Simon Stelling posted <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, excerpted below, on Mon, 13 Feb 2006 19:39:06 +0100:
> Duncan wrote: >> Consider this: INVALID is strong enough, under the wrong circumstances, >> that it /could/ set an emotionally unstable user off, causing them to >> commit suicide or something. > > Are you being serious about this? I dont' find it particularly funny in > case it's a joke. In case it's not, i find it ridiculous. If a person is > that emotionally unstable that he'd commit suicide because of an INVALID > resolution, he'd probably commit suicide everytime only the slightest > negative event occurs too. I really feel sorry for those people who are > depressive, but I wouldn't feel guilty because I closed a bug as INVALID > instead of WORKSFORME. Perhaps you've never been suicidal. It's no joke. There was a single event in my life, over 20 years ago, where I was very temporarily (like a day) suicidal. Having experienced that, yes, I'm /very/ serious, altho I understand your skepticism as well, particularly if you've been lucky enough to have never dealt with the issue personally. The details are personal, inappropriate, and unnecessary to the discussion, but the very general situation was this: I was already sick and thus out of normal physical/mental/emotional balance as it was, when someone made a comment that due to that unbalance, I took personally and blew /way/ out of proportion. Luckily, I didn't act on the impulse and as soon as I got some sleep and recovered at least a modicum of physical health, the whole thing looked as ridiculous as it actually was. Having faced those particular personal demons once, I've never had to face them again and don't expect I ever will. The point is, the person that made that remark had no idea the effect it had on me -- and what the result might have been. However, having gone thru that once, even 20 years ago, I still remember the despondency, the utter lack of hope, the distorted world-view that a day later seemed so ridiculous. The point is, to a person in that shape, even something seemingly tiny, to someone unaffected by that distortion field, can be enough to push someone over. The point is, one never knows, particularly over the net dealing with a person you've never met in real life and haven't interacted with on a regular basis even on the net, what sort of weird personal stuff they might be dealing with at the particular time you're interacting. The point is, yes, it's /exactly/ "little" stuff like that "INVALID", that if it hits at the wrong juncture in someone's life journey, just /might/ cause them to end it. Getting INVALID stamped across a first or second bug posting /can/ be depressing, I /know/! For any /normal/ person, even at its worst, it'll be no worse than the dozens of other little irritations one experiences on a daily basis. However, a similar assumption on the part of that guy all those many years ago came very close to having fatal consequences. Yes, that /is/ serious! I don't expect those who've never faced suicide as what appeared to be a reasonable choice to even begin to understand. Just be aware that it /can/ happen, and consider what your response would be if a final note was found that named a comment you made as the deciding factor. It /can/ happen. Unfortunately, a lot of folks end up asking themselves serious questions about their last interactions with someone they were talking to only yesterday, and how whatever they said must have looked to the poor guy considering the act, every day. Luckily, that's the only time it it's ever even looked like an option, to me. However, that once was enough. Obviously, it has had some lasting effects on how I choose to deal with folks, to this day. -- Duncan - List replies preferred. No HTML msgs. "Every nonfree program has a lord, a master -- and if you use the program, he is your master." Richard Stallman in http://www.linuxdevcenter.com/pub/a/linux/2004/12/22/rms_interview.html -- gentoo-dev@gentoo.org mailing list
