People who own businesses should not act like assholes
blog.kamens.us
blog.kamens.us
I get it, the other guy was a jerk, especially to someone who was maintaining an add-on for free. But at the point where the author responded with the "Sorry, I don't agree with that," he should have left it at that and moved on. Who cares what some rando on the internet thinks about your product? Instead the author decided to go into vindictive mode and leave the negative review, and then leave this whole blog post, which does the author no favors. To be honest, to me the cringiest part of this article is it feels like the author is trying to project how virtuous he is, when, at least for me, it had the opposite effect.
You don't like the decisions/actions of management of a company, you choose not to use the company.
You act like a dick bag, and get a bad review. It shows you don't know how to conduct your self maturely. Not someone I would want to go into business with.
If this blog post makes even one jerk change attitude towards open-source software (or about dealing with people in general) coming out as vindictive and hypocritical was an acceptable price to pay.
If there are scheduled messages queued to be sent when Thunderbird starts up, then Send Later sends them immediately, before the user has a chance to click any "Stop" button. The only way to prevent that is to delete the message when you no longer want it sent, which is what I explained to the user.
There's also a preference the user could have enabled in the Send Later preferences to tell it not to send messages that are past due by more than x minutes when Thunderbird starts up. So there are actually _two_ different ways already in the extension for solving the problem the user wanted solved.
It's FOSS, I don't have unlimited time to work on it, there are a lot of other more important features I'd be working on if I had time rather than adding a third solution to a problem for which there are already two other solutions.
The author approached a doxxing vs harassment discrepancy, doxxing seems much more uncivilized.
Further, I think the author should consider the features of his software and the people it attracts. Frankly the author could have ended the conversation earlier when the complainant specified that his use of the software was to harass.
They're usually people who control enough money that they can 'throw money at a problem' and it'll largely diminish or go away. They usually find a desperate enough vendor, employee, or subcontractor who will deal with their attitudes for enough cash, or quickly fire them if they can't.
They usually have the inverse attitude towards customers giving them money -- that is, they believe it's also part of their job to take abuse from those willing to buy.
So, most of their business transactions involve them giving or taking abuse with the threat of financial withdrawal if the abuse isn't accepted. It's how they define transactions. "Who's the abuser, who's the abusee?" The answer depends, strictly, on which way the money is flowing.
FOSS breaks their worldview because they're not the customer in the same way. They don't have that leverage. They're just an angry person on the street asking you to help them carry their groceries in, and at some point, if they realize it, it's priceless.
Seems so simple, but I think the need for closure is what keeps many from being able to do this. But it's dangerous. The Internet is dangerous. All it takes is for one person, it doesn't even have to be a party to the interaction, to ruin your day if not your life.
Legal threats? Please. This guy might SWAT you.
BTW, just to be clear, I wasn't the one who posted the link here. I don't think it's particular relevant to what HN is for, but shrug apparently somebody did.
This is all I'm going to have to say about the attacks on my character here...
When some stranger on the internet acts like a dick toward me in private emails, I call it out -- in private emails.
When I decide that someone has acted sufficiently like a dick toward me in private emails, I put them in my burn-before-read file, and I tell them so, because I don't believe in ghosting people.
That's usually the end of it.
When someone, having been told that they are now in my burn-before-read file, decides they're going to go out of their way to email me from a different email address and harass me some more, then that's just what it is -- harassment. If they'll do it to me, they'll do it to other people, and I believe that calling out harassers publicly is, in fact, the right thing to do. That's why I posted the reviews.
I disagree with the claim made below that it was "bad faith" to do so, because having interacted with the business owner, I was in fact in a position to know his character and how he treats people, and that is certainly an appropriate thing to tell people about who might be considering whether to patronize a business.
The last letter I got from them, asking me take down the reviews, was not "fair." It was an attempt to intimidate me into taking down my reviews. It was, in fact, a classic example of an attempt at such intimidation. If you don't recognize it as such, try reading @Popehat a bit. It is perfectly appropriate to respond with public shaming to someone trying to intimidate you into taking down content you posted about them that they don't like (again, see @Popehat). Ever heard of the Streisand effect?
Finally, as I believe I made quite clear in the blog posting, I would have taken down all of the reviews and the blog posting itself in a second if they had simply apologized. I still would, if they apologized today. There's no expiration date on that offer.
Makes me wish emails had a feature where they took a photo of the reader as they open it, I'm sure we'd get some rather hilariously confused expressions :D
Regarding quoting a ridiculously large number to add a requested feature, yes, sometimes I do that, and sometimes people even take me up on it and I end up both adding useful functionality to the software that everyone gets to benefit from, and making some money out of it as well. But I won't do that when the feature being requested isn't actually the right way to solve the problem. I've explained in another comment why it wasn't in this case. I'm not going to let someone pay me to make my software worse, and if you quote a price to scare someone off, sometimes they surprise you and say yes.
And I bet you’re really proud of yourself. Of course, you can explain your actions, that must mean you’re a good person and what you did was right.
In the email with the GitHub link, the final two paragraphs were an unnecessary provocation, especially the profanity in the first and personal insult in the second. Everything after that was mean-spirited and unnecessary, including your response to the second email address and the reviews.
I got into a lot of verbal fights on the internet over the years before I learned that typing at people only makes it worse. State your case plainly, without name calling, and leave it. If they keep going then 99% of the time they're trolling, and 1% they have no self control.
If you really feel the urge to "give it to them," maybe stop and think about why you feel that way. Nothing good ever comes from trying to hurt someone else to make a point, especially if that point is to make yourself feel better.
The best response is always kindness. If that doesn't work, then walk away. Escalating solves nothing.
You don't trump an asshole by out-assholing him
If you want to fight, argue. If you want to end a fight, empathize.
People tend to think there's right/wrong in a fight when it's almost always emotional and can't be proven or justified with logic.
I often want to vent about shite like this, so I feel for you. It sucks to get treated like dirt and just have to swallow it, else risk a bad-internet-wrap for (rightfully or wrongfully) putting someone in their place.
But outside of an anonymous post, which is not nearly was cathartic, it's better to keep ones mouth shut in an ever so politically correct environment, dollar wise speaking anyways. People speak about how wrong bullying is, but then frown upon punching back. Unfortunately, a good counter punch is often the quickest resolution.
Good for you for standing up for yourself. I personally would hire you for being someone that tells it how it is, but most corporate HR teams may frown upon it, expecting you to be "trouble".