[aur-general] "pepper-flash" naming?

[Eli Schwartz]

On 11/14/2016 05:51 AM, Det via aur-general wrote:
> I'm sorry but that's bogus. Not only did I ask repeatedly because I
> wanted to get an answer, but since he gave me _none_, I asked the
> mailing list instead.

Wanting to get an answer is not inherently a problem. It does, however,
show that you care. Not that caring about other AUR packages is a
problem either, but it does go to show that you won't be completely
oblivious to the result.

Your going into attack mode was the problem. And if you don't see how
your actions came across as that, then that is a problem.

(I will humor you by giving you the benefit of the doubt and running
with the theory that you didn't intend to come across that way.)

> That thing about "fighting" and "peeling pressure", I'm sorry, is
> simply over-sensitive and ridiculous.

Sure looks like fighting to me.

You wanted to know why it was named one thing rather than another, he
said "because", which is certainly a valid reason *for a status quo*,
considering that you didn't go to any effort to try justifying why the
name surprised you or made you question it in any way.

You asked him to "please rename", continued to NOT give a reason, and he
told you to stop asking. It is not his responsibility to explain to you
why you need to justify your opinions.

You repeated your request, and added "Or give a reason as to why not
like a proper maintainer."
But no part of being a proper maintainer includes giving reasons for
anything other than, perhaps, why a package does not conform to the AUR
rules. Are you insinuating that?

That is when it started getting personal. And you eventually accused him
of sulking (I can say many things about Scimmia, and we have had our
disagreements as well, but he doesn't strike me as one to "sulk"!) and
said you would "ask the mailing list". Ask them what:
Why he wants that name?
Or
Whether we agree that he should have to rename it?

The former makes no sense, because once again, he needs no reason to
maintain a status quo, and it is your obligation when going against a
status quo to provide a reason (any reason) for the change.

The latter makes a lot of sense in context. Although once on the mailing
list you phrased it as a question, I used "logic" and "intuition" to
conclude that that what you really wanted was for us to agree with you
so you could go back to demanding it be changed.

Since you provided no reasons in the AUR comments, and you did provide
reasons on the mailing list, it would seem that we are more deserving of
reasons than he is. (At least, if you felt the need to explain to us,
presumably we wouldn't already know. So why should he know your reasons
any more than we did?)

Hence peer pressure. I don't know why you would prefer peer pressure
over explaining yourself to Scimmia *directly* but there it is...

> First of all, many people seem to _appreciate_ the fact that I keep
> their package up-to-date in a very consistent manner (of which I have
> a lot, as you implied) and every now and then they thank me. Makes me
> happyface.
> 
> Yes, I maintain 107 packages, most of which are split or -git, so in
> essence require no extra work. But... if the argument is that I care
> too much about the general health of AUR... yes, I just don't know at
> which point does this become a such a major concern, if those apparent
> quote-unquote-toxic comments of mine are the worst that can happen
> (see 2nd reply on that).

I have no problem with you maintaining packages, and I am sure people
are very appreciative.
The fact that you "care so much about the general health of the AUR" to
the extent that, when your personal opinions on how things should be
done are not met, you feel the need to cross the line from suggestions
to harassment (however minor) is less okay, and that is what people mean
by toxic.

Surely you are *capable* of both "caring about the general health of the
AUR" and "respecting other maintainers' ability to care about the
general health of the AUR".

> And about that vuze thing you decided to dig up..., well, quick story,
> over 2 years ago, I flagged the then "vuze-plugin-i2p" out-of-date,
> because the project was no longer maintained. I posted 3 comments
> about it to try and give the direct link to the new one (you couldn't
> edit comments back then, of which by the way, due to my control mania,
> I finally created a feature request back in April 2013 [1]).

And thank you for that, as the ability to edit comments is very useful.
But that is somewhat irrelevant...

> This "mildly p*ssed" the maintainer, causing him to create a bug
> report [2] where falconindy also joined in (apparently still angry at
> me over a comment that he never admits his mistakes), and the two
> concluded that I'm 1) "not a very well-socialized individual", and 2)
> "need a thourough[sic] dusting in public". Asked both in private, but
> apparently silence had landed in.

Not counting your *first* post to aur/vuze (in 2011)... your first post
there, around the end of 2014, where the commotion happened, was kind of
aggressive. I don't actually know what the context of that was supposed
to be, though.
I do know that the maintainer claimed you harassed him via private
emails, using multiple email addresses with names that aren't your own.
You confirmed the false names, at a minimum: "pps. "Daniel Davis" is not
my real name. :)"

Using a false name is kind of really bizarre. I can understand people
being anonymous on the internet, but why on earth would you feel the
need to use a fake name?

> Second time, slightly over a year ago (July 2015), I suggested a fix
> of the broken homepage URL in "vuze" to the maintainer (same guy). [3]
> Well, again, he was incredibly upset by it, calling me an "antisocial
> self" and actually claiming that I "insulted" him in the past. He then
> spammed 5 comments of a message beginning with "Hahahaha!" and was
> never heard from again. (By me, until the apparent mailing list thread
> this year.)

No editing of comments, there, and they were submitted sufficiently
close together (within one minute) that I suspect he didn't realize they
were all submitted and  none deleted.

Surely you of all people would sympathize with that, having filed the
original bug report!!!

> The other person you linked unfortunately didn't (AFAIK) give any
> names of packages that I had apparently been flagging so can't comment
> on that.

Multiple unsubstantiated complaints of private email harassment became
more ominous with the creation of this email thread.

> On Mon, Nov 14, 2016 at 9:32 AM, Bartłomiej Piotrowski
> <bpiotrowski at archlinux.org> wrote:
>> Det, TLDR, a rename is not going to happen. Almost every message or
>> comment from you is toxic in some way and you can be sure that implying
>> that member of the project is "throwing a tantrum" after your pointless
>> AUR comments is not going to bring you anywhere.
> 
> Thank-you very much, but not only do I see zero "toxicity" or
> "pointlessness" in my comments, but I'll just conclude this thing
> suggesting that maybe, possibly you guys may simply need a slightly
> thicker skin.

If that many people see your comments as toxic, does that not imply the
problem may indeed be you rather than everyone else? At least enough of
an implication to warrant meaningful introspection about your own attitude?

Of course, a conspiracy theory could account for the multiplicity of
people who all feel the same way, but I don't think anyone wants to dive
down that rabbit hole.

> Really, no offense, no intent to hurt anyone's feelings, but how long
> have you guys been using the internet?

"No offense, but..."
Yep, the single most offensively oxymoronic phrase in common English
usage. ;)

And that is without getting into the rather problematic idea of thinking
that "because the internet" is a valid reason to tell people to get a
thicker skin.

> And, you are probably going to stamp this piece as "entirely toxic", [...]

Actually, I think the common complaint was "toxic in some way", not
necessarily "entirely". And your previous paragraph qualifies.

-- 
Eli Schwartz