Re: Welcome to DW (was: Re: DW (was: Re: [gnome-women] Getting a Web Site Up & Logo Contest status)
On 8/15/05, Steve Langasek <vorlon@debian.org> wrote:
> On Mon, Aug 15, 2005 at 12:36:40PM +0600, || स्वक्ष || svaksha wrote:
>
> > Each and every one of us has a *real life* outside of FLOSS and other
> > volunteerism and the only common thread stringing us together is the
> > philosophical ideology, good work and interest in FSF/GNU.
>
> I don't believe this is true. While each of us certainly does bring to the
> table our own local cultural background, and as a result Debian is far from
> having any sort of monoculture, there *is* a shared "work culture" in Debian
> with unique features of its own. Some of its features include:
>
> - You don't Cc: people on mailing list replies unless they request it.
> - You don't mess with another maintainer's package without letting them know
> first what's going one.
> - You have no right to make demands of how other people spend their time.
> - You have no right to block someone else from fixing an issue you have
> chosen not to work on (provided that there is agreement that it's an issue
> and that it can be fixed, that is).
> - It is impolite to disappear for long periods of time without letting the
> project know you will be gone.
>
> There are also some cultural artifacts present in Debian which not everyone
> agrees are a good idea and at least some people are hoping to change, such
> as:
>
> - When you disagree with a decision and the people who made it don't
> actually want your opinion, declare that a Cabal is responsible.
> - When someone in a position of responsibility juggles multiple tasks and
> fails to handle one of these tasks as quickly as you want them to, loudly
> insist that this, too, is a sign of a cabal.
> - Flaming and ridiculing people on mailing lists is a greater good than
> advancing technical discussions.
>
> Now, there are plenty of other traits which I identify with Debian culture
> as *I* experience it, but it's hard for me, with the perspective of only a
> single person, to draw a line between bits that are part of a globally
> shared Debian culture and those that are the result of my own projections
> and of a culture that I externally share with those I interact with
> regularly.[1] Nevertheless, the fact is that Debian has more than a decade
> of history as a community, and it's more than a little arrogant for any
> newcomer to this community to expect that Debian is going to meet their
> personal culture halfway.
>
> Heck, I'm sure that even I waited until about 6 months after becoming a DD
> before I started to try to coerce others into changing their behavior...
>
> > Besides that, choosing to participate in a particular community is
> > mostly a free choice, cutting across cultural, language and national
> > barriers. This basic fact must be respected at all times.
>
> > IMHO, expecting people from other different cultures to change their
> > behaviour/culture, etc... to conform to ones own expectations or
> > behavioural patterns is a highly inflexible attitude.
>
> An important factor in successfully getting along in a multicultural project
> like Debian is to make an effort to recognize *others'* cultural
> expectations, and avoid deliberately offending your interlocutor. It's a
> lot easier to consciously modify how one expresses oneself than it is to
> modify one's culturally ingrained reaction to an offense given, and by
> cultural standards that Erinn and I share (I'll let someone else figure out
> if this is a shared *Debian* culture, or a shared *American* culture), what
> Clytie did was *very* rude. Not because she didn't approach the issue
> head-on (that would just make her ineffective), but because she made
> disparaging comments about this group publically to others *instead* of
> approaching it head-on.
>
> Regardless of the terms Erinn may have used to describe this behavior, if
> people aren't able to acknowledge that offense was given here (intentionally
> or not), I hardly think they're in a position to criticize others for having
> inflexible attitudes about culture.
>
> And BTW, of all cultures I have ever encountered, the one invariant that
> appears to transcend them all is that they are *all* xenophobic on some
> level. It's only *learning* that bridges the gap between cultures; cultures
> themselves are useless for this. Something to think about before trumpeting
> the virtues of unconditional respect for cultures...
>
Does that mean the following..
/quote:
OK, well in my culture we prefer things to be dealt with head-on; the
behavior you describe strikes me as being passive aggressive and
manipulative.
/unquote,
is justified and acceptable on Debian/DW ?
--
|| स्वक्ष || svaksha
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