Re: Q to both candidates: preventing burnout by other contributors
Hi Russ,
In general I would say I agree with your analysis. You raise some
excellent points, especially that the extreme outliers are paradoxically
an quote-easier-unquote case to deal with via expulsion, whilst
behaviours that do not reach that level cause more damage in the
long-term as they are simply around for longer.
(I'll assume for the rest of this thread we are talking about this
sub-exclusion case.)
> 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.
There's probably a Dunning–Kruger effect [0] factor too, where this
hypothetical 20% may not even realise they are the cause of the
problem, blaming others and/or thinking they are misunderstood…
> 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.
Indeed. We can't always use social opprobrium as a tool — even being
explicit regarding poor behaviour ("calling it out") doesn't affect, say,
the technical ability to push to a shared Git repo and removing such
rights is a huge step.
> 2. Do you have any thoughts or plans around how to more proactively
> address social problems that fall short of explusion
If I claimed I had a foolproof solution to this problem I would either
be a liar or the saviour of the free software movement in general…
(I'm also somewhat hesitant to give my ideas without some kind of caveat
that its remains unclear to me whether it should be the role of the DPL
to *rule* or even have any input whatsoever on such cases.)
However, I still think that by continually and reliably calling it out
in general, even in cases where it is unlikely to worsen, means that
our culture will — in time — change for the better.
For specific cases, we could look into a "traffic light" warning systems
but moreover make the process of escalation to some kind of third-party
mediator more frictionless.
Furthermore, putting people and teams together in real life is also
another unexplored avenue. Whilst this speaks somewhat to my previous
commitments for more meetups, the angle I am taking here is not waiting
for the next {Mini,}DebConf or team summit but rather putting the two
parties in the same room specifically to solve a social problem.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect
Regards,
--
,''`.
: :' : Chris Lamb
`. `'` lamby@debian.org / chris-lamb.co.uk
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