That said, I'm not overly irritated. There are a few links I need to update, but that's doable. Thanks for handling this issue, and for being responsive to the concerns raised.
While there's 475 links to wikitech-l archives on en wikipedia. That's more than a "few" imo.
The real concern here is that many of those links will never be fixed, and people looking in the obscure talk page archives of wikipedia, will never be able to find the relavent mailing posts. This makes it much harder to look into the history of certain things. I'm aware similar incidents have happened in the past - that does not make future incidents ok.
Secondly, I'd just like to extend a giant *hug* to Daniel Zahn, who from the sounds of it did not expect this to be such a controversial issue.
Third, I'd like to reiterate what others said about folks taking a chill pill. Additionally I'd like to add that mistakes happen, we all make them. The important thing is to realize we've made a mistake, mitigate the affect of the mistake, and document the mistakes so that others don't make them. Yelling and screaming about mistakes doesn't really help anything.
--bawolff
On Fri, Aug 17, 2012 at 11:07 AM, bawolff bawolff+wn@gmail.com wrote:
That said, I'm not overly irritated. There are a few links I need to update, but that's doable. Thanks for handling this issue, and for being responsive to the concerns raised.
While there's 475 links to wikitech-l archives on en wikipedia. That's more than a "few" imo.
The real concern here is that many of those links will never be fixed, and people looking in the obscure talk page archives of wikipedia, will never be able to find the relavent mailing posts. This makes it much harder to look into the history of certain things. I'm aware similar incidents have happened in the past - that does not make future incidents ok.
Indeed. Sorry if I implied that.
I think the proper way forward is to:
1. Adjust our procedures for thread deletion so that this situation doesn't occur again. 2. Fix the links, if the effort level isn't insane.
Secondly, I'd just like to extend a giant *hug* to Daniel Zahn, who from the sounds of it did not expect this to be such a controversial issue.
Third, I'd like to reiterate what others said about folks taking a chill pill. Additionally I'd like to add that mistakes happen, we all make them. The important thing is to realize we've made a mistake, mitigate the affect of the mistake, and document the mistakes so that others don't make them. Yelling and screaming about mistakes doesn't really help anything.
+1
Things break, mistakes get made, etc. It's a normal part of life, and a very normal part of ops. It makes for a much nicer environment when people point out issues in a calm and polite fashion.
- Ryan
On Fri, Aug 17, 2012 at 11:20 AM, Ryan Lane rlane32@gmail.com wrote:
- Adjust our procedures for thread deletion so that this situation
doesn't occur again. 2. Fix the links, if the effort level isn't insane.
I said this on IRC in some form, but I'll repeat it here on the (hopefully permalinked ;) ) record: I think the concern MZ was raising is that initially (for quite a long time actually), there was total silence on #2. Daniel and other ops people posted to the list, but made no mention of attempts to fix the links or the feasibility thereof, it was all focused on #1 ("here's how we'll prevent this in the future, and BTW, mailman sucks").
While #1 is important (and bashing mailman for this is deserved), #2 was being completely ignored. Instead, everyone focused on how MZ's phrasing was hostile (which is fair enough, if people feel someone is behaving in an offensive manner, they should call that person out on it). Specifically, in the thread where Ryan called out MZ, the question "but what are you doing to fix this?" was repeated in some form or other in three posts (2 by MZ, one by Michel) before Daniel said he was working on it and Ryan posted the above. On the original thread, there were suggestions as to how the links could be fixed, but no one in ops responded to those posts, or acknowledged them, or even acknowledged that it's something that should be worked on until Daniel and Ryan did that just now. MZ's post complained about a lack of communication from ops about issue #2, and the response to it was a more active lack of communication from ops about issue #2.
Hostile behavior has no place on this list and calling it out is a good thing. But what happened here is an anti-pattern that I've seen around here before: when someone says something in an inappropriate way, people call them out on it (which is good), but subsequently refuse to discuss the substance of what was said, to the point where whenever it's brought up it's either ignored or the conversation is steered back to the inappropriate behavior. In this case it was eventually addressed after repeated questions from multiple people, but that hasn't always happened. I've been in a situation where I wrote overly aggressive criticism and got called out on it, which is fair, but the substance of the criticism was never addressed and because the subject is apparently tainted, reviving the discussion is futile. I tried, and it went straight back to everyone piling on me for how hostile I'd been, so I gave up.
I'm not complaining about being called out or even bashed for writing overly hostile posts. I've done that a few times and I hate it when I slip up and do it. If I get called out or bashed over that, I've deserved it, and I'll take it. But what pisses me off is that it's apparently impossible to get people to discuss real issues once they're tainted with inappropriate communication. That's unhealthy and needs to stop. So by all means, call people out on hostility. But don't ignore stifle discussion about real problems.
Roan
Hi all,
Roan, thanks for the even-handed treatment on this subject. More inline:
On Fri, Aug 17, 2012 at 12:45 PM, Roan Kattouw roan.kattouw@gmail.com wrote:
Specifically, in the thread where Ryan called out MZ, the question "but what are you doing to fix this?" was repeated in some form or other in three posts (2 by MZ, one by Michel) before Daniel said he was working on it and Ryan posted the above. On the original thread, there were suggestions as to how the links could be fixed, but no one in ops responded to those posts, or acknowledged them, or even acknowledged that it's something that should be worked on until Daniel and Ryan did that just now. MZ's post complained about a lack of communication from ops about issue #2, and the response to it was a more active lack of communication from ops about issue #2.
When the question "shouldn't someone being doing something about X?" comes up on this mailing list, where X is a well-defined bug or problem with our infrastructure, it should go into Bugzilla (even if it also exists in RT, which people outside of WMF should feel free to pretend doesn't exist).
Hostile behavior has no place on this list and calling it out is a good thing.
We should be thoughtful about how we call people out, and lead by example. We shouldn't fight fire with fire.
But what happened here is an anti-pattern that I've seen around here before: when someone says something in an inappropriate way, people call them out on it (which is good), but subsequently refuse to discuss the substance of what was said, to the point where whenever it's brought up it's either ignored or the conversation is steered back to the inappropriate behavior.
I'm not sure you've identified which part is the anti-pattern. The anti-pattern is ignoring the polite requests to fix things, and having an all-hands-on-deck response when someone lobs a grenade. I'm not terribly motivated to tease out "the real issue" when someone lobs a grenade, and I suspect other people are the same.
Now, when someone lobs a grenade after several polite requests, and it looks like "yeah, we should have dealt with that", at a minimum, go back and find the polite request, and respond to *that*. That's still rewarding the grenade lobber a little bit, but acknowledging the way we prefer to get requests.
In this case it was eventually addressed after repeated questions from multiple people, but that hasn't always happened. I've been in a situation where I wrote overly aggressive criticism and got called out on it, which is fair, but the substance of the criticism was never addressed and because the subject is apparently tainted, reviving the discussion is futile. I tried, and it went straight back to everyone piling on me for how hostile I'd been, so I gave up.
I think there's a pretty big difference if the person apologizes or digs their heels in about the original rudeness. If the person apologizes, drop it already. If someone else who hasn't been rude raises it, respond.
In the case of a "poisoned" thread, just start a new thread politely. In this case, Brian *almost* pulled it off with his incredibly constructive message. If he had changed the subject line, I could have jumped all over you for threadjacking. ;-)
But what pisses me off is that it's apparently impossible to get people to discuss real issues once they're tainted with inappropriate communication. That's unhealthy and needs to stop. So by all means, call people out on hostility. But don't ignore stifle discussion about real problems.
I don't think the ends justify the means in the vast majority of poisoned threads.
I think this thread ("Can we make an acceptable behavior policy?") is poisoned by the fact that MZ was specifically called out here, especially because I think this particular offense here was relatively mild. So I'd prefer to just chill on this for a while. However, I think it would be a good idea for us to discuss this topic later on when we have some distance from this thread.
Rob
I'm not complaining about being called out or even bashed for writing overly hostile posts. I've done that a few times and I hate it when I slip up and do it. If I get called out or bashed over that, I've deserved it, and I'll take it. But what pisses me off is that it's apparently impossible to get people to discuss real issues once they're tainted with inappropriate communication. That's unhealthy and needs to stop. So by all means, call people out on hostility. But don't ignore stifle discussion about real problems.
Well, this is one more reason as to why hostile behavior should not be tolerated. It has the opposite effect as intended. Even when people don't get called out on bad behavior in a hostile post, the hostility itself tends to put everyone on the defensive, which makes solving the underlying issue much more difficult. In fact, in many cases threads tend to die out simply because they are hostile and the people who would do the work are tired of dealing with the drama involved and ignore the thread.
- Ryan
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