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On Tue, Mar 27, 2018 at 3:34 AM, Martin Vaeth <martin@×××××.de> wrote: |
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> |
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> It is the general attitude: Does Gentoo welcome contributions |
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> or want to make their developers live in an ivory tower? |
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> |
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> It is about openness vs. isolation. |
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> |
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I'm pretty sure most developers, myself included, want to welcome |
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contributions. |
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Much of the concern is that the lists have been turning into endless |
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arguing over things like very topic. If a newcomer comes along and |
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reads your post, they're going to get the impression that the |
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developers live in an ivory tower. Why would somebody want to |
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contribute to Gentoo in the first place if that is their first |
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impression? |
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Before it was the debate over mailing list policy it was a debate over |
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discipline policies. Apparently developers live in an ivory tower and |
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like to kick people out of the tower as well. In that particular |
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debate the people most informed about what was actually happening were |
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forbidden by policy from explaining what was going on, which basically |
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left everybody who knew nothing of the details to spin conspiracy |
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theories. |
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It is natural that people are going to disagree on some of these |
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issues. The problem is when it turns into a personal attack or |
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hyperbole, which IMO the part I quoted falls into. |
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The intent isn't to stifle debate/discussion. Whitelisting vs |
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blacklisting on a mailing list have obvious pros/cons, and you made a |
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legitimate point in the second half of your email (one that was hardly |
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unknown to the Council I'm sure). The problem becomes when we try to |
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attach motives to everybody else's actions. It isn't enough to point |
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out the pros/cons of whitelisting/blacklisting/etc. Now we need to |
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talk about "ivory towers" and "attitude" and in other posts "cabals" |
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and so on. This kind of language can be demotivating because it |
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demonizes those trying to fix things no matter what they do. Are they |
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promoting "ivory towers" or are they allowing "toxic people" to attack |
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new contributors (which also hardly is welcoming to new contributors)? |
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And then everybody feels like they have to lead some kind of |
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revolution to save Gentoo from itself. |
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A lot of this comes down to considering that most people in these |
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debates probably are well-intended. |
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-- |
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Rich |
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