Re: Four days
Asheesh Laroia <asheesh@asheesh.org> writes:
> On Mon, 4 Oct 2010, Ben Finney wrote:
>
> > So when we identify a point of pain, I think it's essential to ask:
> > is this pain necessary to the learning process for this person?
>
> Ben, I'm not sure what you're saying. It sounds like you're saying,
> "The silent treatment is a useful way to teach people humility."
No, I wasn't speaking only of the lack of responses. (I disagree with
your characterisation of it as “the silent treatment”; that carries the
strong connotation that it is a deliberate punishment on the part of
people who actively choose not to reply to each message. That's not a
point I was making in earlier messages, though.)
The discussion has brought in mention of points of pain other than lack
of responses. I am cautioning against a naive and, in my view, incorrect
focus of finding and removing points of pain as though they are
universally bad.
Not all pain is bad. As an example: the pain of having one's work
criticised is, in my view, necessary to improving one's work and must be
endured — and, preferably, welcomed as an exercise in learning humility
and considering such criticism in future work.
Rather, points of pain in the process are only bad if they are
unnecessary to the purpose of the process: to teach people to become
better maintainers, as part of the broader purpose of improving Debian.
> If you find that the emails I send to the list are off-topic or
> otherwise bad for the list, then by all means let me know and I'll
> work to improve my behavior.
Not at all, the discussion is good to have.
--
\ “The fact that I have no remedy for all the sorrows of the |
`\ world is no reason for my accepting yours. It simply supports |
_o__) the strong probability that yours is a fake.” —Henry L. Mencken |
Ben Finney
Reply to: