[pulseaudio-discuss] Buffering attributes with variable format

[Felipe Contreras]

On Mon, Nov 7, 2011 at 12:35 PM, Colin Guthrie <gmane at colin.guthr.ie> wrote:
> 'Twas brillig, and Felipe Contreras at 05/11/11 15:25 did gyre and gimble:
>> On Tue, Oct 11, 2011 at 8:59 AM, Arun Raghavan
>> <arun.raghavan at collabora.co.uk> wrote:
>>> None of that gives you the right to be rude and uncivil, so please drop
>>> the abrasive attitude and personal remarks.
>>
>> He has the *right* to be that way. Other communities like LKML have no
>> problem with that. People should focus on what is being said, not how
>> it's being said.
>
> No one has the right to be uncivil and a friendly reminder of that is
> all it takes to have the kind of ecosystem and community *we* want.

Freedom of speech is an universal *right*, you cannot change that
fact, it was decided by the UN. Rémi has the right to be uncivil, and
you have the right to ban him. You seem to be confusing *rights* with
mailing list guidelines, but even then, if you want to be just, you
have to write those guidelines somewhere; you can't expect everyone to
be familiar with your guidelines, and as I already explained, other
communities are perfectly fine with rude behavior. So, don't assume
everyone agrees with you on what should be permissible in a mailing
list.

Once you have such guidelines Arun could say "Being rude and uncivil
goes against this mailing list guidelines, so please drop the abrasive
attitude and personal remarks.", and perhaps share a link to those
guidelines.

Here's one example:
https://live.gnome.org/CodeOfConduct

> I don't give a crap how LKML or other communities do it, that is totally
> irrelevant.

As I said, it's relevant to point out that not everybody thinks the
same way, so you should be explicit as to what is tolerated.

> And what we certainly don't want is people dragging up month old threads
> when there really is no need to do so other than to cause trouble and
> generally create bad feeling.

Here's another good guideline from Wikipedia; assume good faith[1].
What do you gain by attacking my motives? That can only aggravate the
situation.

If you must know, the reason I'm replying to one month old threads is
that I was on vacation for a month, and I was not reading mails. So
now, I feel I have something to say, and I've said it. If you want the
thread to truly end, just don't reply. But if you actually are
interested in improving communication on this mailing list, perhaps
there's some value in continuing the discussion. That is entirely up
to you.

> The posts from yourself only
> seem to be about causing general unrest in the community and do not even
> have anything to do with the topic pulseaudio or linux audio in general.

It was Arun's post complaining about Rémi's tone that had nothing to
do with the topic, don't blame me. So Arun opened to the topic about
tone, assuming that it's an universal guideline, but it's not, and I
am merely pointing that out. If merely pointing something out, in
order to avoid further conflicts with abrasive people, thus improving
communication, causes unrest in this community, I'd say it's headed in
a dangerous way where honest criticism would not be welcome, everybody
would pat themselves on the back, and dissidents would be outcasted,
thus eventually leading to stagnation. If I remember correctly,
Lennart himself has also been known for his strong tone, but that's
not relevant, because his criticism was valid. Paul Graham explains
that perfectly in his writing "How to Disagree" [2].

But I digress, I've made my recommendation to write a clear guideline,
which I think it's not unreasonable, take it or leave it. But I
wonder, I'm not even being uncivil like Rémi (according to you), so I
wonder what am I doing that is so wrong--criticizing dogma?

> So I'm asking nicely for you to please back off unless you have a
> question or discussion point related to audio, and that includes further
> replies to this or the "reply-to" thread.

If you don't want to discuss any further possible improvements in
communication in this mailing list, feel free to stop commenting. I
think it's very easy for people not interested in the topic to mute
the thread, but if you really want it, we can take the discussion off
the mailing list.

I believe I've made my point clear that other people don't agree with
you that tone should be important in discussions, so if nobody replies
here, I won't either. As for the "reply-to" thread, I want to leave
something clear, so I will make one final comment, and again, if
nobody replies, leave it there. Anyway, I don't see why you stress so
much about normal discussion about communication methods.

[1] http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Wiktionary:Assume_good_faith
[2] http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/7c/Graham%27s_Hierarchy_of_Disagreement.svg

-- 
Felipe Contreras