Comments on: A few last thoughts on RailsConf

By: aeschright

aeschright — Tue, 22 May 2007 16:11:58 +0000

Sorry if it sounds like I am picking nits, but you know for me it is important that an open source community is, well you know, open. Unnecessary censorship is a real turnoff to me, and I know a lot of other programmers that are like-minded.

Absolutely. I don’t mean ‘no arguing’. Or ‘no getting angry’. I’m thinking of the kind of guidelines outlined here: http://nielsenhayden.com/makinglight/archives/006036.html

By: Lucas

Lucas — Tue, 22 May 2007 15:54:09 +0000

I think that anyone willing to deliver anger/hostility to someone else, whether in a professional or personal context, should have the sack to do it to that person’s face, and not in some chat room. And there’s a difference between attacking/challenging someone based on issues or competence, and just saying, “Har har har, there’s a lady in the room, she gots nice titties, har har har.”

By: Glenn Kidd

Glenn Kidd — Tue, 22 May 2007 15:46:31 +0000

Have clear expectations for community members. This includes documentation on how to report a bug, how to submit a patch, etc. but also how we expect people to behave toward each other. If hostile behavior is treated as a joke, or harmless, or all in good fun, that’s a clear sign that this has not been addressed.

While I agree with the documentation aspects, the hostility point though I disagree with most strongly. Sometimes members of a community deserve anger/hostility. It is not a bad thing. This is not to say that ignorance should be tolerated, or good fellowship abandoned, but as soon as you try to police emotions you are going to see a lot of the potentially productive members of your community depart. I know I would never consider participating in a community where certain expressions of emotions are dismissed outright because they are deemed “bad”. If you want to qualify the statement above, I might agree with something like, “ad hominem hostilty motivated by ignorance, racism, biggotry, etc. is treated as a joke, or harmless, or all in good fun, that’s a clear sign that this has not been addressed.”

Sorry if it sounds like I am picking nits, but you know for me it is important that an open source community is, well you know, open. Unnecessary censorship is a real turnoff to me, and I know a lot of other programmers that are like-minded.

By: topfunky

topfunky — Mon, 21 May 2007 20:53:55 +0000

It’s naive for any programmer to think that the traffic in an IRC channel is private.

I have no illusion that this would ever happen, but I would love it if tech conferences banned laptops, jammed phones, and had no wifi. The point of a physical conference is to get out and talk to people in person.

That’s how I operate when I go to a conference.

By: aeschright

aeschright — Mon, 21 May 2007 04:13:01 +0000

I understand that, but I think participants still need to take more responsibility for their personal experience. Is it benefiting your employer to stay in a panel that doesn’t cover the information you need? And if you really have to be there whether you want to or not, aren’t there other, more civil, ways to deal with boredom? It’s an insult to the presenter, as well as other participants who may be interested in the material, to sit there and heckle the presentation the whole time. That’s not appropriate behavior for a professional adult.

By: John Cowan

John Cowan — Mon, 21 May 2007 03:10:34 +0000

You are quite right, but you also must allow for the fact that people are often in conferences, or particular sessions of those conferences, because it’s a job requirement rather than a place they actually want to be. That shouldn’t be so, but it is so.