Getting hosed by the open source community, a link from Reddit. I completely feel for this guy. Most techies that I know are decent people who are quite helpful and friendly. Unfortunately, their numbers are dwindling. Basic civility seems to be lost and I don't think we're getting it back. The impersonal 'net teaches people that it's safe to be an asshole. Even I do it sometimes, but I apologize when I've realized it. This, I think, is the worst thing the 'net has given us.
I never did contact Sun, btw. However, someone _did_ contact my boss because they didn't like my blog post. Made up some bullshit about how I was DOS'ing their website. Fortunately for me he was a socially retarded imbecile who left a message at midnight on a Friday, never identified what site I was supposedly DOS'ing, and never identified himself. But, it was still a rather unpleasant experience explaining to my (new at that time) boss what it was all about.
Not to be too juvenile, but I'd have to say he started it. His first substantive comments are:
"Wordpress can't process it's own RSS feeds" followed by "its nuts". That could be seen as a bit provocative, and is bound to get a bad response.
The right way to do this would be to say something like
"It seems like Wordpress can't process it's own RSS feeds", "I have a standard WP-MU install, and when I do X I get this error:
Straightforward description of the problem, with relevant details and an error message. No accusing tone, no "this thing is broken" implication.
OTOH, the responder was just as much a dick, but I think when you're providing support for free, you get a little more leeway.
Re:I don't feel for that guy
hfb on 2008-08-06T17:00:57
Bollocks. Even when you use such flaccid words like 'it appears to' or 'it seems like' to soften a statement, fuckwads like those guys will still rip your head off and shit down your neck.Re:I don't feel for that guy
Aristotle on 2008-08-07T06:39:07
Whether providing tech support for free gives you leeway is bollocks or not, Dave’s central point is correct: the asker should have provided all relevant information and kept his tone neutral. At worst that would have given him a leg to stand on when complaining about the treatment he got; at best it would have gotten him the help he needed.
Re:I don't feel for that guy
Aristotle on 2008-08-07T06:47:18
(And this is cold, results-oriented thinking, not even social competence. A robot would figure out that the most effective possible course of action is not to immediately drive the conversation into a ditch.)
Re:I don't feel for that guy
pudge on 2008-08-07T22:31:20
hfb, true, which is why I tend to write "it doesn't work for me." Then they can feel free to blame you at first, and will be more likely to try to point out where you went wrong, and be more willing to accept blame themselves when they find out it was really their fault.
:-) Re:I don't feel for that guy
btilly on 2008-08-06T18:59:33
He is also doing too much of a "kick me" with his, "Hand me the abuse, as long as I get the answer" attitude.
Were I in his position I would have started off with, "I can't get Wordpress to process its own RSS feeds." Then, "It keeps telling me, 'Could not find an RSS or ATOM feed at that URL.'" "I've read the documentation and tried everything I can think of." If nobody responds to that then follow up with, "Does anyone have any ideas?"
He thinks he knows how to handle technical people. I think he's mistaken. Look at how far into the interaction he goes before he includes basic information such as the fact that he's using the basic wordpress, what the error is, or what he has done. Instead he fills in with social fluff which is intended to placate.
But technical people won't respond to that. Technical people are looking for something specific - concrete information that they can process. Give them facts and a problem and they can go to town. Don't, and they are just spinning their wheels, wasting time. They don't like that. No matter how much you try to make them like it, they won't. As evidence I point to the fact that he has them already mad at him before he has provided them with a single useful fact about what he has done or what error he is getting!
None of this is excuses the behaviour of said technical people. Technical people aren't always the most pleasan to deal with. But if you know how to handle them, you will avoid a lot of these situations.
So be factual. Avoid emotion. Avoid stating any erroneous conclusions. Get useful technical information out there as fast as possible.
This approach will annoy non-technical people. Add in the hello, good bye, and irrelevant colour for them. But technical people respond well to the direct approach that lets them go from 0 to being able to supply real help as quickly as possible.
Re:I don't feel for that guy
TeeJay on 2008-08-06T19:22:47
Yup, I'd find him pretty annoying if he whined like that on a channel for a project I used.
I've done it myself a couple of times, and felt stupid afterwoods, but at least I have the good sense to know at least the basics of what I'm using and being able to provide useful information.
The main problem is that he clearly has no idea of how to troubleshoot problems - why is he doing this kind of stuff ? He's going to always have a hard time because 90% of IT is troubleshooting pro blems like that.
Re:I don't feel for that guy
jdavidb on 2008-08-07T14:35:53
He is also doing too much of a "kick me" with his, "Hand me the abuse, as long as I get the answer" attitude.
No kidding! I'm not impressed by the self-deprecation. It wouldn't make me treat a guy badly, but it does make it hard to take him seriously. At worst, it makes me think "He thinks I'm a jerk." It could be construed as a subtle insult.
And the "I'll proclaim you God" crap would be religiously offensive to me if I were still the kind of guy who got offended religiously. (Calling myself God would be blasphemy in my religion, so calling me that is NOT a compliment to me in any way, shape, or form.) When you don't know who you're dealing with, don't say stupid stuff like that. I wouldn't refuse to deal with someone or mistreat them over that, either, but it's definitely not the honey coating to use to draw more flies. At best, neutral; at worst, vinegar.
He thinks he knows how to handle technical people. I think he's mistaken.
Agree. All he needs to do is fill out the bug report formula. If you want help, give me the information I need to help you. If you're just here to blow off steam, be my guest. Don't be surprised if someone else does likewise.
Re:I don't feel for that guy
jdavidb on 2008-08-07T14:58:52
It could be construed as a subtle insult.
Given that the guy went out and posted this rant afterward, I'm inclined to believe it WAS a subtle insult. He was saying, "Yes, I know you guys are social cretins who aren't capable of treating anyone nicely." That appears to be what he believes. He wasn't willing to give them the same grace he wanted, forgiveness for acting like a jerk. He admits he acted like a jerk, and he expects it to be sweetly overlooked. So why can't he sweetly overlook their problems?
His "Treat me like a jerk all you want, as long as I get the answer" is also a complete lie, as well. He got his answer; so why is he out ranting about the way he was treated when he specifically said "That's okay, as long as I get the answer"?
Somebody else said the open source community should be more forgiving to idiots. I agree. But the problem here was not an idiot. It was a jerk. That is different. Again, I wouldn't necessarily treat someone badly for all this, but I also probably wouldn't waste my time with them, and I don't hold other people to my own standard of behavior. If other people want to respond with anger when they feel someone insults them, who am I to judge?
As someone else said, this guy did not get "hosed." He had an argument. Like many (but certainly not all) arguments, there were two sides to this one, and neither side was blameless.
This in no way invalidates the fact that many people in such forums are jerks to clueless newbies.
Re:I don't feel for that guy
jrockway on 2008-08-06T20:37:07
I agree with you. This guy got himself into trouble for wording things poorly (hint: don't use strong words if nobody on the channel knows you), and then he just dug himself in deeper. When you are new on an IRC channel and you don't understand someone's answer, google a little before you say "I don't get it". Also, don't invite people to taunt you, because they will do it if you ask them to!
Finally, you have to realize what it's like to be on the developer side of things. Why should you answer someone's question for free when you could be working on the software or looking at porn (hey, it's your time, do what you want) instead?
Here's what I would have said:
< jrockway> hello
< jrockway> so I'm trying to get Wordpress to read its own RSS feed... but it's not working. I think that "foo" should happen, but I just get "bar"
< jrockway> any ideas?
Notice how there is no negative language, and how I'm not demanding an answer? I am just mentioning this as some interesting curiosity that we should all discuss. This is the sort of thing that will get an answer on IRC. Also, note that I didn't say "I'm an idiot, I can't get foo to work" because I know the answer will be "because you're an idiot", and my question will never be answered.
As with anything, you just have to practice and learn how to get better. You can't expect to do anything perfectly the first time you try... why would talking on IRC be any different. After a while, this guy will "get it" (from lurking, and trying out new techniques) and he'll never have a problem again.Re:I don't feel for that guy
jdavidb on 2008-08-26T12:45:51
I agree with you. This guy got himself into trouble for wording things poorly (hint: don't use strong words if nobody on the channel knows you),
Hey, Ovid, I just wanted to come back and mention that as a result of this discussion, I reevaluated a non-technical online discussion that I had a couple of months ago and realized that I was at fault. It was just like jrockway says here: I showed up using strong words (not swearing or anything, but I was ranting, and I said so), and nobody knew me. They responded to my rant with anger, even though I wasn't ranting at them and expected sympathy. They bit my head off, misrepresented what I had said so that they could claim they got a particular negative reaction they had been expected, proclaimed themselves persecuted martyrs, and refused to listen while I tried to explain.
They were in fact jerks, and to be honest, like a little child I fretted over that for a month or so. But thinking this discussion here over one day, I realized that the reason that conversation was unrecoverable was precisely what was described here: I started the conversation off on the wrong foot, and I have nobody but myself to blame for that.
So, thanks, guys, for showing me my faults so I can be a little better.
:) Re:I don't feel for that guy
Ovid on 2008-08-26T13:34:52
Yay. You may be better than me here. I'm still struggling with this
:) Re:I don't feel for that guy
jdavidb on 2008-08-26T17:14:38
Who says I'm not struggling??
is that you have to already be a part of the community, so that you know the proper tone to strike to get help. Otherwise, your chances of doing so cold, at a point when you're already frustrated, are pretty slim.
On the one hand, it makes perfect community sense: rite of passage, yada yada. On the other hand, it's pretty appalling behavior for anyone out of junior high.
Not sure what to think. I guess if the community is strengthened by driving off all but the most determined/thick-skinned newbies, it's a good thing *to its members*. (Sometimes it is, too. A community with no boundaries isn't a community.)
If not, then there needs to be a conscious effort to turn off the rite-of-passage filter for those drive-by frustrated newbies: Yeah, you can't hang around for long with that attitude, but you get a bye for your first few matches.
There's a culture, though, of "Some idiot asked wrong, and look how I put him in his place!" not only happening, but being presented to the community as a trophy. That's way over the line, for any community I'd want to be part of.
Re:So what I'm getting from the other commenters..
TeeJay on 2008-08-07T10:15:57
It's not you have to be part of a community it's that you have to help others to help you.
At no point did he do that, he didn't double check when he followed instructions (despite clearly not understanding either the instructions or the tools), he didn't give an example of what he was doing, failed to give any useful information, and made the fatal error of being certain that a presumably well tested and widely used piece of software is broken rather than something he did or bad input.
The guy was out of his depth, and got bailed out by a bunch of strangers for free, after insulting their project, despite failing to listen or follow instructions or help them help in any way.
Then he complains that he didn't get warm fuzzy feelings from them too.FFS.
It's not even like they just gave him advice from klortho, despite all the following applying :
#11943 Ah yes, and you are the first person to have noticed this bug since 1987. Sure.
#11941 Of course it doesn't work! That's because you don't know what you are doing!
#11927 A good approach to that problem would be to hire a computer programmer.Re:So what I'm getting from the other commenters..
wirebird on 2008-08-07T16:44:20
If you think the response is in justifiable proportion to the mistakes he made (and yes, he did make them), you and I really aren't speaking the same language.
Re:So what I'm getting from the other commenters..
chromatic on 2008-08-07T17:13:38
While I agree with you, I believe the point is that many people here would have kicked everyone out of the channel for being rude, whiny, tiresome, or plain ol' boring.
Re:So what I'm getting from the other commenters..
TeeJay on 2008-08-08T10:10:55
No, the response isn't reasonable - you don't have to respond in kind to rudeness, you also don't have to spend your time helping rude people, particularly if they are being stupid (beyond not knowing stuff, but failing to pay attention, provide useful information or in any way help them to help themselves).
But.. it's worth remembering that the guy joined an irc channel, was rude about the project, insinuated that everybody there had no social skills and was sarcastic and unhelpful when they tried to help him.
Yes they could have bit their tongues. But I don't believe he's in any position to berate them - heck he says himself that he acted like a jerk - hardly surprising that they treated him like one.
Re:How to ask questions!
petdance on 2008-08-07T16:00:03
Violating those rules doesn't excuse people being jerks.
Second, ESR is hardly a shining example of how to behave to other people.
Third, just because ESR said it doesn't make it holy canon.
Re:How to ask questions!
chromatic on 2008-08-07T17:14:16
True, but this is one of the least wrong things that ESR has ever published.
Re:How to ask questions!
petdance on 2008-08-07T17:54:58
Except that when he says shit likeWhat we are, unapologetically, is hostile to people who seem to be unwilling to think or to do their own homework before asking questions.
it's saying "It's OK to be a dick to anyone who doesn't do things in the way I want."
Justification of hostility is absurd.
Re:How to ask questions!
chromatic on 2008-08-07T22:07:59
Justification of hostility is absurd.
I agree. My praise was faint.
Re:How to ask questions!
Aristotle on 2008-08-07T23:28:54
Which is why I like to point people to Mike Ash’s Getting Answers instead.
