2 ms·
I disagree - the harshness here is personal insults and passive-aggressiveness. That's uncalled for and definitely "toxic". It's very possible to be assertive
by maccard 2y ago
I disagree - the harshness here is personal insults and passive-aggressiveness. That's uncalled for and definitely "toxic".
It's very possible to be assertive and shut down unconstructive discussions, as Linus has repeatedly shown. Here [0] is a great example of Linus being firm, assertive, calling someone out on their shit.
[0] https://lkml.org/lkml/2025/2/20/2066 https://lkml.org/lkml/2025/2/20/2066
- jchw 2y agoI really regret the proliferation of terms like "toxic" to describe things as benign as this. I think it's literally recoloring people's perception of what bad communication actually looks like.
- maccard 2y agoYou brought the word up, not me. The tiles are simple - avoid character attacks, and don’t be passive aggressive. Be direct and firm. Otherwise people will go off topic and take whatever meaning they want (like I did with Linus’) comment and you did the same with the word toxic, which you introduced
- jchw 2y agoI am okay with using it to describe things as "toxic" when they are, but there's a reason I still used scare quotes.