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The template given was nothing like that, at all.That's fair, I waded in to discuss a related pet issue and it's probably not fair to have posted the way I did.
> Regardless, I firmly believe that this attitude is keeping many people out of the tech business, let alone open source. Society shows that niceties are wanted and work, especially by women, a demographic under-represented in most parts of tech. I also find that not showing niceties is a display of dominance and self-importance, again, something that isn't going to bring more people into tech.
Let's start with the part where I said "though I don't usually respond so." It irritates me, but I tolerate it because my goal is to help people.
As for not having space for stories/niceties driving away women, I don't walk into the emergency room and think "man, this is a sausage fest". Usually there are vastly more women working there than men. Yet from discussions I've had with people who work in that area this is a common frustration there as well.
"You're bleeding, I don't need to hear about how depressed you've been since your grades are poor, fast forward to the part where you slipped while drunk and fell onto a broken beer bottle so I know what kind of treatment to administer." That's a made up example but is actually less ridiculous than the actual examples I've heard.
I'm not saying to leave out relevant details, but when you're bleeding or have broken bones or your left side is going numb, just tell the doctor the facts, as concisely and as clearly as you can.
If you want to tell stories, go to your primary doctor when you're not facing an emergency. Or, and this is not dismissive so please don't interpret it as such, go to a therapist, or a councilor.
A bug report on an issue tracker is obviously not life threatening in the vast vast majority of cases, but it's the same idea. It's where you go when things are broken, so tell me what's broken and the relevant context.
If you want to give thanks or talk about what you like or how you get value from the project or whatever, there are other venues for that and I encourage you to use them. Or put it at the end of the issue thread after the problem is at least identified. I've never been upset at someone for clearly expressing the problem and then saying thanks when I fix or acknowledge it.
EDIT:
> I also find that not showing niceties is a display of dominance and self-importance, again, something that isn't going to bring more people into tech.
It takes some serious mental gymnastics to turn a focus on helping people as quickly as possible into "a display of dominance and self-importance". I'm specifically asking people to not kiss my ass about "how much this project helped them during a dark time in their life" or whatever so I can get to the root of the problem they're encountering and resolve it.
It's incredibly bad faith to claim that trying to be efficient with my volunteered time so I can help as many people as possible is an attempt to dominate the people I'm helping. Frankly this sentence makes me question your motives here. Had I taken this sentence in earlier I wouldn't have responded to your post at all.