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There is literally nothing that you gain from being derisive that you can't also gain from being polite. And the tone you set for your community is vastly different.

Derision of stupidity is probably one of the worst characteristics of hacker culture, because “stupidity” tends to be shorthand for “disagreement with my point of view”.

I have trouble making a cogent argument around the derision of stupidity because derision should be self-evidently bad. It should automatically file under “why would I want to do this to my own personality”. Derision and bullying are indistinguishable from each other, and the thought that a group as oft-socially-maligned as hackers (at least until the last 6 years or so) defaults to derision seems more a sign of imitating things we were subjected to than reasoned thought.

“If you go up to a group of people who are used to doing things according to procedure X and you blithely ignore it, you really should not be surprised when your efforts are met with derision at best and hostility at worst.”

What does blithely ignore mean? Say this is the first open source project I've ever contributed to, so I don't know what the norms are in terms of where to even look for guidelines. Or I contributed 30 minutes of my time because that's all I had, and I devoted them to this. Or I'm learning to program, and I chose to try to help your project.

I will posit that anyone who is trying to contribute to your project is doing you a kindness. They may be doing it in a poor way, and you are within your rights to point that out. But how you point it out is what we're talking about. You an politely point out that the project doesn't accept pull requests. You can politely point out that tickets can't be opened until there's been a discussion on the mailing list. Etc. You can even be curt.

Derision is not curtness. It is not impatience. It is explicit, intentional putting-down of someone because they aren't as good at something as you are or think they should be. And it is a poison. Unfortunately, if you take it frequently enough, it becomes habit. It becomes second nature. And you stop noticing it's poisonous. And so, unfortunately, it is an oft-enjoyed poison in intellectual circles. It doesn't help anything. It doesn't help you understand the world or other people. It doesn't really save you that much time. It simply makes you feel better about yourself.

>Derision of stupidity is probably one of the worst characteristics of hacker culture, because “stupidity” tends to be shorthand for “disagreement with my point of view”.

Then it's not stupidity. That's not what this article (at least that I can see), or my post, was talking about. I was referring specifically to failure to RTFM as the big one, with a side order of bad commits and pull requests.

Ask any tech support monkey at the end of their day what they think about the average person. Then remember that this person is getting paid to do it. How do you think someone who rolls a project as a labor of love feels?

And anyways, if you have an open source project, and it's set up in such a way that commits have to be approved by one person or a group of people, then that one person or group of people are the only people who's point of view matters, at least when it comes to that code in that project. Don't like it? That's what forking is for.

>Derision and bullying are indistinguishable from each other

Disagree. Derision is a society's way of pointing out that you did something you shouldn't have. I have absolutely no problem with mocking stupidity. Stupidity is evil and everything wrong with the world, and should be mocked and driven out mercilessly at every opportunity.

And you'll forgive me for thinking that pointing at a silly pull request and saying "wat" isn't even on the same ballpark as "bullying".

>What does blithely ignore mean?

Okay, as an example: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Introduction

A well defined process and a very good guide to what you should do if you want to help. Ignore means just that, "ignore". If you got a pull request into that system, then you obviously got ahold of that information some way.

>I will posit that anyone who is trying to contribute to your project is doing you a kindness.

But if you're wasting people's time, then that effort is wasted, and having the opposite effect at worst. That time spent dealing with your question which is answered in the docs or telling you why your pull request isn't going to be committed could have been better spent advancing the project. Time is valuable.

“Ask any tech support monkey at the end of their day what they think about the average person.”

The mistake so many people make is to let someone's lack of knowledge translate into “stupidity”, which is typically defined, and defined by you yourself, as an inherent, unchangeable trait. We toss around the word stupid, but it's got two meanings. One is the one I use with my friends when I talk about something who doesn't know as much about something I do. The other one is the one you use to justify derision. Besides not accepting derision in general, I think there are very very few legitimate instances where the other one applies at all.

“And anyways, if you have an open source project, and it's set up in such a way that commits have to be approved by one person or a group of people, then that one person or group of people are the only people who's point of view matters, at least when it comes to that code in that project. Don't like it? That's what forking is for.”

We're talking about whether people should change their behavior. That applies to current show-runners, not to whoever chooses to fork a project. Once your project is entrenched, you can feel like you have the power to say whatever you want because your community is vast. That's a problem.

“Disagree. Derision is a society's way of pointing out that you did something you shouldn't have. I have absolutely no problem with mocking stupidity. Stupidity is evil and everything wrong with the world, and should be mocked and driven out mercilessly at every opportunity.”

Literally, mocking is one huge component of bullying. There's no question about it, just watch a bully. Mocking is bullying. Derision is bullying. There are other ways to point out you've done something you shouldn't have, including stating it politely.

Pointing at a silly pull request and saying “wat” isn't in the same ballpark as bullying solely because it hasn't been done to you when you've been trying to do something you hadn't done before. Or because you hadn't tried to have a social interaction (as opening a pull request is) when you're generally nervous about such, only to be slapped in the face by a comment like that.

“If you got a pull request into that system, then you obviously got ahold of that information some way.”

Yeah, that blog post that mentioned pull requests were legit. Then I googled pull request with the project name and found where I do those. Then I opened a pull request with my changes.

Uh-oh, there was a guide I missed somewhere. Crap. Clearly the proper response to that is mockery and anger, rather than an understanding that maybe I wasn't intentionally trying to waste your time.

“Time is valuable.”

I have never heard a lamer excuse for being an ass (I'm not calling you one, by the way—I'm saying in general), sorry. Yes, time is valuable. You can be polite about pointing that out instead of being derisive. You can say “wat” or you can say “We can't really take this pull request; there's no reason to add this feature.” Or “unfortunately this pull request doesn't adhere to our code guidelines, and I'm afraid I don't have time to help you get it in line with those right now”. Something that acknowledges that maybe their time is valuable, too. Since these are people who want to become members of your community, and invest their own time in it as well.

"Time is valuable."

In that vein I would look to point out this handy reference: http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html which goes into depth about why certain reactions happen.

"What we are, unapologetically, is hostile to people who seem to be unwilling to think or to do their own homework before asking questions. People like that are time sinks — they take without giving back, and they waste time we could have spent on another question more interesting and another person more worthy of an answer."

Note: We are upset that people do not think for themselves and feel that they have to be spoon fed because they are special.

>Once your project is entrenched, you can feel like you have the power to say whatever you want because your community is vast. That's a problem.

How is that a problem? What do you propose we do about it? Should be fine people for saying mean things? I don't follow, sorry.

> There is literally nothing that you gain from being derisive that you can't also gain from being polite.

As maintainer of a large open source project, this isn't entirely true. I would agree that derision is bad. But being blunt is good. Many people confuse bluntness with rudeness.

There is every benefit to being blunt with stupid people. The people who intentionally and wilfully ignore the documentation, who demand that bugs get fixed NOW, who refuse to follow instructions when they ask questions.

The benefit is that they go away. Rude people are toxic to a community. Stupid, rude people.. doubly so.

My personal approach has evolved over the past ~15 years doing this. I no longer try to educate them. Once they've made it clear they're intentionally stupid, they get told "shape up, or be banned from the mailing list / forum". Many do.

Others reply with hostility, curses, private emails denigrating my mental health, paternity, etc. They get banned permanently.

Banning toxic people is good.

I agree with you 100%. The post in question specifically mentioned ridicule, including comments like “wat” and “stupid pull request of the day”. That's derision, not bluntness.

While I try to be polite regardless, I have no strong issue with people who are blunt by default (I also happen to think there's a fine line between bluntness and rudeness, but that's a different topic altogether). I think the key of what you said is “once they've made it clear they're intentionally” doing what they're doing. That is what makes a person toxic. Missing documentation or contribution guidelines or what have you on the first try, less so. On the second try, I'd say bluntness is in order (“we've already asked you to do X, please keep that in mind in future requests” or somesuch). After that, you're dealing with a person who is dragging down both your community and your own time. That's a problem.

And still, it's more productive and beneficial to the community as a whole to be blunt rather than derisive.

Anyway, yeah, net net, I fully agree :)

He's not talking about lowering the bar to entry, he's just saying you don't need to humiliate others when they are just trying to help you.

You could at least dismiss them in a friendly/neutral way. "Sorry, can't accept this: check out procedure X in the docs."

Hence the "sympathize" part, but then again, I also sympathize with people who are human and eventually want to start inflicting bodily harm on people who can't be arsed to read the FAQ before A'ing the same Q again.

Part of the "bar to entry" is that mindset. You don't get a pat on the back and warm encouragement for submitting crap code. You get told your code is crap with the expectation you'll improve before wasting the reviewer's time again.

Call me crazy, but I happen to love this environment.

I know it can be a pain in the ass when people ask you the same (stupid) thing over and over again, but still, IMHO a "leader" of any kind should never bash his "followers". Or he'll end up losing them.

with the expectation you'll improve before wasting the reviewer's time again When you insult people and act like a jerk I don't think you want them to come back ever again.

Your FAQ better be very visible and better include the question and a working answer then.

Also (no offense, you might be a real genius) but a lot of people who think they are above everyone else really isn't. I've seen people frown at the use of Java reflection because it wasn't type safe then go ahead and deliver brand new features written in pl/sql.

You sir are a douchebag, and I won't participate in any project you're associated with.

I don't understand why everyone's pussyfooting around this guy. Please? No offense? This guy is THE PROBLEM. He doesn't get a pat on the back and warm encouragement for providing crap people skills. People skills are part of a project too, just like code.

I downvote rude people on HN, and ascribe to the idea of not saying something you wouldn't say in person. But this guy? I'd say this and more to him in person, on a stage, in front of a million people. Go ahead, downvote me. It's all in a good cause.

You downvote me for an opinion (which is simply "stupid people should not be coddled") absent any animus to any person on this board (you including), and yet I'm the douchebag.

Heal thyself, doctor.

Yes, I find it useful to stand up for others.

This applies to any project. If one sees others being mistreated, one should vote with one's feet and leave. The defense of "but they're treating me fine" is the height of hypocrisy.

Stupidity is an aesthetic judgement. We all run into people it's too hard to help, people we might call stupid under our breath. When this happens to me I move on in silence, rather than turn my aesthetic judgement into generalizations that sully the forum (mailing list, irc channel, etc.) for everyone.

HELLO RETARD YOU'RE SITTING IN FRONT OF A COMPUTER

COPY AND FUCKING PASTE DO YOU SPEAK IT

Nevertheless, I stand by my comment ;) If you're repeatedly getting the same questions asked, in addition to the FAQ (which people, being people, are quite likely not to read), create a text file with common answers. Each time somebody asks a common question, copy and paste the answer.

This was something somebody suggested doing on the Joel on Software board, I think. They used it for fielding frequently-asked questions from trial users. Apparently people responded to it very well. Trial users have the potential of turning into paying customers, of course; open source contributors... not so much. Nevertheless, if you really want to provide the personal touch (and if you're spending time insulting people on the internet, clearly you do!), then this is a reasonable way of providing some simulacrum without too much effort.

You could just fill the text file with creative insults, if you prefer.

Sounds more like you love the environment because you feel good shooting people down rather than what's best for the project (and open-source) long-term. This attitude is why more people don't contribute to - and become better at - the process.

Sometimes shooting people down is what's best for the project. You make it sound like those are mutually exclusive.

I completely disagree. There's nothing gained from making someone feel incompetent when they're just volunteering to better themselves, meet like-minded people and work on something they believe in. You will end up surrounding yourself with equally socially inept people if you encourage this behavior in your community.

Be it doing a better job explaining the project and the requirement/skillset minimums, aptitude tests before they even contribute, or having a pre-defined list of responses to bad code (i.e. '294: Doesn't follow x standard, please see FAQ pg. 84'), there are better ways of handling these situations that encourage people to get better without making them feel worse. Just because bullying people has worked in getting the response that you want doesn't make it the right one.

A part of the hacker mindset ("hacker" as used in the jargon file, and in this site's title) is intolerance of stupidity.

I totally disagree with this. Yes, a lot of hackers may have an "intolerance of stupidity" but I don't know of anyone who has the right to define "hacker" who can say that the definition includes that. And never mind the fact that we are ALL "stupid" in some domain or other and we all do stupid things every day.

please don't try to excuse rude behaviour by ascribing it to a culture that is defined by curiosity and tinkering. being rude has nothing to do with hacking. if you want to be curt and insult people, then you bear the onus for that.

FOSS isn't exclusively "hacker culture", and that behavior isn't correlated with high quality.

If that is the accepted behavior of the maintainers/contributors, then be 'open' about that too.

> The bar to entry is a part of what make high quality projects high quality.

Maybe the code is of high quality, but they usually end up stale and defunct from lack of contribution.

Stupidity is defined by wasting time responding to questions with insults and derision.