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Comment by acedTrex | Hacker News Reader

Gotta have a thick skin to deal with the general public, developer community or not

Many public figures have social media and PR teams to help deal with stuff like this, you really expect that every individual out there should just grow a thick skin as culture is continually encouraging us to have more and more of a public presence? This is the kind of thinking that gives a free pass to entrenched patterns of discrimination and targeted hate speech. It's very possible that emails like this wouldn't just be a spew of random insults but targeted towards a person's very specific triggers, and in that case a thick skin cannot stop a bullet.

> This is the kind of thinking that gives a free pass to entrenched patterns of discrimination and targeted hate speech

What do you suggest? This is basically unpolicable in a world with anonymous ways of getting people to see text.

You might be correct but it still stands that nothing is added to the discourse by just telling people to grow a thick skin. It's a repulsive attitude and I had to call that out.

> It's a repulsive attitude

It's actionable constructive advice.

I think the "repulsive attitude" I'm referring to is shouting "Just grow a thick skin!" to someone who is saying that they're suffering from abuse. In some cases, the suffering is so acute and so deep ("bullets") that it's not necessarily actionable on the part of the person suffering; rather, it's a call for help that others may respond to.

I think of it more as a general observation: the people who maintain open source projects that must deal with the public must have thick skin, or they won't last. Acknowledging that there are and will always be assholes like the email writer in the world is not to excuse their behavior. It's great to call out shitty behavior and try to get rid of it, but it will always be around at some low level, that's the reality.

Unfortunately HN is no longer a place where you can assume good faith observations when something like that is said. OP's words play into toxic narratives that need to be called out for the sake of other people reading the comments. I might be wrong about OP's intentions when giving my reply, but I am pushing back against a narrative, not against a specific person.

> I might be wrong about OP's intentions when giving my reply, but I am pushing back against a narrative, not against a specific person.

What narrative? Your comment is vague. Would you mind expanding on this accusation and how it relates to open source, especially when today's maintainers on platforms like GitHub and GitLab have an array of tools at their disposal to deal with issues?

OP replied to my comment and I now see that it makes sense as an observation. The narrative I was referring to is something that I see common in discussions surrounding abuse; "there's nothing to be done about it; [people should] just grow a thick skin." If we agree that this exists, then I posit that it's a toxic thing to say to someone who's coming forward and saying that they're suffering from this. It's also toxic to use that as a way to dismiss measures that we can build in technologically to combat abuse, like building blocking mechanisms or modifying them to make them better. Hope that clarifies things.

I'm not expecting anything of this person.

Was merely remarking that the public domains are incredibly rude areas and the reality of the difficulty of existing within them.

Perhaps I replied to the wrong comment then. Sorry for being confrontational.

No you don’t.

Try using the language in that email the next time you talk to a cashier and see how long it takes to get you escorted from the premises.

The “don’t feed the trolls” or “just accept that people do this” nonsense has just meant “let scumbags do stuff they’d never be permitted to do in person” as much as they want with no consequences.

It would be trivial for Google to verify this email did come from an actual Gmail account, and then provide information about any associated accounts if it was - their entire business model is built on doing just that.

Yeah, I feel for them.

While we can try to improve the reality, it is the reality today and difficult to improve. There is always a small percentage of people that are bad.

I maintain a couple semi-famous open-sourced projects and get a criticism (of course a milder one than what OP got) once in a while. I read them and only take what is useful.

I always always thank them for feedback whether the feedback is good, bad, or abusive. I never argue that the users are wrong. I might help correct their understanding, but I'd say: I can see why it can be misunderstood.

This is because, if you start arguing with users, it leaves a bad taste in other users even if you are right.

I used to look at one open-sourced project where the maintainers taunted the users to implement the change themselves because it's "the benefit of an open-sourced project". It kinda turned me away from the project.

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