Re: At what point do you unsubscribe/deny a misbehaving user?
On Thu, 2006-01-05 at 19:08 -0500, Ted Husted wrote: On 1/5/06, robert burrell donkin [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: i'm not sure that i'll find the time for an article but - if there unfortunately isn't anyone out there with a literary itch to scratch - i will create a basic document over in apache dev so that people can build it up. there's a bit of a tradition of using cool emails in documentation so ted: any objection to your email being used in such a page? Not in the least: Feel free to fold spindle and mutilate. grand :) i've created an outline page that needs some revision here: http://www.apache.org/dev/project-mailing-lists.html. i hope to be able to get back and make improvements (could be a few days, though) but at least it's a start. please feel free to dive in (i'm not particularly satisfied so there's no need to worry about my feelings ;) commmitters should be able to check out infrastructure site from subversion and create patches for it but site karma is required to commit changes. so, those without karma will need to add patches to the infrastructure project in JIRA. - robert signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part
Re: At what point do you unsubscribe/deny a misbehaving user?
Mark Thomas wrote: Jean T. Anderson wrote: I think ignoring is an excellent tactic for a developer's list. I worry that isn't strong enough for a user's list, but I also wouldn't want to embark on a path that could backfire. Not exactly the same situation as yours but one of our users went off on one a few months back and it looked like a flame war was about to start. Rather than flame the guy (and boy was I tempted) I found that an extremely polite reply taking every care to be reasonable whilst quietly pointing out where he was wrong worked very well. I actually got half a dozen messages from other users saying something along the lines of Great reply. I was about to flame the insert favourite adjective/noun combination here but your reply was much better. and best of all, not a single flame in response on the users list. For reference, my reply is here. http://marc.theaimsgroup.com/?l=tomcat-userm=113114296007215w=2 Most of the credit for what I wrote should go to those who responded calmly to a similar rant of his on the dev list. Reminds me of something that happened on cocoon-dev. One of the guys responsible for the death of Avalon tried to spit his venom in Cocoon. I replied with a fake SpamAssassin report: http://marc.theaimsgroup.com/?l=xml-cocoon-devm=109792613001037w=2 That could seems like feeding the troll, but the fact that it looked like an impersonal machine-generated message actually made him disappear. Sylvain -- Sylvain WallezAnyware Technologies http://bluxte.net http://www.anyware-tech.com Apache Software Foundation Member Research Technology Director - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: At what point do you unsubscribe/deny a misbehaving user?
Sylvain Wallez wrote: Mark Thomas wrote: Jean T. Anderson wrote: I think ignoring is an excellent tactic for a developer's list. I worry that isn't strong enough for a user's list, but I also wouldn't want to embark on a path that could backfire. Not exactly the same situation as yours but one of our users went off on one a few months back and it looked like a flame war was about to start. Rather than flame the guy (and boy was I tempted) I found that an extremely polite reply taking every care to be reasonable whilst quietly pointing out where he was wrong worked very well. I actually got half a dozen messages from other users saying something along the lines of Great reply. I was about to flame the insert favourite adjective/noun combination here but your reply was much better. and best of all, not a single flame in response on the users list. For reference, my reply is here. http://marc.theaimsgroup.com/?l=tomcat-userm=113114296007215w=2 Most of the credit for what I wrote should go to those who responded calmly to a similar rant of his on the dev list. Reminds me of something that happened on cocoon-dev. One of the guys responsible for the death of Avalon tried to spit his venom in Cocoon. I replied with a fake SpamAssassin report: http://marc.theaimsgroup.com/?l=xml-cocoon-devm=109792613001037w=2 That could seems like feeding the troll, but the fact that it looked like an impersonal machine-generated message actually made him disappear. I think potentially *anything* could feed a troll, so then the goal is how to minimize troll effects on the community. I really like Mark's Gandhi approach for setting FUD straight, and I think the humor of your approach definitely merits a place in the anti-troll arsenal. -jean - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: At what point do you unsubscribe/deny a misbehaving user?
Noel J. Bergman wrote: Mark Thomas wrote: Noel J. Bergman wrote: what thickness of skin should be required of participants on our lists? Thick enough to take to criticism, whether it be right or wrong, and to respond in a positive manner. Personal attacks of any form or degree are not acceptable behaviour and therefore we should not require people to have thick enough skin to ignore them. Can you elaborate on this, framing it in terms of policy and practice? I'll try. Policy: 1. Criticism must be constructive and include a justification. 2. Criticism must never be personal. Criticise the proposal, not the person making it. 3. Personal attacks are never acceptable. Practice: Following the above, providing one counts to ten before responding to the more inflammatory posts, isn't too difficult. The difficult part is what to do when someone crosses the line. I don't think a standard response can be developed as the right response will vary on a case by case basis. Possible factors to consider when framing a response may include context, motivation, nature of transgression, etc. Generally I would advocate (in no particular order): 1. Lead by example (mainly aimed at committers). 2. Remember that Apache is world-wide community and that each person's understanding of the nuances of the English language may be different. 3. Give people the benefit of the doubt. E-mail is a very impersonal communication medium and it is very easy for something meant as an off-hand joke to be seen as offensive. If a comment can be taken two ways, assume the more positive one was intended. 4. Expect to make embarrassing mistakes and to have them pointed out in public. This is the nature of open source. 5. If attacked, don't attack back. 6. Always be polite. Mark - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: At what point do you unsubscribe/deny a misbehaving user?
On Sat, 2005-12-17 at 09:07 -0800, Jean T. Anderson wrote: robert burrell donkin wrote: I'll look at the jakarta lists for how the OT FUD was handled. LOL! i hope you're going to be looking for anti-patterns :) IIRC jakarta didn't exactly have a good record for avoiding flamewars. back in the good old bad old days, [EMAIL PROTECTED] used to be a high octane list with an audience of thousands, scores of trolls and dozens of committers with huge egos where anything which didn't seem likely to start a flamewar was seemed to be considered off topic ;) so, i wasn't really trying to advocate adopting the same approaches, just proposing that it's possible to learn from our mistakes... i'll try to explain the substance (of my last point) a little better this time: if a flamewar is really necessary (which can sometimes be the case if someone aggressively starts posting FUD which the ASF needs to address) then it usually ends better if it's done by an outsider rather than a developer who's regularly on list. now that the ASF has moved to a flatter structure, it might be better for top level projects to raise matters like that on here community rather than tackling it themselves. - robert signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part
Re: At what point do you unsubscribe/deny a misbehaving user?
Noel J. Bergman wrote: We may disagree as his clueful:clueless ratio, but we can agree that he is just snarky. But on a related note, what thickness of skin should be required of participants on our lists? Thick enough to take to criticism, whether it be right or wrong, and to respond in a positive manner. Personal attacks of any form or degree are not acceptable behaviour and therefore we should not require people to have thick enough skin to ignore them. Mark - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: At what point do you unsubscribe/deny a misbehaving user?
Jean T. Anderson wrote: Roy T. Fielding wrote: On Dec 16, 2005, at 5:17 PM, Jean T. Anderson wrote: derby-user@db.apache.org has been grappling with someone who delights in belittling other posters on the list. The topic was raised on women@ (see the thread starting with http://mail- archives.apache.org/mod_mbox/www-women/200511.mbox/%3c4371355F. [EMAIL PROTECTED] ), but I think it's more appropriate for this list. For crying out loud, would you please supply links to the exact posts you consider to be in poor taste and the person's name? I just wasted 10 minutes trying to follow the bread crumbs. You have to make it easier on reviewers -- everyone seems to be painfully avoiding a pointer to an actual message. sorry -- I'm not trying to frustrate folks. I considered posting specific links, but withdrew them at the end, even though they are links to public archives. The name at the core is Michael Segel. Below are links to public responses to some of his posts (which are numerous enough that they alone would be frustrating to wade through): http://mail-archives.apache.org/mod_mbox/db-derby-user/200508.mbox/[EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail-archives.apache.org/mod_mbox/db-derby-user/200510.mbox/[EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail-archives.apache.org/mod_mbox/db-derby-user/200511.mbox/[EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail-archives.apache.org/mod_mbox/db-derby-user/200512.mbox/[EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail-archives.apache.org/mod_mbox/db-derby-user/200512.mbox/[EMAIL PROTECTED] The first two posts were disassociated from the offending message and the tactic clearly didn't work. The last two were recent (this week). Off line communication makes me believe he has no intention of moderating his behavior, hence the question of at what point you unsubscribe/deny a user. In general, it is the responsibility of the PMC to govern its own lists. If the PMC decides to boot them, then go ahead. Most groups just shun the user. One of the DB PMC members was asking about frequency of denial, which is an excellent question, which Noel responded to with Rarely. Really really rarely. It's helpful for us to know how other projects at the ASF handle such situations. I'm getting questions from users asking why we don't just boot him. I'm happy to respond with The ASF doesn't like to do that except for the most extreme cases if that is the right answer. This case is merely very annoying, not extreme. I think ignoring is an excellent tactic for a developer's list. I worry that isn't strong enough for a user's list, but I also wouldn't want to embark on a path that could backfire. One technique that I have applied with very nice success works like this: 1) somebody crosses the line of respect and you see a pattern [at this point you feel you should say something: *DON'T*] 2) but somebody less clueful will 3) you flame the #2 guy Now, it sounds pretty weird but this is the rationale: 1) those who cross the line of respect with a pattern do it intentionally, the motivations are numerous but they are normally asking for help or they are just looking for a good fight 2) in both cases, replying to him (yes, him, it's *always* a guy) and tell him what the rules of the community and stuff like flame-free zone are just going to make things worse. If he wants help, he'll start looking for the fight, if the fight was what he was looking for, he found it. 3) there is always somebody in the community that doesn't know this pattern, so they will reply quietly or, even better, they will flame him. 4) if they flame him back, it's easier: just flame the counter-flamer. The counter-flamer probably has tons of respect for you, because he (again, a guy) wants to protect the community he cares for. He's just not seeing the whole picture. So, what you do is tell him that the original flamer has all the rights in the world to speak in the way he wants. If #2 doesn't flame (as in your case), it's harder for the reasons below. 5) let's say you flamed the counter-flamer, this has two consequences: a) the counter-flamer is a little offended but a private email explaining this rational would save his ego and also have the benefit of increasing the trust he has on you as a leader. For sure he will stop flaming, because that's what he wanted to avoid in the first place and calling him on that stops it. b) but more important, the original flaming guy is puzzled. If he was looking for help, he found out that he doesn't have to tone his language, he feels more accepted, therefore less defensive, therefore his language changes and gets easier to deal with. If he was looking for a fight, he knows he's not going to get it here and leaves. Now, the *WORST* thing you can do is to reply this is a flame-free zone. It's very hard to get out of there, because now the guy feels cornered and anything you do in relation to his behavior is going to enforce it. Kicking him
Re: At what point do you unsubscribe/deny a misbehaving user?
On Fri, 2005-12-16 at 19:22 -0800, Roy T. Fielding wrote: On Dec 16, 2005, at 6:28 PM, Jean T. Anderson wrote: For crying out loud, would you please supply links to the exact posts you consider to be in poor taste and the person's name? I just wasted 10 minutes trying to follow the bread crumbs. You have to make it easier on reviewers -- everyone seems to be painfully avoiding a pointer to an actual message. sorry -- I'm not trying to frustrate folks. I considered posting specific links, but withdrew them at the end, even though they are links to public archives. The name at the core is Michael Segel. Below are links to public responses to some of his posts (which are numerous enough that they alone would be frustrating to wade through): Well, yes, but what I asked for was the posts that you consider to be in poor taste, not responses to those posts. But now that I know who you are talking about I could use the view-by-author and see that this person is better than the typical troll with diarrhea of the fingers. He is usually right, even when though he would fail miserably as a strategist, and most of his posts in October were both useful and normal. In others, he slides into troll mode on responses. +1 he's actually seems well behaved for a troll. he does a reasonable job of signalling when he thinks he's sliding into troll mode and does answer user questions. not only has banning been generally very ineffectual for trolls (it only draws attention to them, gives them a grievance to use against you at some later time and prevents worries about their reputation from limiting their negative behaviour) but the presence of a manageable troll prevents other, nastier trolls from invading you list. IIRC the few times that banning has worked is against cross-marketing trolls (typically these need to post under their actual names). The answer is to ask your community not to feed the troll when it gets grumpy and just ignore him, and to limit discussion to the topic of the list. Yes, he is an annoying troll, but on balance he hasn't done anything truly disruptive or offensive that I could find. +1 AFAICT when he gets grumpy, he starts going off topic for the user list. faced with a similar situation, i'd probably rename the troll part of each thread to [OT] and ask him politely to continue the issue on the dev list. Personally, if I had been on the list when he started inventing big words about GPL and IBM, I would have flamed him to a crisp so badly that he would have unsubscribed (and I probably would have been banned outright). hehehe all the flame retarding tags in the world wouldn't have saved him ;) Your calls for politeness will only restrain those who care. i think perhaps that this is an issues of strategic aims verses effective tactics. a good atmosphere on the user list is vital and IMO jean is right to be concerned that those who could be contributing to the community are being scared away by the troll. IMHO this atmosphere is fostered best by the attitude of those developers who regularly answer questions on the user list. asking (or demanding) politeness will therefore probably be less effective than the developers demonstrating politeness even in the face of provocation. so, it's probably better to stop feeding the troll and to pointedly stick on topic (for a user list which is helping users solve their problems and not a critical debate about design). the energy saved can be more effectively used reassuring users. but there is some OT FUD that does really need addressing. it may be necessary to tolerate some grumpiness in order to be able to effectively draw a line in the sand which is unacceptable to cross. however, some users can start to feel intimidated and insecure if someone who answers a lot of user questions engages in a flame war. so, it can often more effective for a relative outsider to handle an OT flamewar. (a little like good cop, bad cop.) before jakarta was flattened, there were a number of people who were pretty good at spotting and tackling OT FUD. perhaps (as apache tries to scale) we need to start highlighting more OT FUD issues on this list... - robert signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part
RE: At what point do you unsubscribe/deny a misbehaving user?
Mark Thomas wrote: Noel J. Bergman wrote: what thickness of skin should be required of participants on our lists? Thick enough to take to criticism, whether it be right or wrong, and to respond in a positive manner. Personal attacks of any form or degree are not acceptable behaviour and therefore we should not require people to have thick enough skin to ignore them. Can you elaborate on this, framing it in terms of policy and practice? --- Noel - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: At what point do you unsubscribe/deny a misbehaving user?
robert burrell donkin wrote: ... i think perhaps that this is an issues of strategic aims verses effective tactics. a good atmosphere on the user list is vital and IMO jean is right to be concerned that those who could be contributing to the community are being scared away by the troll. This is the crux of my concern. I'm not concerned about the people he has personally poked so far -- they are seasoned developers who shrug and roll their eyes. I grew concerned when I started receiving off list questions that users didn't want to post on list and a couple outright complaints that his behavior was inhibiting participation. It's ironic because at the derby BoF at ApacheCon in Stuttgart two users mentioned they prefer to send questions off lists to the key developers because of flame wars (they didn't say which lists). I assured them that derby didn't have flame problems -- famous last words. :-) We just avoided it for a while. All this feedback is helpful -- thanks to all (not just to Robert on this reply). I'm convinced that unsubscribe/deny is a complete waste of time and will abandon that notion. I should mention that a couple ignore strategies we have used include (1) respond to a post in the thread that raises a given issue without including anything the troll has posted (2) delete the trollish phrases in a reply. I think both of these are solid. I'll look at the jakarta lists for how the OT FUD was handled. thanks for all the tips and suggestions, -jean - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: At what point do you unsubscribe/deny a misbehaving user?
Jean T. Anderson wrote: I think ignoring is an excellent tactic for a developer's list. I worry that isn't strong enough for a user's list, but I also wouldn't want to embark on a path that could backfire. Not exactly the same situation as yours but one of our users went off on one a few months back and it looked like a flame war was about to start. Rather than flame the guy (and boy was I tempted) I found that an extremely polite reply taking every care to be reasonable whilst quietly pointing out where he was wrong worked very well. I actually got half a dozen messages from other users saying something along the lines of Great reply. I was about to flame the insert favourite adjective/noun combination here but your reply was much better. and best of all, not a single flame in response on the users list. For reference, my reply is here. http://marc.theaimsgroup.com/?l=tomcat-userm=113114296007215w=2 Most of the credit for what I wrote should go to those who responded calmly to a similar rant of his on the dev list. HTH, Mark - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: At what point do you unsubscribe/deny a misbehaving user?
Mark Thomas wrote: Jean T. Anderson wrote: I think ignoring is an excellent tactic for a developer's list. I worry that isn't strong enough for a user's list, but I also wouldn't want to embark on a path that could backfire. Not exactly the same situation as yours but one of our users went off on one a few months back and it looked like a flame war was about to start. Rather than flame the guy (and boy was I tempted) I found that an extremely polite reply taking every care to be reasonable whilst quietly pointing out where he was wrong worked very well. I actually got half a dozen messages from other users saying something along the lines of Great reply. I was about to flame the insert favourite adjective/noun combination here but your reply was much better. and best of all, not a single flame in response on the users list. For reference, my reply is here. http://marc.theaimsgroup.com/?l=tomcat-userm=113114296007215w=2 Most of the credit for what I wrote should go to those who responded calmly to a similar rant of his on the dev list. thanks for the excellent example. -jean - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: At what point do you unsubscribe/deny a misbehaving user?
El sáb, 17-12-2005 a las 09:14 -0800, Jean T. Anderson escribió: Mark Thomas wrote: Jean T. Anderson wrote: I think ignoring is an excellent tactic for a developer's list. I worry that isn't strong enough for a user's list, but I also wouldn't want to embark on a path that could backfire. Not exactly the same situation as yours but one of our users went off on one a few months back and it looked like a flame war was about to start. Rather than flame the guy (and boy was I tempted) I found that an extremely polite reply taking every care to be reasonable whilst quietly pointing out where he was wrong worked very well. I actually got half a dozen messages from other users saying something along the lines of Great reply. I was about to flame the insert favourite adjective/noun combination here but your reply was much better. and best of all, not a single flame in response on the users list. For reference, my reply is here. http://marc.theaimsgroup.com/?l=tomcat-userm=113114296007215w=2 Most of the credit for what I wrote should go to those who responded calmly to a similar rant of his on the dev list. thanks for the excellent example. wow, yes, even right now I feel the urge to flame this guy. ;-) Nice example, thx. BTW I reckon it is a very good alternative to the approach Stefano described (fight fire with fire on the #2 guy). It has the advantage that you can be the #2 guy and a Gandhi approach is even harder to turn down. salu2 -- thorsten Together we stand, divided we fall! Hey you (Pink Floyd) - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
RE: At what point do you unsubscribe/deny a misbehaving user?
Jean T. Anderson wrote: derby-user@db.apache.org has been grappling with someone who delights in belittling other posters on the list. The topic was raised on women@ (see the thread starting with http://mail-archives.apache.org/mod_mbox/www-women/200511.mbox/%3c4371355F.9 [EMAIL PROTECTED] Another good starting point would seem to be http://mail-archives.apache.org/mod_mbox/www-women/200511.mbox/%3c4371566A.6 [EMAIL PROTECTED], but I'd really like to see URLs to some of the messages to which you are responding. I think it's more appropriate for this list. Probably. if he does another personal attack on someone, I'd like to deny his ability to post for the following reasons You can add his e-mail address to the deny list, but it can be hard to really block someone, since they can get another address (or spoof one). 1) Am I being too protective of the user community? Probably not. If users are complaining, there is an issue. 2) Have any other projects found a need to deny the ability for somebody to post? Rarely. Really really rarely. --- Noel - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: At what point do you unsubscribe/deny a misbehaving user?
On Dec 16, 2005, at 5:17 PM, Jean T. Anderson wrote: derby-user@db.apache.org has been grappling with someone who delights in belittling other posters on the list. The topic was raised on women@ (see the thread starting with http://mail- archives.apache.org/mod_mbox/www-women/200511.mbox/%3c4371355F. [EMAIL PROTECTED] ), but I think it's more appropriate for this list. For crying out loud, would you please supply links to the exact posts you consider to be in poor taste and the person's name? I just wasted 10 minutes trying to follow the bread crumbs. You have to make it easier on reviewers -- everyone seems to be painfully avoiding a pointer to an actual message. In general, it is the responsibility of the PMC to govern its own lists. If the PMC decides to boot them, then go ahead. Most groups just shun the user. Roy - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
RE: At what point do you unsubscribe/deny a misbehaving user?
Jean, The name at the core is Michael Segel. Ah, then people can go to mail-archives.apache.org/mod_mbox/db-derby-user and view sorted by author. Better still would be to know which ones are being considered offensive. I reviewed a dozen or so of his posts, and I saw a few snarky comments, but for the most part he seemed more clueless, e.g., his participation in the Why are classpath databases always read-only ? thread, than snarky. When technically challenged on some of his clueless bits, he tended to turn snarky as a form of defense. So he seems to be a bit on the clueless side, defensive about it, and just a somewhat of a snarky personality to boot, since he had a few gratuitously snarky sign-offs directed at no one in particular. Of course, since he's promoting himself as some sort of consulting expert, he's seriously not doing himself any favors. I mean, how inspired would *you* be to contract Michael Segel Consulting Corp? Or anyone else, once they review his writings in the archives, to want that attitude and mode of expression in their place of business? --- Noel - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: At what point do you unsubscribe/deny a misbehaving user?
On Dec 16, 2005, at 6:28 PM, Jean T. Anderson wrote: For crying out loud, would you please supply links to the exact posts you consider to be in poor taste and the person's name? I just wasted 10 minutes trying to follow the bread crumbs. You have to make it easier on reviewers -- everyone seems to be painfully avoiding a pointer to an actual message. sorry -- I'm not trying to frustrate folks. I considered posting specific links, but withdrew them at the end, even though they are links to public archives. The name at the core is Michael Segel. Below are links to public responses to some of his posts (which are numerous enough that they alone would be frustrating to wade through): Well, yes, but what I asked for was the posts that you consider to be in poor taste, not responses to those posts. But now that I know who you are talking about I could use the view-by-author and see that this person is better than the typical troll with diarrhea of the fingers. He is usually right, even when though he would fail miserably as a strategist, and most of his posts in October were both useful and normal. In others, he slides into troll mode on responses. The answer is to ask your community not to feed the troll when it gets grumpy and just ignore him, and to limit discussion to the topic of the list. Yes, he is an annoying troll, but on balance he hasn't done anything truly disruptive or offensive that I could find. Personally, if I had been on the list when he started inventing big words about GPL and IBM, I would have flamed him to a crisp so badly that he would have unsubscribed (and I probably would have been banned outright). Your calls for politeness will only restrain those who care. The last two were recent (this week). Off line communication makes me believe he has no intention of moderating his behavior, hence the question of at what point you unsubscribe/deny a user. When his presence is worse than his absence, you can deny him, but it is better to ask everyone in the community to simply shun him. He doesn't start off in troll mode. One of the DB PMC members was asking about frequency of denial, which is an excellent question, which Noel responded to with Rarely. Really really rarely. It's helpful for us to know how other projects at the ASF handle such situations. I'm getting questions from users asking why we don't just boot him. I'm happy to respond with The ASF doesn't like to do that except for the most extreme cases if that is the right answer. This case is merely very annoying, not extreme. I think ignoring is an excellent tactic for a developer's list. I worry that isn't strong enough for a user's list, but I also wouldn't want to embark on a path that could backfire. Then feel free to delete the users list. I am serious. Roy - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
RE: At what point do you unsubscribe/deny a misbehaving user?
Roy T. Fielding wrote: The answer is to ask your community not to feed the troll when it gets grumpy and just ignore him When his presence is worse than his absence, you can deny him, but it is better to ask everyone in the community to simply shun him. Perhaps our netiquette FAQ should include telling readers how to configure a kill-file for various mail readers. If you don't want to read someone, kill-file them. That will lead to the obvious comment that you might see some of their droppings in a reply, but that permits us to comment both on proper quoting and on not feeding trolls. Yes, he is an annoying troll, but on balance he hasn't done anything truly disruptive or offensive that I could find. We may disagree as his clueful:clueless ratio, but we can agree that he is just snarky. But on a related note, what thickness of skin should be required of participants on our lists? --- Noel - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: At what point do you unsubscribe/deny a misbehaving user?
On Fri, 16 Dec 2005, Roy T. Fielding wrote: On Dec 16, 2005, at 6:28 PM, Jean T. Anderson wrote: For crying out loud, would you please supply links to the exact posts you consider to be in poor taste and the person's name? I just wasted 10 minutes trying to follow the bread crumbs. You have to make it easier on reviewers -- everyone seems to be painfully avoiding a pointer to an actual message. sorry -- I'm not trying to frustrate folks. I considered posting specific links, but withdrew them at the end, even though they are links to public archives. The name at the core is Michael Segel. Below are links to public responses to some of his posts (which are numerous enough that they alone would be frustrating to wade through): Well, yes, but what I asked for was the posts that you consider to be in poor taste, not responses to those posts. But now that I know who you are talking about I could use the view-by-author and see that this person is better than the typical troll with diarrhea of the fingers. He is usually right, even when though he would fail miserably as a strategist, and most of his posts in October were both useful and normal. In others, he slides into troll mode on responses. The answer is to ask your community not to feed the troll when it gets grumpy and just ignore him, This is what we try to do on the Struts lists, where we have an annoying troll who keeps claiming he's leaving for elsewhere but never actually does it. Ignoring him doesn't keep him away, but it does keep him at bay, minimising the continuation of threads from his posts onwards. As someone else has pointed out, throwing someone off the list isn't effective. For one thing, it's only going to get their back up even more, and for another, they can just create a new mail account, perhaps with a different name, and come right back. (Our Struts troll has at least 3 different identities that we know of.) -- Martin Cooper and to limit discussion to the topic of the list. Yes, he is an annoying troll, but on balance he hasn't done anything truly disruptive or offensive that I could find. Personally, if I had been on the list when he started inventing big words about GPL and IBM, I would have flamed him to a crisp so badly that he would have unsubscribed (and I probably would have been banned outright). Your calls for politeness will only restrain those who care. The last two were recent (this week). Off line communication makes me believe he has no intention of moderating his behavior, hence the question of at what point you unsubscribe/deny a user. When his presence is worse than his absence, you can deny him, but it is better to ask everyone in the community to simply shun him. He doesn't start off in troll mode. One of the DB PMC members was asking about frequency of denial, which is an excellent question, which Noel responded to with Rarely. Really really rarely. It's helpful for us to know how other projects at the ASF handle such situations. I'm getting questions from users asking why we don't just boot him. I'm happy to respond with The ASF doesn't like to do that except for the most extreme cases if that is the right answer. This case is merely very annoying, not extreme. I think ignoring is an excellent tactic for a developer's list. I worry that isn't strong enough for a user's list, but I also wouldn't want to embark on a path that could backfire. Then feel free to delete the users list. I am serious. Roy - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: At what point do you unsubscribe/deny a misbehaving user?
On Fri, 16 Dec 2005, Jean T. Anderson wrote: Below are links to public responses to some of his posts (which are numerous enough that they alone would be frustrating to wade through): http://mail-archives.apache.org/mod_mbox/db-derby-user/200508.mbox/[EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail-archives.apache.org/mod_mbox/db-derby-user/200510.mbox/[EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail-archives.apache.org/mod_mbox/db-derby-user/200511.mbox/[EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail-archives.apache.org/mod_mbox/db-derby-user/200512.mbox/[EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail-archives.apache.org/mod_mbox/db-derby-user/200512.mbox/[EMAIL PROTECTED] Have you had an off-list chat with the individual? Sometimes this kind of thing is just culture-clash; there are places where his style is more normal (often noted by the constant ;)'s to attempt to imply joking). A private word is often a lot more successful in winning someone over to your culture than trying to deal with it publically. The classic 'praise in public, criticize in private'. Hen - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
