[Python-Dev] Dealing with tone in an email (was: Drop/deprecate Tkinter?)

[Steven D'Aprano]

On Thu, May 03, 2018 at 06:31:03PM +0000, Brett Cannon wrote:

> No one is saying people can't be upset and if you are ever upset there's
> something wrong; we're human beings after all. But those of us speaking up
> about the tone are saying that you can also wait until you're not so upset
> to write an email. This was never going to be resolved in an hour, so
> waiting an hour until you're in a better place to write an email that
> wasn't quite so inflammatory seems like a reasonable thing to ask.

Certainly!

I'm not defending Ivan's initial email. His tantrum *was* annoying, 
unreasonable, and unfair to those who do care about tkinter. He could 
have done better.

But *we* should be better too. Our response to Ivan has not been 
welcoming, and as a community we haven't lived up to our own standards, 
as we have piled onto him to express our rightous indignation:

1. Guido responded telling Ivan to calm down and work off his 
   frustration elsewhere. And that's where things should have
   stopped, unless Ivan had persisted in his impoliteness.

2. Brian upped the ante by bringing the CoC into discussion.

3. Paul raised it again by describing Ivan's post as "offensive".

4. And now, Steve H has claimed that Ivan's initial post was
   bordering on "abusive".

We've gone from rightly treating Ivan's post as intemperate and 
impolite, and telling him to chill, to calling his post "offensive", to 
"abusive". (Next, I presume, someone will claim to be traumatised by 
Ivan's email.)

Just as Ivan should have waited until he had calmed down before firing 
off his rant, so we ought to resist the temptation to strike back with 
hostility at trivial social transgressions, especially from newcomers. 
This is what Ivan actually said:

- Tkinter is broken and partly functional (an opinion with only the 
  most tenuous connection with fact, but hardly abusive);

- that nobody cares (factually wrong, but not abusive);

- that possibly nobody is using it (factually wrong, but not abusive);

- that if that's the case (it isn't), then it should be removed
  from the std lib (a reasonable suggestion if only the premise had
  been correct).

Intemperate and impolite it certainly was, as well as full of factual 
inaccuracies, but to call it "close to abusive" is a hostile over- 
reaction. We ought to be kinder than that. Our response to Ivan has been 
more hostile, and less open and respectful, than his email that 
triggered the response.

Brett is right to say people can afford to wait a little while before 
firing off an angry email. But the same applies to us: we too can afford 
to wait a little while before raising the threat of the CoC over a minor 
social faux pas. This community isn't so fragile that we have to jump 
down the throat of a newcomer lest the community immediately collapses 
into Call Of Duty gamer culture.


-- 
Steve