[Python-Dev] How far to go with user-friendliness

[Brett Cannon]

On Sun, Jul 19, 2015 at 8:58 AM Ethan Furman <ethan at stoneleaf.us> wrote:

> On 07/19/2015 02:22 AM, s.krah wrote:
> > ---- Ein Sa, 18 Jul 2015 15:35:05 +0000 *Stephen J. Turnbull hat
> geschrieben ----
> >> s.krah writes:
>
> >>> Sorry, that amounts to twisting my words.
> >>
> >> Let's not play the dozens here.  That just extends the thread to no
> point.
> >
> > Indeed.  I'll just filter you from now on.
>
> You may as well filter me too, then, because you are acting like an ass
> and I'm saying so.


Is the name calling really necessary? Couldn't you have just as easily said
that you disapproved of Stephen K's attitude without calling him an ass?
Same goes for Stephen K's comment where he could have stated he was simply
going to ignore Stephen T and be less snippy about it. There are ways to
get the point across just as strongly without resorting to this sort of
stuff.

This whole thread has shown two problems we have on this list. One is the
occasional name calling and bad attitude that we let slide in the name of
blowing off steam or something. We are all adults here and can get the
point across that we disapprove of something without resorting to
playground antics. Plus emails can be delayed until cooler heads prevail.
It's this kind of thing that leads to the need of a CoC for this list and
contributing in general so that people can feel okay saying they thought a
comment was out of line without retaliation for it.

The other problem is letting threads drag on needlessly. The longer a
thread drags on, the greater the chance someone is going to say something
they regret. It can also lead to some people like Antoine feeling like
their time is being wasted and become frustrated. I think in this instance
debate should have been cut sooner when no clear consensus was being
reached to force a reversal of the patch and then have someone say politely
that a core dev who is the listed expert on a module made a call and if
someone disliked it they could produce a patch and propose it on the issue
tracker to see if they could change someone's mind (I believe both Nick and
Ethan have made the same point). Our niceness can be to a fault when no one
is willing to step up and simply say "this thread is in a stalemate and
nothing new is being added, please move it to the issue tracker if you wish
to discuss further where you can propose a patch" and we just be good about
telling people to move the discussion to the issue tracker if they keep
replying.

There is absolutely no reason we can't keep discussions cordial, friendly,
and on-point on this list and prevent this sort of debacle from occurring
again.
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