David Dyer-Bennet wrote: > Jim Grisanzio wrote: >> Look, I know many scary-smart developers who are as strange as anything >> you can describe. However, I only have relationships with and respect >> those who treat me and others with respect. It's that simple, really. >> All the too-cool open source rhetoric is meaningless to me if it means >> that it's cool to be offensive. It's not. Now, I'd say that the vast >> majority of people around here are professional, but I'm concerned that >> the good guys in this community are far too accommodating to the >> flamers. > If you build a community that's based primarily on valuing people > skills, you'll get a very different one than if you built it based > primarily on technical skills.
Some of the most highly technical and utterly brilliant people I know are also some of the most gentle and humble. And, of course, I know many nasty people who don't have a technical cell in their body. :) I don't think these qualities have to be locked into any specific field. The OpenSolaris community already has a range of people from kernel engineers to general users, and there are personalities of all types spread throughout. > "Respect" is a scary word -- usually it means deference to somebody who > sees themselves as superior. That's probably not what *you* mean, but > asking for "respect" gets my back up very quickly. Respect is something > you have to *earn*, it's not given for the asking. Now, basic > politeness should be freely offered to all, but that's a whole different > issue (though possibly it's the one you care about; we may use the > words differently). Yah, in this context I'm using "respect" to mean basic human decency, not necessarily for any specific core competency in a given subject area. So, someone shouldn't get to call me a jerk just because I don't have long hair or I wear a suit and am a lawyer or something. (By the way, I'm losing my hair, I don't wear a suite, and I'm certainly not smart enough to get through law school!). Or if they do call me a jerk (or worse), they should expect to be challenged. In other words, obviously bad behavior (hostility, attacks, etc) should cost you something -- your credibility. In terms of "earning" respect for your actions and your talents and such, sure, I totally agree. That's also a great thing about communities. You can earn your respect based on the product of your work, not on your connections or your money or anything else. That's much harder to do in other environments where politics and/or hierarchy are valued. > And I'm guessing, though you don't mention it, that you can deal with > some rough edges, and some emotional involvement with the topic, and > with people saying what they mean; you don't require everything to be > filtered through layers of diplomats? Sure. Back when we started OpenSolaris, the project team agreed that the lists would not be moderated. We never really considered otherwise, actually. We wanted the free flow of ideas and opinions to help generate activity, innovation, passion, excitement, etc. But there actually have been people who have suggested moderation from time to time and especially after one of the more charming GPL flames. Also, the previous OGB issued a document calling an end to a licensing discussion that turned into quite a flame as well. I rejected both of those ideas separately because I felt they would both set a bad precedent. I'd much rather the flamers get snuffed out and go away due to the high level of quality discourse in the community. > It's also not cool to be too easily offended, either. It's kinda like > protocol implementations really -- be thick-skinned in interpreting what > you hear from others, and be polite in what you say yourself :-). I think that's good advice. :) Jim -- Jim Grisanzio http://blogs.sun.com/jimgris _______________________________________________ opensolaris-discuss mailing list opensolaris-discuss@opensolaris.org
