From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S1753428AbYE1L5a (ORCPT ); Wed, 28 May 2008 07:57:30 -0400 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S1750957AbYE1L5W (ORCPT ); Wed, 28 May 2008 07:57:22 -0400 Received: from wx-out-0506.google.com ([66.249.82.227]:51199 "EHLO wx-out-0506.google.com" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-OK) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1750816AbYE1L5V (ORCPT ); Wed, 28 May 2008 07:57:21 -0400 DomainKey-Signature: a=rsa-sha1; c=nofws; d=gmail.com; s=gamma; h=message-id:date:from:user-agent:mime-version:newsgroups:to:cc:subject:references:in-reply-to:content-type:content-transfer-encoding; b=mn6OAYyazkimokUZct75x/ybhgwTmuXLU4jqpGgSNHWu2qRvAvdhpuDbVgFNy8VzBsyzJJZm8qXJOW/o14J5PTzfjkV+F60DJ72ZXSIjfKrCILVwf4ECxn1U8kvfGrAY7h5i3NwQRngUmTcYoHK4NrcUdejppnguHi/hZydMOcc= Message-ID: <483D49E8.9060705@gmail.com> Date: Wed, 28 May 2008 08:02:48 -0400 From: Scott Lovenberg User-Agent: Thunderbird 2.0.0.14 (Windows/20080421) MIME-Version: 1.0 Newsgroups: gmane.linux.kernel To: Chris Snook CC: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Subject: Re: Love and Hate on LKML References: <89af77c70805271348y1df96afveb020d0f3f875da1@mail.gmail.com> <483C85EB.7060604@redhat.com> In-Reply-To: <483C85EB.7060604@redhat.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org List-ID: X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Chris Snook wrote: > Love Hate wrote: >> Dear Developers, >> >> At the outset I would like to thank you for your great work - IMHO >> Linux is the >> best OS in the Solar System. >> >> Unfortunately, your relationships with certain people are not the >> best. I do not >> like how some people are treated on LKML. I will publish further episodes >> of "Love and Hate on LKML" until you change the climate around Linux >> development. >> >> http://loveandhateonlkml.wordpress.com/ >> >> If your speech is found in some of the episodes, this means that it has >> been considered very offensive. >> >> Kind regards > > This is a classic example of a problem-seeking idea. Quite a lot of > people post to this list with some idea that they think will make a > large impact on the community at large, certainly far larger than a > lowly patch in a subsystem it would take weeks to understand. Typically > the proximal cause is sleep deprivation, a condition that afflicts many > kernel developers and enthusiasts, with the result being a decreased > inhibition against ideation of reference and ideation of grandeur. This > causes the believe that you have "discovered" something which is really > quite well understood and is being addressed with the priority it is > due, and that as a result of your discovery you are uniquely qualified > to guide the community to its resolution. > > I don't mean to throw stones here. If you dig through the archives, you > can find examples of some grandiose ideas I've posted that never > resulted in a single line of code, or turned out to be impractical > generalizations of more specific optimizations that have already been > implemented. Invariably these were posted while sleep-deprived, and > I've been quite embarrassed by them the next morning, and relieved that > for the most part they were ignored. > > If not for the importance of addressing this issue, I would leave this > post ignored as well. I have no qualms with the goal of improving > civility on LKML, but it's not something that's going to be solved by > anonymously shaming people on a blog. The goal of your blog appears to > be to chastise kernel developers, which is at best a needless escalation > of hostilities. > > If you want to improve the quality of discourse here, then get involved > and make good posts. Email makes filtering very easy, so if someone is > a troll or is posting on technical matters they don't understand, we can > simply ignore them. If you want to rebuke people for particular conduct, > do it on the list, so the people who read and post to this list can > engage in a discussion of what is acceptable here. The only people who > will read a blog such as yours are malcontents looking for reasons to > dismiss those who have criticized or ignored them. > > My suggestion to you, and to everyone else who wants to improve the > quality of this community, is to become a part of it. Learn a > subsystem. Post patches that fix problems people care about. Listen to > criticism and respond to it constructively. This will make your posts > relevant to the list, and give you far more influence than a blog about > a technical mailing list that has no technical objective. Convincing > other people to be nice is not a technical problem that can be resolved > by one person analyzing it and implementing a solution in a late-night > hacking/blogging session. Quite the contrary, late-night > hacking/blogging sessions tend to be detrimental to this goal. > > -- Chris I'm just a software development major in college who follows kernel development (it's kind of like following a sport that's played 24/7, and I can participate in!) fairly closely. But, for what it's worth, Chris, I really appreciated your comment. It's really refreshing to actually see a positive outlook with a call to action these days (especially where thousands of introverts are concerned). Thank you for a humble, well thought out reply to a slightly hostile post. I've always wished the list would have a slashdot style moderation system, because great comments like this probably get skipped over too much. OK, I'm actually punchy (like I'm the only one who cuts a few hours off of the nights sleep to get up early and write some code... which, after a good nights sleep, I'm going to imprint my forehead in my desk and replace with five lines of good code that actually work correctly... but I digress) and I'm sure that I didn't word any of this as I would have liked to, but I really do appreciate the time you took to write up this reply. I really think I'm going to print it out and keep it around for the next time I want to light up a troll. Especially when I'm shooting off my mouth on topics I know nothing about. I'll admit I really appreciated this post because it was a double-bladed sword to me.