[Haskell] Guidelines for respectful communication

[Ben Lippmeier]

> On 7 Dec 2018, at 6:47 pm, Jonathan Lange <jml at mumak.net> wrote:
> 
> In particular, her suggestion about pairing guidelines for respectful communications with guidelines for what to do when things break down is an excellent one, and has worked well in other communities to help those on the fringes of a community feel welcome and able to contribute.


I’ll also back this up. Over the last couple of years I’ve been involved in 3 separate communities which have struggled with many of the same issues. The way I see it, guidelines for Respectful Communication are statements of the desired end goal, but they don’t provide much insight as to the root causes of the problems, or how to address them. At the risk of trivialising the issue, one could reduce many such statements to “Can everyone please stop shouting and be nice to each other.” (CEPSSaBNTEO)

Here are two templates for problems that I’ve seen over and over, and not necessarily in this community. The names used are placeholders.

1) Alice has become very interested in a particular technical issue and wants to change the direction of Project X to address it. Alice has contributed to Project X on and off, but did not start it and is not currently leading it. The main developer is Bob who agrees that the issue exists, but is focused on other things right now, and isn’t motivated to have a long discussion about something he sees as a minor detail. Alice continues to post on a public list about the issue, until Bob becomes exasperated and replies with something like “yes, but I don’t care about that right now”. Alice thinks the comment is directed at her personally, posts a hurt reply, then Charlie, Debbie, and Edward chime in about whether or not that was an appropriate communication. There is a thread on Reddit with 50 comments from people that Alice and Bob have never heard of. Both Alice and Bob are demotivated by the whole experience, and future potential contributors to Project X stumble across the Reddit post and decide they don’t want to get involved anymore.

2) Charlie and Debbie have been building System Y for the last 10 years as a side project, which over time has grown to be a key part of the public infrastructure. Both Charlie and Debbie are well known and respected by the community, but don’t always have time to fix bugs promptly. System Y also has some long standing issues that everyone grumbles about, but also know how to work around. Edward works for Company Z, which has recently formed to do consulting in this area. Company Z has publicly stated that they will invest 2 million dollars improving the public infrastructure, and plan to build a replacement for System Y. Some think that Edward is trying to take over System Y as a marketing exercise, others think System Y should have been replaced long ago, others think that Edward should just start funding Charlie and Debbie's work on System Y full time, instead of trying to build a new system from scratch. Charlie and Debbie are overwhelmed with all the emails and have less and less time to actually fix bugs in System Y. Next, Harold, who has been watching from the sidelines, posts a long tirade about all the reasons that Company Z is a terrible company doing the wrong things for the wrong reasons. Charlie barely knows Harold, but posts a small comment agreeing with the general sentiment. Edward sees the comment and promises himself that there is no way the ungrateful System Y people are ever getting any of his money. Two years later both System-Y and Company Z’s SystemY-Prime are in common use, do basically the same thing, and everyone grumbles about both.

The root problems here are differences in motivation, miscommunication, and the Internet Amplification Effect (IAE). Harsh posts in public forums are a surface effect that feeds back and exacerbates the underlying problems. People like Harold who stoke the flames don’t tend to read the Respectful Communication guidelines, and everyone always feels justified in their own opinions. There is published work on dealing with conflicts in online communities [1], but I don’t pretend to be an expert. 

Perhaps an interested party could start a wiki page with statements of the form “If you feel like X is happening then consider doing Y.” This might also help people that are not naturally good at understanding the thoughts and motivations of other people, and work better when such advice is written down.

Peace,
Ben.

[1] Managing Conflicts in Open Source Communities
Ruben Van Wendel De Joode, 2004.