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When the goal is to change behavior as a whole it helps to not point anyone out. If you linked to a Github pull request that demonstrates this behavior, that gu

When the goal is to change behavior as a whole it helps to not point anyone out. If you linked to a Github pull request that demonstrates this behavior, that guy now becomes the eye of the storm, instead of the community where the focus should be. If the author did that, we'd all be talking about how githubuserxyz is such an ass for belittling contributors and how dissimilar we each individually are from githubuserxyz. It doesn't help the conversation - which is one that the community needs to have.

debacle 14y ago
This doesn't seem like an activity that's rampant in the community in any fashion. I personally only recall it happening once, ever, and I've been a contributor to open source projects for almost ten years.
- msbarnett 14y ago
  > This doesn't seem like an activity that's rampant in the community in any fashion. I personally only recall it happening once, ever, and I've been a contributor to open source projects for almost ten years. If a lot of other people are talking about the negative consequences of something you personally haven't experienced, generalizing outwards from your own experiences to conclude that something a lot of other people have experienced doesn't exist is a pretty wrongheaded way to approach life. Maybe you've just been lucky.
  - debacle 14y ago
    This is something that one person has said happens, with no evidence, that many other people with equal credentials have said doesn't happen. Without evidence, it's just talk.
  - boboblong 14y ago
    > If a lot of other people are talking about the negative consequences of something you personally haven't experienced, generalizing outwards from your own experiences to conclude that something a lot of other people have experienced doesn't exist is a pretty wrongheaded way to approach life. You're wrong. Generalizing from your personal experience and from verifiable facts while paying little attention to vague whining and anonymous accusations (of unnamed alleged perpetrators, no less!) is an excellent way to approach life.
shrikant 14y ago
> When the goal is to change behavior as a whole it helps to not point anyone out. For some reason, this reminded me of The Racist Tree. http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lzx6xxNlXV1qi049to1_1280.jpg http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lzx6xxNlXV1qi049to1_1280.j...
- akkartik 14y ago
  Poignant. But I think it applies less here. For every guy who isn't out there berating the noobs there's multiple noobs engaging with the community. I'm happy to shut them up at that price. Who was it that said, "I will tolerate anything but intolerance"? I feel strongly about this because I was traumatized by interacting with Ullrich Drepper at an impressionable age :)
Symmetry 14y ago
I'm having a very hard time thinking of any positive social change that happened without individuals being called out. Take dueling. The Church preached against it for hundreds of years. Right-thinking people decided it was a bad idea. The government outlawed it. But everybody was afraid that if they didn't challenge people who insulted them to a duel others would think that they were cowardly, so they kept doing it. But then people like Duke Wellington started getting publicly mocked in the papers for engaging in duels and the practice died out almost immediately. So, talking about how people in general ought to be nicer won't actually change how people behave. Calling out githubuserxyz for being an ass, though, will make people afraid of being mocked like githubuserxyz and so actually change their behavior. Seriously, there's an excellent book called The Honor Code about how these things happen historically that I would recommend.
boboblong 14y ago
>When the goal is to change behavior as a whole it helps to not point anyone out. Has it ever occurred to you that many people strongly dislike it when others attempt to change their legal, nonviolent behavior? It's nosy, condescending, self-righteous, and creepy.

debacle 14y ago

This doesn't seem like an activity that's rampant in the community in any fashion. I personally only recall it happening once, ever, and I've been a contributor to open source projects for almost ten years.

msbarnett 14y ago
> This doesn't seem like an activity that's rampant in the community in any fashion. I personally only recall it happening once, ever, and I've been a contributor to open source projects for almost ten years. If a lot of other people are talking about the negative consequences of something you personally haven't experienced, generalizing outwards from your own experiences to conclude that something a lot of other people have experienced doesn't exist is a pretty wrongheaded way to approach life. Maybe you've just been lucky.
- debacle 14y ago
  This is something that one person has said happens, with no evidence, that many other people with equal credentials have said doesn't happen. Without evidence, it's just talk.
- boboblong 14y ago
  > If a lot of other people are talking about the negative consequences of something you personally haven't experienced, generalizing outwards from your own experiences to conclude that something a lot of other people have experienced doesn't exist is a pretty wrongheaded way to approach life. You're wrong. Generalizing from your personal experience and from verifiable facts while paying little attention to vague whining and anonymous accusations (of unnamed alleged perpetrators, no less!) is an excellent way to approach life.

shrikant 14y ago

> When the goal is to change behavior as a whole it helps to not point anyone out. For some reason, this reminded me of The Racist Tree. http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lzx6xxNlXV1qi049to1_1280.jpg http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lzx6xxNlXV1qi049to1_1280.j...

akkartik 14y ago
Poignant. But I think it applies less here. For every guy who isn't out there berating the noobs there's multiple noobs engaging with the community. I'm happy to shut them up at that price. Who was it that said, "I will tolerate anything but intolerance"? I feel strongly about this because I was traumatized by interacting with Ullrich Drepper at an impressionable age :)

Symmetry 14y ago

I'm having a very hard time thinking of any positive social change that happened without individuals being called out. Take dueling. The Church preached against it for hundreds of years. Right-thinking people decided it was a bad idea. The government outlawed it. But everybody was afraid that if they didn't challenge people who insulted them to a duel others would think that they were cowardly, so they kept doing it. But then people like Duke Wellington started getting publicly mocked in the papers for engaging in duels and the practice died out almost immediately. So, talking about how people in general ought to be nicer won't actually change how people behave. Calling out githubuserxyz for being an ass, though, will make people afraid of being mocked like githubuserxyz and so actually change their behavior. Seriously, there's an excellent book called The Honor Code about how these things happen historically that I would recommend.

boboblong 14y ago

>When the goal is to change behavior as a whole it helps to not point anyone out. Has it ever occurred to you that many people strongly dislike it when others attempt to change their legal, nonviolent behavior? It's nosy, condescending, self-righteous, and creepy.