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List:       kde-devel
Subject:    Re: KDE4: missing features from KDE3
From:       Parker Coates <parker.coates () gmail ! com>
Date:       2009-08-04 21:12:27
Message-ID: 85d347350908041412g5752ef21g88d4b9f06f696686 () mail ! gmail ! com
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On Tue, Aug 4, 2009 at 15:09, Aaron J. Seigo wrote:
> On Tuesday 04 August 2009, Parker Coates wrote:
>> On Tue, Aug 4, 2009 at 14:00, Aaron J. Seigo wrote:
>> > the user community is making a bed for itself that i don't think it's
>> > going to want to lie in.
>>
>> I think more accurate portrayal might be "A relatively small number of
>> ingrates is pissing in the bed the whole user community is forced to
>> share."
>
> when one developer does something unfortunate in public, it's the entire
> project that is held responsible for it. that's probably fair, and it ensures
> that we care about keeping some level of support there for each other so that
> we are all on the same page and not making too many repeat mistakes. it also
> means that when one of us screws up (it happens, we're all human), a bunch of
> us go into fix-it mode.
>
> contrast this with the user situation.
>
> when one (or a few) users do something unfortunate in public, it's always
> "those few users". i don't buy that anymore.
>
> there is a user community that revolves around KDE which has a lot of
> interaction with us. they are a special group of people who care a lot about
> f/oss and KDE in particular and spend time interacting with others in the KDE
> world. that's undeniably GREAT.
>
> but it's a community not unlike the developer community in terms of shared
> responsibility and coherence.

But there are also huge differences. To join the developer community,
you have to make contributions, submit them, get approval, gain trust,
apply for SVN (or other) rights, engage in mailing list discussions
and so on to be considered part of the developer community. To join
the user community, you need to install some packages and submit a
snarky comment to the Dot. Guess which group is easier to hold
accountable for the actions of a individual member.

Within the developer community, people inherently take responsibility
for their actions. The most obvious reason is that their name goes on
the final product. Also, people are likely to remember who they are in
future dealings and they are hesitant to risk the reputation they've
built up for themselves within the community. On top of that, they
know their actions can reflect on the project as a whole. None of
these apply to someone named "Sk8Pro85" complaining in all caps on
bugs.kde.org.

Being a KDE contributor is like being part of a sports team. If a
player behaves inappropriately, his teammates can call him on it. Even
if he disagrees, he's likely change his behaviour to avoid losing face
with the team. If he doesn't the team can take corrective action by
letting him play less or kicking him off the team entirely.

Being a member of the KDE user community is more like being a fan of a
sports team. You and your family might be enjoying the game with the
others around you when some loud mouthed jerk sits down beside you and
starts heckling the referee, booing the other team and cheering at
injuries. He begins taking away from your enjoyment of the game and
you feel embarrassed as you fear people will associate his behaviour
with all fans of the team. You're now hesitant to criticise the
referee, because you don't want to be perceived as being like him. You
can politely suggest that he calm down and enjoy the game. Maybe basic
human decency will kick in, he'll feel embarrassed and tone it down.
Or maybe he'll ask who the %$&@ you think you are. Unless you're
interested in fisticuffs, at this point, there isn't really much you
can do other than hope that security will escort him from the
premises.

I guess the moral of my fable is that a community can only really
control the behaviour of its members if it has a means of punishing
them. In a community like ours, shame is generally motivation enough.
If during this conversation, say, dfaure where to show up and claim I
was being unreasonable and rude, I'd be mortified. I would shut up
immediately, think over my behaviour and be more cautious in the
future, even if I still believed I was right. I'm not sure the same is
true of your average user bitching about panel hiding in a blog
comment.

Parker
 
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