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Comment by paganel | Hacker News Reader

> unless you can get this habit under control.

The OP is not alone in that, I also chuckle/grin when under huge stress (it sometimes also happened when I heard about the very bad health condition of people really close to me), and saying that "one should get this habit under control" is like saying to depressed people just to smile so that they won't be depressed anymore (and it's also like calling depression just a "habit", but I digress).

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Calling someone and telling them you've found them to have violated a rule, and that there would therefore be certain consequences, is not an easy task, nor one that most people should be expected to do well. There's no shame in not being good at it.

NumFOCUS should think about this. Someone in Jeremy's position could decide to sue them. They should think carefully about how these decisions are to be communicated to the putative violator and who should do it.

You need to get it under control if you want to work in the kind of roles where it creates issues.

If you freeze up when you see fire, you can't be a fire fighter. If you faint when you see blood, don't be a surgeon. If you can't handle the stress of ganging up on someone, don't sign up for a CoC committee.

In this context you're the disciplinarian. You shouldn't be very stressed in the first place. But if you are, and you can't avoid the chuckling, then you shouldn't be the one making the call.

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