Malte Cornils wrote:
Am Dienstag, 25. Januar 2005 00:40 schrieb Gunnar Wolf:[Person with *very* delicate skin quitting NM] I don't know (and don't want to, don't point me to it ;-) ) who advocated a person with such a delicate skin to enter NM. I mean, NM is for people who are _already_ somewhat involved in Debian... And if a little aggressivity puts you off that badly, then...One can only hope that the set of people resistant to aggressiveness ("thick-skinned") does not strongly correlate to the set of people often exercising aggressiveness. Following your line of reasoning, that would mean Debian could likely never be open to people with a soft skin (since only somewhat aggressive people could stand entering Debian).Luckily, I'm not too tempted with following that line of thought because I know some DDs that do not fall in the aggressive category. Still, an interesting thought... (could also be one of the problems preventing women from participating more often in Debian)
Based on comments made to me by a number of women who are interested in contributing more to Debian, the level of agressiveness on some of the mailing lists and IRC channels is a problem. It is preventing people (women and men, no doubt) from getting involved, because they don't want to have to deal with that behaviour, should it be directed towards them.
I often find myself explaining to people how they can avoid attracting the attention of those who are likely to be unpleasant to deal with, and also repeatedly emphasising the fact that, despite some appearances, there really are many very pleasant and supportive people involved in Debian. It's a pity that such explanations are actually required.
I do not believe that being thick-skinned enough to cope with people who are very agressive or insulting should be a requirement for involvement in Debian. Sadly, it seems to me that this is effectively the case. Shouldn't we be more interested in someone's technical skills, and their ability to work well with others?
Helen