Sorry for the marathon post, but let me clarify a few things about what I meant, and also comment on some posts that have shown up in the meantime.
1. Instead of "This is how we work at SeaPIG" I should have said "This is how I personally think we should (and often do) work at SeaPIG". What I meant by that is I believe that for the organization to thrive there have to be people willing to help out. The more people that help the better the organization can be. I also meant that no one is being paid to run SeaPIG so stating things as demands or outrages is out of place. Everyone who contributes to running SeaPIG is doing so generously out of their own free time when they most likely have competing demands on their time such as work, family, and other volunteer efforts. I also meant that, in my experience, a nice thing about the SeaPIG list is that we generally don't flame people under any circumstances and we usually aren't even sarcastic, but very polite and helpful and gentle about correcting others when that seems necessary. In other words, we generally treat people the way we would like to be treated ourselves. 2. I also said: "If you know how to make mailman do this, or if you have time to try to help figure it out, why not offer to help improve things?" I meant this as a suggestion for *a* constructive response. Gary clearly displayed some knowledge of, and opinions about, how things should be done. I am suggesting that if he knows how to make mailman do this then he might consider helping in some way. I would suggest that all of the following are helpful ways to participate, but some contribute more than others to the desired outcome: a. Solve the problem for one's self. I was a little surprised the first time I got such an email from mailman and I changed my password to one that I don't use for any other accounts. This is quick to do and does not solve the problem generally but solves it only for myself. b. Respectfully describe the problem and suggest, if possible, someone consider fixing it. This much was done, except for the respectful part. This is something that takes only 5 minutes so anyone can do it but it leaves all of the actual work to someone else who may or may not (i) think it is a priority compared to other tasks or (ii) have time to do it any time soon. So, I would suggest that people who can only offer the suggestion should lower their expectations for a speedy fix. The suggestion itself may have value and if not, it is easily ignored. Therefore I think people should not hold back on suggestions. On the other hand, I also think that people should honestly ask themselves if they can possibly do a little more (sometimes the answer is no - I understand this) than just suggest that someone else take care of something. c. Offer to share one's knowledge on how to fix the problem. This depends on having that knowledge and the time to share it, of course. It has the advantage of dramatically improving the chances of solving the problem because it may be something that can be handled in 10-15 minutes by a person who already knows how to do it and it may save someone else 5-10 hours of having to research it and figure it out from scratch. I notice, as I write, that Alec has made this sort of contribution by sharing an administrative solution for individual users. d. Lacking actual knowledge of how to fix the problem, someone who has some time can offer to help research the problem and/or can ask on the list "Does anyone know a fix for this?". This is another way of demonstrating by one's actions that one cares about the problem and is willing to put forward some time and energy to help fix it. I would not presume to tell Gary which of these options is best for him. I do notice that Chris Barker has offered to help with a Mailman upgrade and I think this is the sort of community response that makes SeaPIG work well. Thanks Chris! 3. When I said "if you know how to fix this, why not offer to help?" I did not mean "if you aren't willing or able to fix this then don't suggest it". What I meant was, why assume that someone else has knowledge/time to fix it if you don't? This comes back to my point in item #2, which I won't reiterate, about making your expectations proportional to your contribution. 4. Outrage is not a helpful response, in my opinion. A momentary flash of anger, perhaps, I can understand, but I think Maria has put the issue in perspective very nicely in her post and I don't see how it helps to share the anger on the list. I understand people get stressed and lose perspective (after which an apology is usually helpful), but do we really think that offering mental punishment to the volunteers running SeaPIG is going to improve their performance? Does anyone want their volunteer efforts rewarded in this way? I think we all can benefit (myself included) from thinking more carefully about how we treat others, not just on this list and not just in our local communities, but everywhere. 5. Matt: nice way to say it: "respect == fun/solutions/friends". I respectfully disagree on the sarcasm part, though. I was raised on a heavy diet of sarcasm and, sure, it's funny when it's leveled at someone else, but it's no fun at all to be on the receiving end. I seriously doubt that Gary enjoyed being ridiculed even though I'm sure Lee intended it as a gentle correction. No doubt Gary has been on the internet more than a month since he obviously has some security knowledge. For my part, I see sarcasm as hurtful and I strive every day to no longer engage in it. Best regards, Melissa ----- Dr. Melissa Rice, PhD Full Moon Technical Solutions, LLC 14202 60th Ave, NW Stanwood, WA 98292-4808 email: mailto:[email protected] phone: 360-654-0709 cell: 425-923-7713 Thursday, December 1, 2011, 10:59:55 AM, Toby Champion <[email protected]> wrote: TC> I do agree that a gentler tone would be better here. Of course. Also TC> less "Welcome to the Internet" sarcasm! TC> But I've never liked the idea that if you're going to make a suggestion, TC> you should provide a patch. Separate issue. False dichotomy. TC> Do you really only want suggestions, or even solutions, from people that TC> can provide patches? I doubt most open source projects actually expect TC> that of their end-users, let alone the developers themselves. TC> A few months ago I thought of an a small way Celery, the Python TC> distributed task queue, could be improved. It would have probably TC> involved only one line of production code. Ask Solem, Celery's author, TC> said he'd incorporate any patch I submitted. Of course, then I had to TC> find exactly where the line should go, and figure out how to test it, TC> and figure out how to fix the few unit tests that would perhaps break as TC> a result of the change. So I'd come up with an /idea/, that Ask liked, TC> and came up with a /solution/, being my one line of code, but never got TC> round to providing the /patch/ because my client and I figured a TC> workaround and it's a whole other thing and I've not yet been able to TC> justify the time. TC> Even though I feel bad about not getting my sh*t together to provide the TC> patch, I doubt Ask is irritated about this. He has the idea (I should TC> file a ticket though). TC> I was very nice about it all though, of course. No swearing or TC> complaining. If I /had/ done that, I expect I'd have been [hunted down TC> or] asked to stop swearing and complaining. Not to provide a patch. TC> Toby TC> On 12/01/2011 08:46 AM, Lee Fisher wrote: >> On 12/1/11 7:24 AM, Gary Hawkins wrote: >>> How incredibly lame of you Python people to repeatedly be sending >>> passwords >>> around in plain text. You should not even know what anyone's >>> passwords are! >>> You should instead store them only represented as SHA2 and only >>> programmatically check to see if their inputs match, and only be able >>> to reset >>> passwords, not read them back. >>> Wake the hell up. >> Gary, >> Welcome to the Internet. Glad to see things are going well on your >> first month. >> You're blaming the wrong people, and talking on the wrong place. >> Your observation about mailing list software is a general mailing list >> software issue, nothing to do with "Python people", or the SeaPIG list. >> You should be talking on the mailing lists where mailing list software >> is discussed. >> Lastly, this is an open source community, if you have a solution, you >> need to be providing a patch, not simply swear and complain and the >> nearest group that uses mailing lists. >> Thanks.
