Thanks Galder for the provocative thread and Jonathan for your reflections (in this thread and in issues elsewhere, past and present).

Galder -- I'm thinking about how to refactor your observations to make them less personal, more general, easier to work with.

This issue and these patterns are not specific to {design | the foundation | a developer/user feedback loop}, but the example you raise makes it tangible. Design is often an area that amplifies them - there's a reason that barn-raising and shed-painting are analogies for very different human tendencies...

You might call this class of interactions feedback tropes – like fiction tropes, there are thousands of common ones, not just a handful. They are mostly not "excuses" [other than what you numbered 5.x]. Many tropes which you mention but did not number ("don't change anything", "better than nothing [don't take forever]", "this doesn't even scratch the surface [so why bother]", "what have you done for us lately", "you are bad at this") are part of their own cycle.

Naming more of these tropes might help defuse tension and avoid spiralling – most tropes have known and relatively straightforward resolutions.

I can also see how these two cycles can amplify one another, though it doesn't need to be that way. For instance, in the thoughtfully detailed Phab tickets you linked, where both you and others participating feel fed up for different reasons.