* Re: Love and Hate on LKML
2008-05-27 22:06 ` Chris Snook
@ 2008-05-28 5:12 ` Willy Tarreau
2008-05-28 12:02 ` Scott Lovenberg
1 sibling, 0 replies; 4+ messages in thread
From: Willy Tarreau @ 2008-05-28 5:12 UTC (permalink / raw)
To: Chris Snook; +Cc: Love Hate, linux-kernel
On Tue, May 27, 2008 at 06:06:35PM -0400, 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,
your comments make a lot of sense. Unfortunately, I think that
you wasted your time trying to educate this one. Judging by
his/her pathetic blog made up from carefully selected excerpts
from the list, and the fact that he/she has no name to post
with, I think he/she's just a kid waiting for his/her parents
to discover he/she used dad's computer without authorization.
Otherwise, I 100% agree with what you said.
Cheers,
Willy
^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 4+ messages in thread
* Re: Love and Hate on LKML
2008-05-27 22:06 ` Chris Snook
2008-05-28 5:12 ` Willy Tarreau
@ 2008-05-28 12:02 ` Scott Lovenberg
1 sibling, 0 replies; 4+ messages in thread
From: Scott Lovenberg @ 2008-05-28 12:02 UTC (permalink / raw)
To: Chris Snook; +Cc: linux-kernel
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.
^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 4+ messages in thread