Re: my latest blog post

[Christopher Lemmer Webber <cwebber@dustycloud.org>]

Catonano writes:

> Instead of calling me an hopeless moron unwilling to learn, he went and
> updated Skribilo, without saying a single word
>
> I noticed
>
> And I appreciated it
>
> So, yes, it was aggressie indeed
>
> Again. I'll try to be more complete later

I think it's great that Ludovic responded so nicely with Skribilo.
Though I read what Ricardo wrote... I think he never called you anything
of the sort, and if I had read only your email I would have gotten the
impression that he had (I am not sure if this is what you intended here,
maybe you were referring to something else, but I think it applies to at
least the comment where you interpreted what Ricardo said as "f--- you").
If I were in Ricardo's situation I think I would feel very hurt.

I think part of the conflict here is you're saying you're seeing some
things that you think are clearly missing from the project, and here are
some things that you'd like to see changed, and here are some things you
are offering to change.  And that I think is very good.  But you are
also identifying some things you'd like to see changed that you don't
yet know how to change.  Ricardo is suggesting that you learn more about
them and jump in to help change them.

Is this a hostile thing to do?  Well, if it were used as a way to
dismiss the request entirely, probably.  But what I think Ricardo is
trying to say is that the Guile community is resource-strapped (which it
is, being run by volunteers).  We cannot demand that anyone who is
volunteering work on a specific thing, but we can ask and make
suggestions.  And one excellent way to make changes happen is to learn
and step into the role of making them happen.

Not everyone can, and this is true and I fully agree.  To that end, I
think that's where bug reports come in, and making an appeal to the
community to work on a specific thing is useful.  But I also think that
it is true that everyone can help in some ways, and that we also
remember that everyone is volunteering.  We cannot expect that
everything that we would like done will be done because all volunteers
only have so much energy.  To that end, a call to "please help" is not
necessarily dismissive... it may be a call to ask you to be empowered,
and a call to say that your contributions would be welcome and
appreciated.

Most importantly, I think we should not put negative words in another
person's mouth that they did not say or intend.  I linked "Assume Good
Faith" earlier because I think we cannot build a strong community
together without doing so.  To put more negative words in place of what
someone said puts them on the defensive and makes it hard to come
towards further progress.  This is a collaborative game... let's
recognize that, and all work together to make it a better place.