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This is of course a terrible reply to receive, I'm sorry you got that. But I also find the psychology behind this sort of reply interesting, because there's lo
by bruce511 1y ago
This is of course a terrible reply to receive, I'm sorry you got that.
But I also find the psychology behind this sort of reply interesting, because there's lots of factors that lead to this sort of extreme.
Firstly, we don't know the age of the replier, but my guess would be someone also young, or at least immature. Telling people to kill themselves is not something adults typically do in any context.)
So it suggests another junior, desperate to prove their own standing, and needing to compete against others rather than collaborate. I've seen this kind of response in one adult (abusive to other forum members) but he clearly had quite severe mental health issues (and the user was banned.) In youngsters it is usually extinguished with firm moderator guidance.
With adult responders, frustration and tedium play a role. Personally I'm more generous with replies in the morning than the evening. At times I almost "fake" patience (when I'm getting impatient) with people who are simply not thinking, and who aren't listening.
Overall it is very imbalanced. The asker is asking 1 question. The replier may answer tens or hundreds in a day. So it's hard to answer each one as if it's original, as if it matters, as if you've not heard it a million times before (especially if it's right there in the FAQ.)
Part of answering well, and the quality of any forum, is in participants answering well, even if the question is trivial.
We all were newbies once. Asking stupid questions is how we grew from there. Answering stupid questions is how we pay it forward.
- aaronbrethorst 1y agoMeanwhile, here's Linus at the age of 42: https://forums.freebsd.org/threads/linus-to-opensuse-devs-kill-yourself-now.30414/ https://forums.freebsd.org/threads/linus-to-opensuse-devs-ki...
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- Aachen 1y agoTLDR seems to be like "whatever moron made this is mentally disabled". Not quite the KYS that is popular with the youth (in a game played by mostly teenage boys, we kept needing to moderate and escalate ban durations for a lot of players) but not particularly great to put it mildly indeed
- stn_za 1y agoSigh, simpler times
- jart 1y agoThe world's most successful open source developer didn't converge on that communication style for no reason. I don't think I've seen a single person bring up the classism inherent in dictating gentlemanly manners. Part of what made open source unique is that people from all classes could participate, and working class people are not tuned to pick up on subtle communication the way the upper classes have been. Linus likes to communicate in a way that leaves no ambiguity about he feels, to people of any class background, or any level of English language proficiency. The tradeoff is it offends the sensibilities of highly domesticated elites.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- yladiz 1y agoThis is a weird take. It’s not classist to filter your communication to not call people morons even if you think they are, it shows you have respect for them. You don’t need to be “elite” to find some of the things he said offensive.
- jart 1y agoOpen source doesn't have any kind of filter for participation, like a stringent hiring process, or requirement of academic achievement, which makes them entitled to respect. A lot of people show up who are unqualified, schizo, etc. It's demoralizing if a project treats those people and puts them on the same level as your best guys. Keep in mind, open source has no titles, no job levels, and no salary. So respect is the only thing people can hope to earn by participating, therefore it's totally ridiculous to give that out for free, because then people have nothing to gain and nothing to look forward to earning. These days the solution to this conundrum is to just ban everyone who isn't employed by a big tech company and shut down the comments section. However open source grew up in the 90's / 2000's culture that highly valued free speech and open participation. If you have to take the omegas in, like Linux did, then they have to play the omega role. This is better in some ways, because omegas are still part of the group, and still cared for, and many of them improve and grow past that role.
- 1y ago
- eloisant 1y agoYou're talking about adults with severe mental health issues - I wouldn't be surprised if those are over-represented in open source contributors.
- padjo 1y ago> Telling people to kill themselves is not something adults typically do in any context. It’s pretty typical of the alpha-nerd type who derives a ton of their self worth from superiority in some arcane area.
- tryauuum 1y agoI've recently told a person to kill themselves. Because I was very frustrated with the trend their product is going. For example, they rolled out a wysiwyg editor with the "lose all the text input" feature. I'm writing such harsh words when I expect 0 improvement from the company but I hope at least to make the customer support person reconsider their life choices and quit the evil company