Comment by rbanffy | Hacker News Reader

Comment by rbanffy | Hacker News Reader

> in particular ones where losing face is a major issue

This touches an interesting point. Feedback must be accurate. If you are actually provably wrong, I am not doing you a favor by telling you you that you are "not right". Losing face is a fact of life. When I'm wrong, I want to know I am wrong, what I am wrong about and just how wrong am I. If possible, tell me what can I do to be right the next time.

It must also be kind. You do not point someone is wrong to humiliate the person and you should take care not to (I try and I fail more often than I'd like to) fall into the trap of judging a person for his or her first efforts.

Having said that, I am almost sure all the exaggerated discourse on the Linux kernel mailing list is not really part of the message, but should be understood as more like a sport, a game, where the one with the most elaborately crafted insult wins. When Linus says you should be retroactively aborted he most likely wants to say you are very wrong and your idea is really bad and that, maybe, you should be more thorough the next time you submit a patch. Their time is a finite resource.

Is this the most efficient way to run the community? Probably not. We just don't know what is the most efficient way to do it and it can just be that Linus found a local maximum.

>If you are actually provably wrong, I am not doing you a favor by telling you you that you are "not right".

Saying "you're wrong" isn't the issue here. Saying "your mom should have aborted you and i hope you die" is the issue. I don't think people in cultures where losing face is a big issue much care if they're told they're wrong. They care is they're told they are so wrong they should kill themselves or be killed. Honor killings are unfortunately still a big deal in some parts of the world.

What you say in defense of the mailing list insults is the same thing that has been said about casual racism or casual misogyny in other groups normally dominated by white men. It scares away other groups and cultures, and it's not acceptable anywhere.

> Saying "you're wrong" isn't the issue here. Saying "your mom should have aborted you and i hope you die" is the issue. I don't think people in cultures where losing face is a big issue much care if they're told they're wrong. They care is they're told they are so wrong they should kill themselves or be killed. Honor killings are unfortunately still a big deal in some parts of the world.

This. Absolutely. The issue is the personal attacks. I've considered delving more deeply into the linux world, but why would I want to willingly go into a place where my constitution is insulted by those who know little-to-nothing of my constitution, let alone my character.

To the individual who commented on the fact that "time is a limited resource" ... so are intelligent people. That you would sacrifice a person (sacrifice them from your project, or committing to your work) by insulting them shows me to avoid your organization.

Maybe, just maybe, "your mom should have aborted you and i hope you die" is just an overly elaborated form of saying you are wrong and should not be taken literally.

> They care is they're told they are so wrong they should kill themselves or be killed. Honor killings are unfortunately still a big deal in some parts of the world.

Nobody is wrong enough to warrant that. I see the "elaborate insult" thing can get out of hand, but, still, it should not be taken at face value. I believe the proper way to deal with this is to either engage in an escalation of extremely elaborate insults (provided you accompany that with technical argument defending your "bad" idea) signalling the insult is not the topic being discussed (but it's "adorning" the arguments) or stating, privately, that the insult crosses a line and asking the person to please not to that again. It usually works.

Disclaimer: I am a caucasian straight married male in his mid-40's. I probably belong to the demographic least susceptible to bullying and some of the situations described here are probably very alien to me. I appreciate constructive feedback, however. I do not know how the moderators would react to an insult war, however, so I advise against it, even if you think it proves your point.

Hint: downvoting is not a good way to provide constructive criticism.

Another symptom of feelings-over-results: quick and effort-free attacks like downvoting take the place of elaboration and reasoned debate.

Even LKML is a generally pleasant place. Linus' well-crafted insults gets a lot of attention because technical discussions are not interesting to people not involved in kernel development.

LKML gets thousands of emails every day. The bulk of the discussion is actually very civil.

How common is it that people are provably wrong, in the logical sense? Most disagreements aren't of the form "here is a black swan that disproves your statement that all swans are white". In OSS the controversies tend to be disputes about which use cases are important and which subjective requirements of software (usability, licensing, interoperation) are met.

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