Re: Question to all candidates: Perceived hostility within the community

[Raphael Hertzog <hertzog@debian.org>]

On Mon, 05 Mar 2007, Matthew Garrett wrote:
> Josselin Mouette <joss@debian.org> wrote:
> 
> > There is nothing like a moral right to mock people, just like there is
> > nothing like a moral right not to be mocked.
> 
> Research[1] has shown that one of the primary factors deterring women
> from involvement in free software is the perceived hostility of many of
> the communities. Do candidates believe that mocking of other members of
> the project is acceptable[2], given that a side effect may be to
> discourage a significant body of the population from participating
> within the project?

I'd rather avoid mocking people in general. I largely prefer a friendly
and constructive atmosphere, and that's precisely why I got compared to a
tele-tubby by those who are used to mocking people. :-)

That said, there's no clear cut line between mocking people/criticizing
people/making fun out of a difficult situation. As usual, when you're
doing important tasks, you're likely to be exposed to that kind of feedback.

It's not that difficult to criticize people without hurting them (I did it
several times), but some people are not interested in making that effort.
The current situation is too often "be aggressive in the hope that the
other side will go away"...  which tends to result in "collateral
damages".

I want to get rid of this behaviour but I have no magical solution. I'm
curious to see how the social committee proposal of Josip can help here.
Also, I'd like to see if a working DPL board (with sane discussion without
agressivity) is enough of a good example for the rest of the project to
follow. 

Cheers,
-- 
Raphaël Hertzog

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