Well, OK, so Klabnik is an asshole, that's hardly news. It's unfortunately true that participating in OSS, as in any shared endeavor encompassing such a large s

Well, OK, so Klabnik is an asshole, that's hardly news. It's unfortunately true that participating in OSS, as in any shared endeavor encompassing such a large subset of the species, requires dealing with assholes. The current contretemps (and corresponding HN thread) provides a valuable example, for the novice, of one particular suboptimal strategy, its ramifications, how to avoid it, and what might be worth doing instead. Of course, that's not to say I recommend novices study HN, especially for advice on how to behave -- God preserve them from such a fate! But, should a novice have happened in by mistake, perhaps he'll glean something useful from this thread in those few fleeting moments before the panic takes hold.