[aur-general] TU Application - Konstantin Gizdov

Tue Oct 30 16:09:18 UTC 2018

On 10/28/18 4:45 PM, Morten Linderud via aur-general wrote:
> It's frankly embarrassing that it has to go this far. Eli is avoiding the
> discussion on IRC and refuses to answer.

So, is the appropriate fix then, is to do some more shaming on the
mailing list? Actually, by the time things got going there, you could
have seen something very interesting in the join/part messages:

You'll see my internet connection going kaput. I have had really bad
internet over the weekends recently, and I spend most of my time pinging
out.

IRC, as a synchronous communication medium, is simply unreliable, and we
shouldn't expect anyone to be online 24/7. Especially when your only
proof that I am online is that my bouncer is online.

Do you suppose I derive personal amusement and enjoyment from this
fight? No! It happened because I care too *much*. And quite frankly, I'm
no more thrilled about how I handled things in the heat of the moment
than no doubt many readers.

I ultimately ended up pretending the internet didn't exist for much of
Sunday, my active activity of being present in-channel consisted of
like one comment at 10AM. I drafted two fairly tame emails and one in
which I tried to back down on the aggression and clarify my thought
process re: why I was so upset, and I queued those to be sent "whenever
my email client decides it's online again". (Reconnecting to my IRC
bouncer today I see that I was promptly accused of ignoring the
conversation. Please remember that email, unlike IRC, is asynchronous
communication.) I then tried to relax and cool down, ended up going to
sleep several hours earlier than the earliest time I usually go to sleep.

Morten: I have a lot of respect for your involvement in many initiatives
around Arch. But honestly, I often feel that you are taking the
discussion to another extreme, on making absolutely anyone feel as
utterly welcome as humanly possible and then some and then some more, as
the primary goal. It's the other side of the coin and we shouldn't allow
situations when one stays silent instead of criticizing an application
to avoid backlash. Or indeed just staying silent in general.

On 10/30/18 8:27 AM, Baptiste Jonglez wrote:
> Hi Santiago,
> 
> Now that the discussion period is over, I am taking time to fully answer
> this, since it's much more general and important than the TU application
> itself.
>
>> On 28-10-18, Santiago Torres-Arias wrote:>> I've been following this email thread quite closely and without
>> participating as I was hoping to keep opinions to myself --- I don't
>> think I have much questions other than what's already asked for
>> Konstantin --- and make up my mind for voting.
>> 
>> It's clear that it is time to take a step back and stop fanning the
>> flames. We are all passionate people, and sometimes this passion leads
>> us to the type of arguments we are having right now. I agree with Eli,
>> this is not a toy operating system and there are things at stake.
>> However, I'm completely convinced that no ill intention is coming from
>> everyone involved, and that, if we consider this optic, it's clear that
>> this is just a non-technical quarrel that should've been shelved a while
>> ago.
>> 
>> Personally, I think this is a good opportunity to tone it down for a
>> second, leave the 10+ emails behind us and try to go back to the things
>> that make this community friendly and welcoming.
>> 
>> Baptiste, Konstantin, Eli, and Doug. Please take a deep breath and
>> extend a friendly handshake. I'm sure everyone else following this
>> exchnage thinks this is the reasonable way to move forward.
>
> I understand that you want to calm things down and the intention is good,
> but you make it appear as if the animosity is symmetrical.  But the
> situation is actually not: we have two bullies ganging up violently on a
> newcomer, who has so far kept a very cool head and stayed polite where
> most people would have gotten angry.  On my side I reacted more angrily
> because I am getting fed up with this kind of repeated toxic attitude, and
> other people expressed dismay at the violent personal attacks we
> witnessed.
> 
> Note that here I am not making any judgement on the validity of the
> arguments in the various technical debates: this is important but it is
> not the point here.  The point is precisely to be able to have interesting
> discussions and debates, without resorting to personal attacks, insults or
> abusing a dominating position, as both Doug and Eli have repeatedly done
> in the past and now again:
> 
>     https://lists.archlinux.org/pipermail/aur-general/2018-September/034287.html
>     https://lists.archlinux.org/pipermail/aur-general/2018-October/034402.html
>     https://lists.archlinux.org/pipermail/aur-general/2018-October/034408.html
>     https://lists.archlinux.org/pipermail/aur-general/2018-October/034411.html
> 
> This is not a witch-hunt: Doug and Eli, this discussion does *not*
> question your attachment to this community, the quality of your work or
> the quality of your technical opinions in general.  In fact your are both
> much more knowledgeable and active in Arch than most people including me.
> But that is certainly not a valid reason to start bullying people around,
> or else I am grossly mistaken about this whole community.
> 
> As a general rule, when nobody stands up publicly against a bully, the
> bully will just continue bullying people the same way in the future,
> perhaps even more confidently.
> 
> Of course, we can also bury our head in the sand and pride ourselves that
> our community is "friendly and welcoming" (I think this is still true on
> the whole btw) while leaving the bullies act unchecked.  Santiago, I don't
> mean this as a personal attack on you, I just think that it's a bad idea
> to sweep such unacceptable personal behaviour under the carpet as if
> nothing happened.
> 
> Quite frankly, in the future I am considering taking whatever actions are
> necessary to make sure that this kind of hurtful behaviour doesn't happen
> again, including asking for the bully's resignation or resigning myself.
> I hope that we will find ways to work things out without having to resort
> to such extremes.
> 
> Discussing these problems seems like a good start 

What really got me angry was the fact that after a *month*, an incorrect
statement about me was still being insisted upon (and never mind an
apology...). I took offense at what I deemed an insult, and lost my
temper. I'll maintain that I did not intend my messages to be perceived
as personal attacks, but rather, intended them to reflect on
interactions which were directly pertinent to the voting at hand.

I've always felt it is important to state my beliefs. And I am not good
at hiding my meaning beneath layers of politicians' doublespeak; this
means when I'm genuinely angry at someone, you'll be able to tell.

I don't believe anything I've done constitutes "bullying". I don't
engage in the kind of discrimination repeatedly making political
headlines. I've always considered myself very welcoming to anyone
willing to learn; I've patiently and cheerfully guided lots of people
through making their PKGBUILDs better, often pretty terrible PKGBUILDs
too, I offer help on issue discussions I know about, and spend
significant amounts of time on the various support fora *trying to help
people* (I didn't get 2500 BBS posts by just being idly rude to people
al day), etc. and all I ask is that others make a token effort to listen
to what I say, and that they be willing to learn. I'm generally
unconcerned about non-technical matters. I don't even curse.

What I have been known to do, is react harshly to people I feel have
violated my sense of what is right -- and usually that means I least
perceive them as either being unwilling to learn or flat-out ignoring
the actual content of what I say when responding to me.
I tend to get very technical in the process, because the mechanics of
how things work are dear to me. I tend to get very technical about most
of the non-confrontational interactions I have too. Apparently my being
articulate in a technical distribution is seen as making things worse,
though, because "smart and articulate people make the best bullies". I'm
not sure how to respond to that.

Ultimately I was unable to let go and should have let it end with my
initial response, and I apologize for letting things spiral out of
control. I can only promise to try to keep an eye on the tone in which I
interact in the future, but I do make that promise.

-- 
Eli Schwartz
Bug Wrangler and Trusted User

-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: signature.asc
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 833 bytes
Desc: OpenPGP digital signature
URL: <https://lists.archlinux.org/pipermail/aur-general/attachments/20181030/6c98ee8f/attachment.asc>