Meta-discussion on keeping topics here focused and amicable

[morgen-peschke]

@lihaoyi

Everyone comes to this forum, or any forum, the same: a stranger. Nobody has any preconceived notions of you, or knows who you are, for better or worse.

What people think of you is entirely self-created: by the content of your posts, your choice of words, the attitude you show, and your actions. @eyalroth has certainly made an impression on people here; not everyone may speak up, but everyone observes.

@jducoeur, @Ichoran, @odersky, and others are among the kindest, most patient people you will find in any online community. If these folks are telling you that you are doing something wrong, it’s worth a listen.

As has been pointed out, this cuts both ways. You may have sufficient experience to assert that, in their interactions with you, they’re some of the nicest people you’ve met online, but your experience does not invalidate mine. That they’re nice to you doesn’t mean that they can’t be dismissive or hostile to me. Your experience is valid to you, but please understand that interpersonal history doesn’t generalize like that.

@Ichoran

But I categorically disagree that it is “victim blaming” to try to help people understand why they seem to have aroused an atypical amount of ire, and to offer suggestions to make them and the rest of the community be better able to take advantage of what the other has to offer.

I’m not sure if you’ve noticed, but this thread has been neatly diverted from the issues raised by @eyalroth and myself to a pile-on of finger pointing about what we may have done to “deserve” this treatment. That’s the whole point of victim blaming: diverting the conversation to shield those who would rather not address the issues being raised. Advice which, if proffered privately, may be helpful or instructive can easily become victim blaming when done publicly, en mass, and in a way which serves to distract from the issues being raised.

@Ichoran

I’m going to treat this as off-topic and/or a topic for another thread, but I do just want to register that this was not how I interpreted the interaction. The issue at hand was what type of solution should be sought, not a simple “go away without saying so”. One could expand this into a discussion of amicability and the importance of clarity, but I’d rather not right now.

If you’d like to read more, this comment is the end of the mini-thread which leads me to this understanding, and has a decent summary and links to the relevant comments by @smarter as to what they meant. I considered this on-topic as it’s a prime example of a situation where I got repeatedly verbally smacked down for not taking a hint I had no realistic way of getting because it was in extremely coded language.

@Ichoran

So I move that we just stop.

I’d appreciate getting some actual closure before we end this thread. There are some pretty deep issues that have been raised and brushed off in favor of the finger pointing at the people raising them, and they really need addressed if this community is to survive as anything other than a closed echo-chamber.

Specifically:

1. Moderation of violations of the published norms (CoC) is currently handled by the moderators on a long-term basis, through private channels, when it’s handled at all.

   It’s opaque, and provides no relief to those targeted. This erodes the faith which targeted people have in the moderators.

2. Moderation of violations of the unpublished norms is currently handled by a community-driven smackdowns in very public channels, with either the implied or explicit consent and approval of the moderators.

   Notably, they are visibly more engaged in policing argumentative tone than things which come close to actually violating the CoC. This further erodes trust in them, and creates the perception of a “Good Ol’ Boys” culture where if you are a member of this inner circle, you can be as combative as you’d like and you might get called on it in private a few months down the road, but if you’re outside of that circle you’re open season for a community-wide pile-on if you violate the unpublished norms.

It’s not quite there yet, but we’re edging into “rules for thee, but not for me” territory, which is difficult to come back from if an open community is desired. If an open community is not what is wanted, closing these forums to anyone who hasn’t submitted a PR against the compiler or standard library may be warranted. Any time input from the user community is desired, it could be solicited in the Users forum. It’d be less open, but the post count would stay down, and it’d be clear what level of interaction is wanted from those of us who fall between users and contributors, and to what degree our input can be expected to be taken seriously (which is another issue, for another day).