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really? another diatribe about Linus? get over it. Linus is the way he is. dealing with him requires thick skin, and he knows it, and we know it, and anyone wor

really? another diatribe about Linus? get over it. Linus is the way he is. dealing with him requires thick skin, and he knows it, and we know it, and anyone working with him needs to deal with it. do you think complaining about him on the internet is going to get Linus to change? what's the point here? there's also an awful lot of false equivalency and inappropriate analogy going on here. I don't think Zoe Quinn and Anita Sarkeesian have ANYTHING WHATEVER to do with Linus' communication style. Invoking their names here is an effort to summon a twitter shitstorm and its pretty low in my opinion.

zorpner 12y ago
really? another diatribe about Linus? get over it. Linus is the way he is. What a sad, accepting attitude. The fact is that people are more aware than ever than his behavior is unacceptable. They talk about it more and more often every year, and that trend will continue. Eventually, he won't be able to make a public appearance (in person or online) without getting called out on his completely unnecessary and hostile behavior. Then he'll either change or be shunted into irrelevance, and it will be a net positive for the Linux community. Fame and accomplishment are no license to be uncivil.
- metaphorm 12y ago
  he's not uncivil. he's just blunt. the fact is, Linus does the right thing when it matters. you might not like the way he writes emails on the developer mailing list. you might think he swears too much or uses too much hyperbole. it doesn't matter though. what you're advocating here is censorship and ostracism of one of the most important people in the FOSS world. think about that for a few minutes. you're advocating censorship and ostracism. who's uncivil now? edit: and now you've downvoted me for disagreeing. more "civil" behavior being demonstrated here.
  - chipotle_coyote 12y ago
    What you're essentially saying is that it doesn't matter how much of an asshole someone "important" is to others, but that it's ABSOLUTELY TERRIBLE for anyone to dare call him out on being an asshole. Do you really think any community benefits from this attitude?
  - Chinjut 12y ago
    Is any attempt to get people to consider changing their behavior to be dismissed as censorship and ostracism? We should never be able to say to anyone "Hey, you're being a jerk. It would be better if you were less of a jerk."? (Is this one of those ridiculous "If you're so into tolerance, why don't you tolerate my intolerance?" arguments?)
    - metaphorm 12y ago
      the post i was responding to said "Linus should be shunned into irrelevance". that's a fair bit different than simply asking someone to change their behavior.
      - vertex-four 12y ago
        And if he doesn't change his behaviour, which is increasingly deemed unacceptable, we should continue interacting with him and pretend it is acceptable?
  - zorpner 12y ago
    think about that for a few minutes. you're advocating censorship and ostracism. who's uncivil now? No, I'm saying that uncivil speech has consequences, and that's a desirable feature of existing in a society. In order for the predictions in my post to not come true, you would have to somehow prevent people from discussing Linus's incivility. What mechanism do you propose? Also, I can't downvote you because it's a reply to a post of mine (this is how HN works). I generally don't downvote posts I reply to either.
  - jfarmer 12y ago
    > it doesn't matter though. It does matter if it means otherwise qualified contributors stop contributing or, more likely, never attempt to contribute in the first place. Linus doesn't know how to act any other way, but that doesn't mean there aren't other ways to act that don't harm the overall success of the project but create a more welcoming atmosphere. It's like he's trapped in this weird world where "being nice" is the alternative to being a temperamental jerk. How about being kind, patient, but forceful? Lots of technical leaders know how to strike this balance and Linux is worse of for Linus' inability to do so.
    - pierrebai 12y ago
      I'm tired of seeing civility and toxicity being mixed up. Blogs about Linus is just one example of this type of discourse, which comflate being nice and civil with mysoginy, racism, and the like. Linus is not toxik. Furthermore, there's this notion that being nice is a free, costless attitude. Just as Nick Coghlan himself admits, being nice is hard and demand energy and time. All things that come in limited quantity. There is also an unspoken assumption in these rant that Linus is constantly being a bully. It's just not true. The fact of the matter is, in a forum, you need to be able to use a large range of attitude to deal with the wide range of people and contribution. You can nicely rebute someone on a subtle topic. It's wasted time to try to be subtle about boneheaded ideas. If you can't go termonuclear from times to times, then your opinions get muddled. The fact is, it is hard to convey the level of opposition by text alone. Using bluntness works. You also have to deal with really disruptive people. You just can't rule out never to be uncivil. It's a tool, to be wielded when needed. There is hypocrisy in demanding not to be called an idiot when you are.
  - mcphage 12y ago
    > the fact is, Linus does the right thing when it matters. Wouldn't this be the perfect opportunity, then? The right thing would clearly be for him to change his hostile behavior.
  - pfortuny 12y ago
    No: an error or a mistake can even be "stupid" but you are not entitled to call anyone "asshole", "stupid" or whatever for what they did. CENSORSHIP and OSTRACISM!. What-the-fucking-shit-are-you-talking-about? Bluntness has nothing to do with insulting.
forgottenpass 12y ago
I agree in part, as much as someone can hate Linus' style, it's worthwhile to have a toolset to work with people that operate on slightly different social scripts [0] that you want to. You call this having a thick skin, but I think there is a distinction between not taking offense when directed your way, and not finding the statement offensive in the first place. There is a sliding scale of what levels of language imply what levels of offense and it changes depending on context. And this is just one of many properties in evaluation of environment. I've started thinking participants in social environments have an at-least-4-tuple for every context: their desired, expected, perceived, and actual social setting. And a tuple exists for every possible context. The thing that makes for a hostile environment isn't that Linus' posts are "No Big Deal" or a "Big Deal, Indeed", but that people disagree in their desires on how the setting should treat a Linus rant. Especially when there are people that not only expect their opinion to win, but make it imperative to their politics that the culture adapt to them rather than the other way around. Programming is the most tame, calm, and soft-spoken professional environment I've ever been in. I'm used to adjusting my expectation for social scripts for different environments. I've learned to be comfortable in environments with innocuous swearing and ranting elsewhere, I can take it here too. In the end I don't really care which way we go, but the fighting is certainly getting on my nerves. [0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Behavioral_script http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Behavioral_script

zorpner 12y ago

really? another diatribe about Linus? get over it. Linus is the way he is. What a sad, accepting attitude. The fact is that people are more aware than ever than his behavior is unacceptable. They talk about it more and more often every year, and that trend will continue. Eventually, he won't be able to make a public appearance (in person or online) without getting called out on his completely unnecessary and hostile behavior. Then he'll either change or be shunted into irrelevance, and it will be a net positive for the Linux community. Fame and accomplishment are no license to be uncivil.

metaphorm 12y ago
he's not uncivil. he's just blunt. the fact is, Linus does the right thing when it matters. you might not like the way he writes emails on the developer mailing list. you might think he swears too much or uses too much hyperbole. it doesn't matter though. what you're advocating here is censorship and ostracism of one of the most important people in the FOSS world. think about that for a few minutes. you're advocating censorship and ostracism. who's uncivil now? edit: and now you've downvoted me for disagreeing. more "civil" behavior being demonstrated here.
- chipotle_coyote 12y ago
  What you're essentially saying is that it doesn't matter how much of an asshole someone "important" is to others, but that it's ABSOLUTELY TERRIBLE for anyone to dare call him out on being an asshole. Do you really think any community benefits from this attitude?
- Chinjut 12y ago
  Is any attempt to get people to consider changing their behavior to be dismissed as censorship and ostracism? We should never be able to say to anyone "Hey, you're being a jerk. It would be better if you were less of a jerk."? (Is this one of those ridiculous "If you're so into tolerance, why don't you tolerate my intolerance?" arguments?)
  - metaphorm 12y ago
    the post i was responding to said "Linus should be shunned into irrelevance". that's a fair bit different than simply asking someone to change their behavior.
    - vertex-four 12y ago
      And if he doesn't change his behaviour, which is increasingly deemed unacceptable, we should continue interacting with him and pretend it is acceptable?
- zorpner 12y ago
  think about that for a few minutes. you're advocating censorship and ostracism. who's uncivil now? No, I'm saying that uncivil speech has consequences, and that's a desirable feature of existing in a society. In order for the predictions in my post to not come true, you would have to somehow prevent people from discussing Linus's incivility. What mechanism do you propose? Also, I can't downvote you because it's a reply to a post of mine (this is how HN works). I generally don't downvote posts I reply to either.
- jfarmer 12y ago
  > it doesn't matter though. It does matter if it means otherwise qualified contributors stop contributing or, more likely, never attempt to contribute in the first place. Linus doesn't know how to act any other way, but that doesn't mean there aren't other ways to act that don't harm the overall success of the project but create a more welcoming atmosphere. It's like he's trapped in this weird world where "being nice" is the alternative to being a temperamental jerk. How about being kind, patient, but forceful? Lots of technical leaders know how to strike this balance and Linux is worse of for Linus' inability to do so.
  - pierrebai 12y ago
    I'm tired of seeing civility and toxicity being mixed up. Blogs about Linus is just one example of this type of discourse, which comflate being nice and civil with mysoginy, racism, and the like. Linus is not toxik. Furthermore, there's this notion that being nice is a free, costless attitude. Just as Nick Coghlan himself admits, being nice is hard and demand energy and time. All things that come in limited quantity. There is also an unspoken assumption in these rant that Linus is constantly being a bully. It's just not true. The fact of the matter is, in a forum, you need to be able to use a large range of attitude to deal with the wide range of people and contribution. You can nicely rebute someone on a subtle topic. It's wasted time to try to be subtle about boneheaded ideas. If you can't go termonuclear from times to times, then your opinions get muddled. The fact is, it is hard to convey the level of opposition by text alone. Using bluntness works. You also have to deal with really disruptive people. You just can't rule out never to be uncivil. It's a tool, to be wielded when needed. There is hypocrisy in demanding not to be called an idiot when you are.
- mcphage 12y ago
  > the fact is, Linus does the right thing when it matters. Wouldn't this be the perfect opportunity, then? The right thing would clearly be for him to change his hostile behavior.
- pfortuny 12y ago
  No: an error or a mistake can even be "stupid" but you are not entitled to call anyone "asshole", "stupid" or whatever for what they did. CENSORSHIP and OSTRACISM!. What-the-fucking-shit-are-you-talking-about? Bluntness has nothing to do with insulting.

forgottenpass 12y ago

I agree in part, as much as someone can hate Linus' style, it's worthwhile to have a toolset to work with people that operate on slightly different social scripts [0] that you want to. You call this having a thick skin, but I think there is a distinction between not taking offense when directed your way, and not finding the statement offensive in the first place. There is a sliding scale of what levels of language imply what levels of offense and it changes depending on context. And this is just one of many properties in evaluation of environment. I've started thinking participants in social environments have an at-least-4-tuple for every context: their desired, expected, perceived, and actual social setting. And a tuple exists for every possible context. The thing that makes for a hostile environment isn't that Linus' posts are "No Big Deal" or a "Big Deal, Indeed", but that people disagree in their desires on how the setting should treat a Linus rant. Especially when there are people that not only expect their opinion to win, but make it imperative to their politics that the culture adapt to them rather than the other way around. Programming is the most tame, calm, and soft-spoken professional environment I've ever been in. I'm used to adjusting my expectation for social scripts for different environments. I've learned to be comfortable in environments with innocuous swearing and ranting elsewhere, I can take it here too. In the end I don't really care which way we go, but the fighting is certainly getting on my nerves. [0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Behavioral_script http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Behavioral_script