless you believe "tacit" includes anybody in the world who doesn't participate, in which case it's a vacuous statement.) Let me quote the text for what I consider "chastising" (in the sense of "rebuking"): > [In light of the tacit acceptance of said behavior,] I would like to see the CL open source community pause and consider what constitutes a healthy community. He believes the community had not acted properly or communally, and would like everybody to stop and think about that, almost as a parent might admonish a child for his or her behavior.
- robertlagrant 5y ago
  > I would like to see the CL open source community pause and consider what constitutes a healthy community. This is in no-one's dictionary "chastising" (random dictionary plucked from search): > chastising (Entry 1 of 2) inflicting, involving, or serving as punishment As for "judging" - this seems proportionate. E.g. while I think your judgment is poor when you use these words, I don't think a valid criticism of your comment is that you are "judging" anything. By this definition, almost everything anyone says is "judging".
  - reikonomusha 5y ago
    Interesting, my dictionary says: > chas·tise > /ˈCHasˌtīz,ˌCHaˈstīz/ > verb > rebuke or reprimand severely. > "he chastised his colleagues for their laziness" I disagree with what you said about "judging" as it pertains to how you interpret what I said, but I don't have anything to further clarify for you. In any case, I hope you can now agree these claims weren't inventions.

CoastalCoder 5y ago

> The language is not diplomatic, in my opinion, since there doesn't appear to be any attempt at diplomacy. Sorry, let me clarify. I don't see message-diplomacy as a binary thing. The phrasing in that mailing-list message is way more diplomatic than comes naturally to me in such situations. Maybe that email has room for improvement, but I still benefit greatly such examples.