Gentoo Archives: gentoo-project

From: desultory <desultory@g.o>
To: gentoo-project@l.g.o, "Michał Górny" <mgorny@g.o>
Subject: Re: [gentoo-project] [RFC] CoC change to encourage clear communication
Date: Thu, 17 Dec 2020 05:02:44
Message-Id: f6b4005b-a65a-cff3-44a4-1c81ffb9114d@gentoo.org
In Reply to: [gentoo-project] [RFC] CoC change to encourage clear communication by "Michał Górny"
1 On 12/15/20 18:13, Michał Górny wrote:
2 > Hi,
3 >
4 > I'd like to propose amending Gentoo's CoC through adding the following
5 > point:
6 >
7 > - *Use concise and clear language.* The Gentoo community includes
8 > people from all over the world, with varying English skills and
9 > available time.
10 >
11 >
12 > Rationale:
13 >
14 > The primary purpose of communication on Gentoo media is to share
15 > information. In order for this goal to be achieved, it is important
16 > that the recipients of the message (presumably arbitrary Gentoo users
17 > following the mailing lists) can understand these messages.
18 >
19 > Furthermore, we should note that people don't have infinite time to
20 > spend on reading mails. Both sending unnecessarily long mails
21 > and using hard to understand language means that both users and
22 > developers have to spend ever increasing amount of time to participate
23 > or at least follow conversations. Eventually, it means that some
24 > people who can't afford to read all the text are excluded.
25 >
26 > In my opinion, it's also a matter of respecting others and their time.
27 > In the extreme case, some people are deliberately participating
28 > in the described way in order to waste other people's time, to exclude
29 > them if they can't manage to keep up, to push their ideas forward while
30 > drowning the opposition in the storm of long replies.
31 >
32 Banning nuance and depth in favor of arguing over who thinks what is
33 clear and/or concise seems counterproductive at best.
34
35 For a trivial example, consider the time investment involved in news
36 items, both writing and parsing them.
37
38 Also, if the goal is to deal with things which could confuse a reader;
39 is it not be better to promote an environment where the reader is
40 comfortable with asking for clarification instead of feeling the need to
41 rely on potentially faulty assumptions?