Re: [Ksummit-2013-discuss] [ATTEND] How to act on LKML

From: Ric Wheeler
Date: Tue Jul 16 2013 - 19:36:35 EST


On 07/16/2013 07:12 PM, Sarah Sharp wrote:
On Tue, Jul 16, 2013 at 06:54:59PM -0400, Steven Rostedt wrote:
On Tue, 2013-07-16 at 15:43 -0700, Sarah Sharp wrote:

Yes, that's true. Some kernel developers are better at moderating their
comments and tone towards individuals who are "sensitive". Others
simply don't give a shit. So we need to figure out how to meet
somewhere in the middle, in order to establish a baseline of civility.
I have to ask this because I'm thick, and don't really understand,
but ...

What problem exactly are we trying to solve here?
Personal attacks are not cool Steve. Some people simply don't care if a
verbal tirade is directed at them. Others do not want anyone to attack
them personally, but they're fine with people attacking their code.

Bystanders that don't understand the kernel community structure are
discouraged from contributing because they don't want to be verbally
abused, and they really don't want to see either personal attacks or
intense belittling, demeaning comments about code.

In order to make our community better, we need to figure out where the
baseline of "good" behavior is. We need to define what behavior we want
from both maintainers and patch submitters. E.g. "No regressions" and
"don't break userspace" and "no personal attacks". That needs to be
written down somewhere, and it isn't. If it's documented somewhere,
point me to the file in Documentation. Hint: it's not there.

That is the problem.

Sarah Sharp

The problem you are pointing out - and it is a problem - makes us less effective as a community.

Getting the balance right is clearly difficult in a large, diverse community, but I do think that the key is to focus criticism on the code or technical arguments and avoid attacks on the individual.

Being direct and funny in a critique is not the core of the issue,

Ric

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