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Comment by vultour | Hacker News Reader

There's several people in this thread saying the user did not provide constructive feedback and I disagree. Amongst the emotionally charged venting there's a description of a real struggle the user is encountering while trying to use the software.

Yes, they should've opted for a more civilised approach. No, it doesn't discard the issue that they (and possibly others) are experiencing.

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Here's an example of what a constructive, friendly email might look like, in contrast to what Tom sent.

>>>

Hey Don, thanks for all the hard work you've put into Notepad++ over the years. I've never paid you a cent, and yet I've personally made quite a bit of money from using the product.

Despite how obviously useful the product is overall for me, there's a niggle I've got, that I'd love you to solve. Let me know if I can do any hands-on work to help you fix it. I'm probably not good enough to write code, but maybe I could help with testing, writing documentation, or giving you more detail on the issue.

Or maybe I should, you know, give you some cash.

Anyway, the issue I'm having is around using the settings. I'd like to use the application with a specific UI - greenish background, black text, highlighting what's selected. The way I've configured it sort of works, but has a white background when I move the cursor around. This is probably me doing something wrong, but I can't work it out - I've searched on the internet, but can't find a solution. Here are the settings I'm using. [...] Let me know if I can provide more details that would help reproduce the problem.

Thanks again for all that you do to make Notepad++ the great product that it is.

I agree. And ideally this is what all emails should look like. But you're ignoring the context. Do you know what that guy was going through?

Maybe his wife just cheated on him, divorced him and took half his money, his kids don't want to have anything to do with him, his bank took his house and he just crashed the car. And he tried to use Notepad++ and the same old issue happened and he snapped and sent that email.

99 out of 100 times he would have send the email you mentioned here but he had a horrible day and vented in the email. Does it make it ok? No. Is it understandable? Yes. Should we discard the feedback because he was frustrated? No.

He didn't have to send that email at that moment if he was going through some stuff.

One's having a bad day does not excuse anti-social behavior. Ever.

Someone being rude does not excuse ignoring their legitimate problem.

Why not? Would that be rude?

Even worse than rude, it would be unproductive. If you were to recieve a report about a critical security flaw, would you ignore it simply because the reporting user was rude in the report? I should hope not. So why should normal bug reports (and confusing UI/UX issues are also bugs) be treated any differently?

This wasn’t a critical security report.

Please read my entire comment, not merely the first half.

To be excruciatingly explicit: Bugs (and confusing UI/UX) experienced and reported by rude users also affect many non-rude users. If one wants one’s software to be the best it can be, then one should listen to all bug reports; the attitude of the reporting users are irrelevant.

maybe when we are all replaced by robots that is true, but its not possible for the average person to take abuse constantly and keep a level head. That's not how our brains are wired

What if he doesn’t care about the “best it can be” because his product is already so widely used? What if he thinks “my product might be a little worse, but I’ll feel a little better”.

I agree that he’d be under an ethical obligation to listen to a rude security report. But it doesn’t follow that he must therefore listen to all rude bug reports.

As a user of some software, I would certainly hope that the developers would prioritize fixing bugs over their own egos.

Well if the developer does choose to prioritise their ego, you can always get a refund.

As a user of free software you can hope all you want, but you have no right to an expectation that this is the priority. Your right end with the decision to stop using the software, which is exactly what Don said to the original email

> Even worse than rude, it would be unproductive.

That’s a value judgement man. Not everyone values turning everything into a productivity improvement over all other values

If I have more problems reported every day than I can fix, the only productive way is to work on issues that people actually put time into reporting in a nice and well worded manner. Because usually only those people give feedback if something is fixed to their liking, stick around for long enough to actually test the fix and are reasonable enough to understand limitations or discuss alternative solutions.

If the only issue my application ever had was reported in such a rude manner, there might be a case to be made to fix it, even though it was reported in a hostile or rude manner. It might make the application better for people who didn't report the issue. But maybe it is more valuable to just spend that time on something fun or enjoyable like coding on something else or eating cake. There is no reason to waste your free time on rude people, when they have the option to just be nice and save you all the anger.

I don’t see why the attitude of the reporting user should be a factor in determining the priority of the bug they are reporting. Surely the severity of the bug, and how many people are likely to be affected are the relevant factors. Sure, if the issue is not well explained, hard to pin down, or might otherwise require cooperation from the user, you have to weigh that into your consideration. However, many users do get surprisingly cooperative once you show them that you actually care about fixing the issue they are reporting; many users are used to being ignored, and might start out having a bad attitude merely by habit.

Does someone who doesn't pay you at all have a legitimate problem? Producing this product is charity, not indentured servitude

Using that logic, I could just as well argue that since you don’t pay me to debate this with you, you don’t deserve a reply from me, since I am not your indentured servant.

In other words: There exists roles and relationships, with attached obligations and expectations, other than those involving money. Free software development is such a relationship, as is this debate.

If you were to post rude comments in Hacker News, you probably wouldn’t get a response, because it would be delete. It kind of proves the very point you’re opposing - being polite begets good responses, rudeness to being ignored.

I have zero expectation that you’d reply. Most conservations on hn don’t end because they wrapped up neatly but because someone had something more important to do and walked away from the conversation.

There are obligations other than money, but none of those exist here. There’s no contractual obligation. He put out something for free and doesn’t need to take an iota of criticism on it by people freeloading. He obviously can, and if he wants certain goals like increasing his user base it might be the smart move to respond to these type of people, but there are no obligations.

> if he wants certain goals like increasing his user base it might be the smart move to respond to these type of people, but there are no obligations.

That sounds like a social and/or cultural obligation to me.

How does that create an obligation? What do you mean by the term, we may be talking past each other

A social obligation, in short, is something which a person would be rude not to do, but is not required by law. I’m sure you can think of examples. I am putting forth my opinion that fixing bugs, regardless of how rude a bug report is, is a social obligation.

HN is one of the best places on the internet to politely post a critical or opposing view and get a reasoned response though; doesn't that strike directly at your point? Perhaps that's exactly what I'm doing righbt now, because you weren't a rude jerk? ;)

Yes it does. I'm petty and proud. If they wanted it fixed, they would've taken the personal responsibility to have been born with a brain big enough not to be rude.

This suggests a new attack vector on software projects; if I wanted to cripple a competitor, all I would have to do is to first find a real important bug it their software, but then report the bug rudely enough that the developers then want to punish me personally by not fixing the bug. I would then have guaranteed that the bug in my competitor’s software is not fixed, and people will use my software instead.

In other words: Trying to punish rude users by not fixing the bugs they report is like cutting off your nose to spite your face.

This is a super-contrived example, but I could still fix the bug, just not specifically for you, on your schedule. The odds that you'd find an issue that impacts more than the odd crank are so thin that this isn't anywhere near a top concern.

Well then, you fixed my legitimate problem, didn't you? Therefore, my being rude did not excuse you from ignoring it.

maybe not if they're paying for a product or support (which they're not in this case) but even then it puts them at the bottom of my list.

No Jerks cuts many different ways...

Doesn't have to be this verbose even. Just a "I've been using Notepad++ for years now, thank you so much for it!" and a bit of "I understand that there are many issues that require your attention right now but there's this thing I'm struggling with..." Would've done.

Honestly, this looks like a troll's work. I personally would've ignored him/her because of the adage, "don't feed the trolls"

It’s not a troll (someone being deliberately offensive). If you make something free, you do get some amount of just this kind of entitled, abrasive users. It can be soul-draining and I admire Don’s kindness here.

> Here's an example of what a constructive, friendly email might look like

What would constructive, unfriendly feedback look like?

Anything by Linus Torvalds.

>>>

I'm having an issue using the settings. I'd like to use the application with a specific UI - greenish background, black text, highlighting what's selected. The way I've configured it sort of works, but has a white background when I move the cursor around. Here are the settings I’m using and a screenshot of the problem.

There's nothing unfriendly about that. It just doesn't go out of its way to exude overt friendliness, is all.

'Unfriendly' does not mean the opposite of friendly. It means it is not friendly.

So that is by definition 'unfriendly' - because it does not exude any friendliness.

Just because it is 'unfriendly' does not mean it is 'rude'.

I'm pretty sure your definition is not the one most people use. Google for sentences containing the word "unfriendly" and I'm pretty sure 90%+ of them (if not 99%+ of them) use it as a milder version of "rude", not as "showing no signs of friendliness or rudeness".

To circle back to the point of the original comment, my point was "constructive" and "friendly" are describing different characteristics, and "rude" does not automatically imply "unconstructive" (and of course "constructive" does not imply "kind" either). That fact is precisely what necessitated your use of the word "friendly" in your own comment. You can see this if you Google too—the top result I get when I Google constructive criticism meaning [1] says constructive criticism is "a feedback method that offers specific, actionable recommendations". That's all it means.

[1] https://www.google.com/search?q=constructive+criticism+meani...

I might describe it as a little cold. Since I have no contract with the developer, I’m effectively asking for a favour. Perhaps I’m just awfully British about it.

We’re talking about constructive feedback. This template:

- Praises the product and the hard work

- Says that it is so useful to them [but it wasn’t for this user, though?]

- Volunteers to help with what they want to solve

- … and yet also chastises themselves for probably not being good enough to contribute the most holy CODE. More praise of the author by putting oneself down?

- Finally gets to the suggestion in the fourth and penultimate paragraph

- Oh silly me, it’s probably a user error on my part

- Praises the product again

You’re either taking the piss or are setting the bar so high that none of the “haters” are gonna feel inclined to send someone a matter-of-fact (not rude, and also not this submissive fanperson, either) constructive feedback.

This is my template, not _the_ template. What’s your template?

Dunno but I found this thing lying around that I liked:

> I'm having an issue using the settings. I'd like to use the application with a specific UI - greenish background, black text, highlighting what's selected. The way I've configured it sort of works, but has a white background when I move the cursor around. Here are the settings I’m using and a screenshot of the problem.

;)

I’m British. Self-deprecation is the only thing I’m good at.

Hmm, any mail without the hate would be fine. This user is just showing what a good mail might look like?

Only true if you're expecting the author to behave like a robot and exist without any kind of emotion. I certainly don't see how you would call that constructive in any way.

Loose analogy, I don't watch videos of retail workers being abused and think, that customer is providing constructive feedback.

Maybe we just use a different definition of "constructive feedback", but my emotional perception of a comment has nothing to do with the classification.

"You suck and your software is a piece of crap" is not constructive feedback because there's no details to act on.

"Fuck you the submit button is obscured by the footer" is constructive even if the message has a personal attack.

You might choose not to act on comments due to emotions, but I don't think it invalidates any constructive feedback contained within.

And this right here is why a large number of engineers never make it pas mid-level. Thinking that the only things that matter are technical and the social aspects of communication are just unnecessary complications

Understanding the things people are actually telling you without getting distracted by anger is also part of communications. You don't have to engage with the rude users but their problems are just as real.

Only true if you're expecting the the person who provided feedback to behave like a robot and exist without any kind of emotions.

Loose analogy, I don't watch videos with people buying a bike with no breaks, fall and get hurt, then go to the vendor and calmly explain to them that they should modify their bike design so the breaks function and think, that customer is behaving like a human being.

See what I did there? :) My analogy might not be great, I give you that. But frustration is a normal human behavior. Granted I strongly believe you should try to vent a different way and then give clam feedback, you can't discard feedback just because the person giving it is frustrated.

We should be able to distinguish between frustrated good feedback and just abuse. I know I was able to get feedback from very hostile messages. And last time I checked I'm not a robot. So it's as skill you can gain.

Open source developers should disregard hostile feedback out of principle, for their own sanity. The feedback might be valuable, but it's ultimately not worth mining for because they get very little for their work, donations at best. Commercial customer support stuff at least get a regular income for their trouble.

Yeah, frustration breeds frustration. So I agree that it's better to disregard it if you can't handle it.

But I'm just wondering, is it possible to ignore the form of the message and listen to the content? Looking back the stoics were very good at controlling their own emotions and dealing with insults. Insults would just not get to them, they would bounce right off them. Is this a skill we've lost as a society?

It seems that nowadays we're focusing external, not internal. Instead of developing a thick skin we're focusing on changing the behavior of the people who's insulting us. To me that seems like a pointless endeavor. You can't change someone else behavior if they don't want to cooperate. And without a thick skin, all it takes is one jerk to ruin your day. With thick skin the insults from a jerk bounces off you and your day is still a good day. So, it seems to me that we should focus inwards instead of outwards. Not saying it's easy. Just saying humans were capable of that in the past, nowadays I don't hear anybody talking about it.

While this the feedback in this mail indicates a problem, even if you remove the emotional language I don't believe it's constructive. Constructive feedback would not just indicate a problem, but also provide guidance/suggestions on how to correct it.

In feedback like this I filter out the useful information. No need to hurt your ego, or go on the offense, if you instead respond by asking questions that show you do care and understand you will often get a more humble response.

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