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Subject: Re: apology

Re: apology

From: Paul Louden <paulthenerd_at_gmail.com>
Date: Sun, 21 Jun 2009 04:05:39 -0500

Christopher Chaltain wrote:
> but it seems like posters could also just follow the etiquette, at
> least once their reminded of it. I think both sides of this argument
> could take things a lot less personally.

This is one of the things that has driven me to take a break. When I get
sent personally insulting emails (sometimes from multiple sources) for
reminding someone the guidelines exist, it's rather wearing. It's rather
impossible not to take it personally when people send abusive emails to
me off-list, and one of those things I'm unable to come to terms with is
why the response to "please don't top post on the list" is a half dozen
angry responses instead of a single "Oh, I'm sorry, I wasn't aware you
guys didn't like that here. I'm not sure how not to, but if you'll
explain it, I'll start avoiding it." Nobody expects humans to be
perfect, and there's a reasonable expectation that someone might not
understand right at the start that we really expect people to follow
guidelines, but a significant problem I've always had is why people are
so resistant once they know about them.

>
> I've often thought the solution was for someone to set up another
> mailing list, on Yahoo or Google Groups for example, where their was
> no list etiquette and posters could just prattle on about whatever
> they wanted to. That might take away from this list, but it might also
> save it too.
>

I've offered this suggestion a few times. In fact, I've thought of the
"coming into someone's house and taking off shoes" analogy before too,
and considered using it (maybe I have? I can't rightly remember).

One complaint I've heard with the idea of setting up a new list is that
it wouldn't have as many of the developers and core "team" on it. I'm
sad to say this list has lost a significant number of them too because
of the community's response to their desires for what they want out of
the list that actually belongs to them. We've seen a few support posts
starting to pop up (wrongly) on the -dev list just because people
thought they could more easily find a developer there. That should never
have been the case. I would've always hoped this place stayed welcoming
to developers, but it seems to have gone out of its way to have an
attitude that drives them off as well.

In my personal choice though, this is only a part of what's gone into my
decision to leave. It involves basically the totality of my involvement
with Rockbox, of which this list is a relatively small part.

It can sort of be demonstrated something that's happened to me a few
times. It has not been too uncommon for me to see someone on another
website mention Rockbox and get a response like "yeah, the software is
awesome but their support is terrible" and it's impossible for me not to
think that, in a not insignificant part, I'm responsible for that. I'd
like our support to be excellent, and I feel that it is. But I also am
unable to come to terms with why the things I do upset people the way
they do, and I don't want that bad image reflecting on Rockbox.
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Received on 2009-06-21

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