Please be especially kind to other contributors when saying they made a mistake.
Excellent advice. I fond it useful to tell someone else, words to this effect,
"I remember my own similar mistake when..."
Programming means making lots of mistakes, and we all do so
Heck, name your subject, history, journalism, psychology, advertising, writing
a poem, etc.
mistakes are part of the process.
Please respond to what people actually said, not to exaggerations of their
views.
Your criticism will not be constructive if it is aimed at a target other than
their real views.
should need no further comment, well said
________________________________
From: [email protected] <[email protected]> on
behalf of Centroids <[email protected]>
Sent: Tuesday, October 23, 2018 9:00 AM
To: Centroids Discussions
Subject: [RC] GNU Kind Communications Guidelines - GNU Project - Free Software
Foundation
Richard Stallman has not historically been best known for his kindness. This
could change that.
I wonder what politics would feel like if we viewed it as a similar sort or
collaborative design problem, rather than a zero-sum game...
https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/kind-communication.html#content
GNU Kind Communications Guidelines
by Richard Stallman<http://www.stallman.org/>
The GNU Project encourages contributions from anyone who wishes to advance the
development of the GNU system, regardless of gender, race, religion, cultural
background, and any other demographic characteristics, as well as personal
political views.
People are sometimes discouraged from participating in GNU development because
of certain patterns of communication that strike them as unfriendly,
unwelcoming, rejecting, or harsh. This discouragement particularly affects
members of disprivileged demographics, but it is not limited to them.
Therefore, we ask all contributors to make a conscious effort, in GNU Project
discussions, to communicate in ways that avoid that outcome—to avoid practices
that will predictably and unnecessarily risk putting some contributors off.
These guidelines suggest specific ways to accomplish that goal.
Please assume other participants are posting in good faith, even if you
disagree with what they say. When people present code or text as their own
work, please accept it as their work. Please do not criticize people for wrongs
that you only speculate they may have done; stick to what they actually say and
actually do.
Please think about how to treat other participants with respect, especially
when you disagree with them. For instance, call them by the names they use, and
honor their preferences about their gender identity[1].
Please do not take a harsh tone towards other participants, and especially
don't make personal attacks against them. Go out of your way to show that you
are criticizing a statement, not a person.
Please recognize that criticism of your statements is not a personal attack on
you. If you feel that someone has attacked you, or offended your personal
dignity, please don't “hit back” with another personal attack. That tends to
start a vicious circle of escalating verbal aggression. A private response,
politely stating your feelings as feelings, and asking for peace, may calm
things down. Write it, set it aside for hours or a day, revise it to remove the
anger, and only then send it.
Please avoid statements about the presumed typical desires, capabilities or
actions of some demographic group. They can offend people in that group, and
they are always off-topic in GNU Project discussions.
Please be especially kind to other contributors when saying they made a
mistake. Programming means making lots of mistakes, and we all do so—this is
why regression tests are useful. Conscientious programmers make mistakes, and
then fix them. It is helpful to show contributors that being imperfect is
normal, so we don't hold it against them, and that we appreciate their
imperfect contributions though we hope they follow through by fixing any
problems in them.
Likewise, be kind when pointing out to other contributors that they should stop
using certain nonfree software. For their own sake, they ought to free
themselves, but we welcome their contributions to our software packages even if
they don't do that. So these reminders should be gentle and not too
frequent—don't nag.
By contrast, to suggest that others use nonfree software opposes the basic
principles of GNU, so it is not allowed in GNU Project discussions.
Please respond to what people actually said, not to exaggerations of their
views. Your criticism will not be constructive if it is aimed at a target other
than their real views.
If in a discussion someone brings up a tangent to the topic at hand, please
keep the discussion on track by focusing on the current topic rather than the
tangent. This is not to say that the tangent is bad, or not interesting to
discuss—only that it shouldn't interfere with discussion of the issue at hand.
In most cases, it is also off-topic, so those interested ought to discuss it
somewhere else.
If you think the tangent is an important and pertinent issue, please bring it
up as a separate discussion, with a Subject field to fit, and consider waiting
for the end of the current discussion.
Rather than trying to have the last word, look for the times when there is no
need to reply, perhaps because you already made the relevant point clear
enough. If you know something about the game of Go, this analogy might clarify
that: when the opponent's move is not strong enough to require a direct
response, it is advantageous to give it none and instead move elsewhere.
Please don't argue unceasingly for your preferred course of action when a
decision for some other course has already been made. That tends to block the
activity's progress.
If other participants complain about the way you express your ideas, please
make an effort to cater to them. You can find ways to express the same points
while making others more comfortable. You are more likely to persuade others if
you don't arouse ire about secondary things.
Please don't raise unrelated political issues in GNU Project discussions,
because they are off-topic. The only political positions that the GNU Project
endorses are (1) that users should have control of their own computing (for
instance, through free software) and (2) supporting basic human rights in
computing. We don't require you as a contributor to agree with these two
points, but you do need to accept that our decisions will be based on them.
By making an effort to follow these guidelines, we will encourage more
contribution to our projects, and our discussions will be friendlier and reach
conclusions more easily.
Footnote
1. There are various ways to express gender neutrality in third-person
singular pronouns in English; you do not have to use “they.” One other method
is described in https://stallman.org/articles/genderless-pronouns.html.
Sent from my iPhone
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