Re: Q to both candidates: preventing burnout by other contributors
Chris Lamb <lamby@debian.org> writes:
> In practical terms, we should be pointing out poor behaviour when we see
> it and not relying on the aggrieved party to do so. We could advertise
> more general themes or even slogans along the lines of "If You See
> Something, Say Something" (!) in order to tilt the zeitgeist.
> We could also better help people provide out-of-band (or even private)
> feedback to offenders, letting them know how their behaviour is being
> interpreted by the others and community at large. For example, in such
> messages, it is more productive to concentrate on perception rather than
> focusing on the actions themselves
> Over time, attitudes, tolerances and people can change, but it will
> always be difficult to improve our culture of constructive feedback in
> such a diverse community overnight. I'd love to be able to work with you
> further on this.
Questions at the bottom, but they require a bit of framing, so I'm going
to be long-winded. Apologies for that!
I think one of the things that makes this very difficult in a project like
Debian is that there's very little teeth to the constructive feedback,
which changes the context and emotional tenor of the feedback
considerably.
In a well-functioning workplace environment, managers raise these sorts of
issues with employees who are hurting the general work atmosphere long
before they rise to the level of requiring dismissal, and with a goal of
never letting them reach that point. But there is an explicit power
structure in place, and managers have a whole host of tools that they can
use to bring increasing amounts of pressure on an employee who is
poisoning the work environment: they can be reassigned, given
less-enjoyable work, lose privileges, receive a smaller (or no) raise,
receive formal reprimands, etc. Often none of that is necessary, but
that's partly *because* there's a clear understanding between the employee
and the manager that these sorts of actions *could* be the next step if
the employee just blows off the concern completely.
In Debian, we have very few tools short of outright explusion from the
project, which obviously everyone is very reluctant to use, and everyone
knows that. Constructive feedback is great, and 80% of people will
respond to constructive feedback and sincerely try to do better. But 20%
or so *won't* when they know perfectly well that they face no real
consequences from ignoring it provided that they don't *really* mess up.
So if they feel stubborn, or aggrieved, or don't think the feedback is
fair for whatever reason, it's much more comfortable to simply ignore it
than it would be in a workplace.
I think this is at the heart of our problem policing social issues. We
can get rid of the truly toxic and dangerous via explusion, and we can
encourage each other to do better when everyone involved sincerely wants
to improve the social interaction. But if there are social conflicts that
don't rise to the level of explusion but are still long-term unacceptable,
we flounder around, talking about providing feedback and calling things
out but never addressing the fact that there are zero consequences for
someone simply ignoring all of that feedback.
Questions to both candidates:
1. Do you agree with the above analysis, or do you see a different
dynamic?
2. Do you have any thoughts or plans around how to more proactively
address social problems that fall short of explusion but that will
require some teeth and actual consequences to get at least one of the
parties to be willing to change their behavior?
--
Russ Allbery (rra@debian.org) <http://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/>
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