Arrogant, subtle, entitled: 'Toxic' open source GitHub discussions examined

Toxic discussions on open-source GitHub projects tend to involve entitlement, subtle insults, and arrogance, according to an academic study. That contrasts with the toxic behavior – typically bad language, hate speech, and harassment – found on other corners of the web. Whether that seems obvious or not, it's an interesting …

[jake]

Eh?

"The problem is your team forcing us to use the OS the way you want us to use it although it makes it 1,000,000 times harder to use it your way, than what would be convenient for us."

What about the above opinion is entitled, demanding or insulting? Sounds to me like somebody knows a better way to do something, and yet is being forced into doing it in a way that drastically slows down the entire process. If anything, the party being addressed comes across as authoritative to the point of saying "our way or the highway", which doesn't exactly work in a meritocracy like the FOSS world.

From here, it would seem that the Authors of the paper are backing the actual toxic element.

[diodesign]

Re: Eh?

One might argue it's passive aggressive, unprofessional, and not particularly constructive.

I would say it depends on how well you know the other person and the context. Someone you've had banter with, you might say to them "this is 1,000,000 times harder than it needs to be, mate." Someone you don't really know, that kind of comment may be off putting.

Many years ago, I contributed to a project and the lead dev gave me the feedback: "This code makes my shoes sad." It's not a great starting point. I had to ask: was it the comments or variable names, or...

C.

[Joe W]

Re: Eh?

I can see the authors' point. I have seen comments like that after the main devs have reached a conclusion to do things a certain way - not the way the commenter wanted. They had reasons to do so, and mostly tried to explain them. Whether those were good reasons time would tell. At that point in the discussion this is toxic, it is entitled and arrogant. "how dare you not screw up the future of the project", they scream, "and me wants the sweets!"

I have seen these in reply to equally toxic, passive aggressive "not a bug, won't fix, closed" statements from devs as well.

The comment would make me less likely to look at the pov of the other person, and possibly future comments as well. In that regard it is toxic. It makes me just phase out of that discussion, and probably counter (if I were a dev) with "won't fix, closed". To which the commenter would react byraging about censorship etc. if I'm any judge of character.

[Doctor Syntax]

Re: Eh?

"not a bug, won't fix, closed"

Which is a good reason for running Devuan.

[jake]

Re: Eh?

"One might argue it's passive aggressive, unprofessional, and not particularly constructive."

One might ... if one is actively looking for things to get upset about.

Personally, I'd just answer something like "Your opinion is noted. Thank you.", and move on with more productive things to spend my time on. It is the fighting and bitching about trivial little shit like this[0] that is toxic, not the mere voicing of an opinion.

As Jon Postel put it "Of course, there isn’t any `God of the Internet.` The Internet works because a lot of people cooperate to do things together." He also said "Be liberal in what you accept, and conservative in what you send". Smart man. RIP

[0] Come to think of it, if this is the most "toxic" thing the authors could come up with as an example, I guess the FOSS world isn't very toxic at all, despite the efforts of many over the last few years to make it appear so. Which might be a bigger, more important story.

[Johnb89]

Re: Eh?

Boosting this. Where people are looking to be offended, or think they get internet points for flagging something as toxic, it's way too easy for cancelling and wokeism to get out of control.

There (used to be) a rule: Don't let HR into engineering meetings. HR: "The team hate each other and the environment is toxic, retraining urgently required." Engineers: "We spent 2 hours figuring out how to do it."

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Eh?

Downvoted for "wokeism""

[Ignazio]

Re: Eh?

And for the rest of the bs too

[cosmodrome]

Mom! Jake is being toxic again.

If there's no real problem we can always introduce a code of conduct to create a never ending flow of them. Heck, even the discussion about a CoC and what might be included is guaranteed to divide a project into two hostile parties - and turn these unavailable unproductive, useless participiants who had nothing to contribute before into the Keepers of the Holy CoC.

[jake]

Re: Mom! Jake is being toxic again.

Jake is posting again? I must have missed it.

http://forums.theregister.co.uk/user/26670/

Nope, he hasn't posted since November 2008 ... maybe the other Jake?

https://forums.theregister.com/user/27355

No, no new posts since March of 2009 ...

[jake]

Re: Mom! Jake is being toxic again.

But seriously, you're quite correct ... If discussing the concept of a CoC is enough to cause people to leave the forum, that conversation is "toxic" according to the rules set by the researchers.

[Ignazio]

Re: Eh?

Read the thread, Jake, you seem intent on finding things to bitch about.

[zawarski]

Re: Eh?

"..makes my shoes sad". Hilarious. I am 100% looking forward to using that.

Thanks!

[Doctor Syntax]

Re: Eh?

"This code makes my shoes sad."

"Get better shoes."

[JoeCool]

Re: Eh?

"There are meds for that"

[Kraggy]

Re: Eh?

One "might argue" if one wants to divert attention from what's being said which, as the first poster in this thread pointed out, is totally devoid of toxicity: unless one chooses to define any blunt criticism as 'toxic'.

[Snake]

Re: Eh?

"One might argue it's passive aggressive, unprofessional, and not particularly constructive.".

Most likely, yes.

But, from another viewpoint, it possibly shows frustration at not getting answers previously; being ignored, dismissed, or his/her's issues being outright rejected as irrelevant or 'inconsequential' (see also: "not an issue, we won't fix it"). It sounds passive-aggressive but it might actually be openly aggressive out of end-of-the-line frustration at the response 'system'.

There is a difference between "passive" and "active" aggression, and why they are used in situations. Just because it is aggressive doesn't necessarily mean that is it wrong if, after many many attempts, raising the stakes is the only way to get a response - the onus is then on the responder for forcing the issue to escalate rather than working to solve the issue in the first place (see also: open public protests after being ignored by the powers-that-be, this is simply the online equivalent).

[Ken Moorhouse]

Re: "This code makes my shoes sad."

Don't tell me, your code was designed to cause the computer to re-boot.

The poor sole felt left out and he/she was trying to make you feel like a heel.

Or maybe it was clogging up cpu time.

[Bill Gray]

Re: "This code makes my shoes sad."

Sounds downright sandalous to me. I'd lace right into him with a thorough tongue-lashing.

[Ignazio]

Re: "This code makes my shoes sad."

It's ambiguous. I'm flipflopping on it

[jake]

Re: "This code makes my shoes sad."

Now, now, keep a civil tongue in your head or you'll wind up toe-to-toe and probably end up feeling soleful.

[Benegesserict Cumbersomberbatch]

Re: "This code makes my shoes sad."

Any more of this and I'll do a runner.

[Ignazio]

Re: "This code makes my shoes sad."

I remember an article titled something like "let me explain to you why your patch is crap"

Tongue in cheek but yes, I manage some open source projects and I've gotten great users doing great bug reports, a few good pull requests and a similar number of unusable patch sets, including one that would handle an exception with a System.exit(). YMMV but someone telling you their way is a million times better hasn't got mileage.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Eh?

I once whined about something and some bloke called Ben Greer threw me some code for dot1Q VLAN support he was adding to Linux and said "give this a go". I also whined on the Samba mailing list about something, got some help and a few days later I had made a monster:

I ended up with an elderly Compaq server with Redhat or Mandrake (can't remember) with 10 VLANs and 20 nmbds per VLAN! samba and the kernel were hand compiled. The point of all this was a multi VLAN network with lots of Windows NT and Windows 3.11 WG machines but without a domain - all in quite randomly named workgroups. I now had a unified browse list. Novell shop. South West England. 2000ish

You do get wankers in all walks of life and you don't need to be working on a FOSS project to experience wankery. I have been that wanker myself too at times (I'm sure). The example about Linux kernel dev being toxic is well trod and Mr T famously has calmed down. Try reading LWN comments for a real rundown on how it's now done, although I do note an increasingly Hacker News flavour to the comments until someone like Neil B turns up and pulls the conversation back to reality.

This paper smells of sponsored research vs FOSS. It is a divisive result about a divisive subject - follow the money.

[Ian Johnston]

Re: Eh?

One might argue it's passive aggressive, unprofessional, and not particularly constructive.

Could you identify the passive aggression, define "unprofessional" and explain why it's not constructive? I presume that the previous discussion had put the points at issue in context.

[AdamWill]

Re: Eh?

It's the part where people who are using software that someone else is writing without paying them, or having any kind of formal support arrangement whatsoever, think they can arrogantly dictate design decisions.

Me deciding how I want to design some software that I am then nice enough to publish for you to use is not me "forcing you to use it" the way I designed it. You are entirely free not to design it. But yes, if someone opened an issue like this on something I'd written, I'd close it too.

[Andy 68]

Re: Eh?

Elementary OS has paying customers too.

[doublelayer]

Re: Eh?

We have no guarantee that the person saying this was one, and even if they were, it doesn't change the situation. If I sell products, I may be open to user requests, probably more than when it's open source, but it doesn't mean I automatically take any request a customer has. I evaluate each request for the benefits I expect the users to receive, the effort required to develop and maintain it, and many other issues. If I get a suggestion that I decide won't be beneficial or won't be worth doing given the cost, then I'm afraid the customer will be disappointed. If the product is worthless to them without it, they can try either encouraging me more to change my mind or find a product that better suits their needs.

I've refrained from buying many products on the basis that it doesn't do what I wanted. I don't expect the manufacturer to receive my suggestion email for changing their product and hop to the task of making something for my specific use case. They might read it and take my suggestion if enough other people have also suggested it, but usually they will not. If you do, please send me your email because I have about twenty ideas for products I want but don't have enough time to make myself, so I'd be happy to take advantage of very cheap design and engineering work. I'm guessing everyone who values their time isn't much interested in that proposal.

[Doctor Syntax]

Re: Eh?

Elementary OS has always seemed to me a little out of the normal way of doing things. I don't think I'd get on with it so to that extent I sympathise with the poster. However my solution is simply that I don't use it; there are plenty of more mainstream options.

[VoiceOfTruth]

Re: Eh?

-> having any kind of formal support arrangement whatsoever

What if the comments are in a forum with the words "comments welcome" or words to that effect?

Pointing out design flaws does not mean they are being "arrogantly dictated". What is somebody supposed to say when they see a design flaw? Can you provide a template?

[Throatwarbler Mangrove]

Re: Eh?

@VoiceofTruth: In your case, look at what you'd normally write . . . and write basically anything else. Your posts are the template for "what not to do."

[VoiceOfTruth]

Re: Eh?

You seem to be guilty of toxic and entitled speech. Who appointed you the overlord?

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Eh?

There is no need for an overlord, when everyone (except for a few sock puppets) objects to your views.

[VoiceOfTruth]

Re: Eh?

What makes you think you speak for "everyone"? Self entitled? Toxic?

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Eh?

Persecution complex - tick

Name calling like a 3 year old - tick

[Doctor Syntax]

Re: Eh?

"Pointing out design flaws"

I don't think it was a design flaw, just their philosophy about how a UI should work which didn't coincide with his. Nobody was forcing him to use it if it didn't work for him.

[VoiceOfTruth]

Re: Eh?

-> I don't think it was a design flaw

Having read the thread on Github, I agree. It's not a design flaw, it's the way that Elementary OS does it. Whether that is a "design flaw" itself is another matter. "spirulin" evidently sees it that way. His initial post was a bit impolite but not what I would call toxic. His follow up was (imho).

-> Nobody was forcing him to use

I agree entirely.

[JoeCool]

Re: Eh?

Except that, the statement is an emotional observation. It is not a edict; it is a direct statement of auser problem. The idea "You want me to work in a box that I don't fit in" is a fine starting point. GO back at them and ask for details and specific examples.

It is not, in my vierw toxic. not even offensive. Annoying, a little immature.

[AdamWill]

Re: Eh?

Remember the study authors were - intentionally - using a very broad definition of "toxic" - "anything that could plausibly drive someone to leave the project". If I showed up as a new member of a project then saw that its users thought filing issues like that was appropriate, I certainly might be tempted to leave. So it definitely meets the bar the authors used for this study.

[juice]

Re: Eh?

> What about the above opinion is entitled, demanding or insulting? Sounds to me like somebody knows a better way to do something, and yet is being forced into doing it in a way that drastically slows down the entire process

It depends.

Something which may be convenient for person A may turn out to be highly inconvenient for person B. And it's definitely a prima-donna move to wildly exaggerate just how inconvenient the current situation is.

Or to put it another way: is the new way actually better for everyone, or just for person A?

Equally, I'm not particularly fond of the "either put up and shut up, or fork and build your own" attitude which can be quite comment when discussing open source technologies; in it's own way, that's as toxic a form of gatekeeping as any other.

However, open source contributers are all too often both under resourced and under appreciated. And there's a huge difference between making suggestions which could improve things, and throwing a hissy fit because something isn't 100% perfect for your specific needs.

And for me, the above comment definitely falls into the latter category!

[VoiceOfTruth]

Re: Eh?

-> a prima-donna move to wildly exaggerate

I disagree. Use of hyperbole and exaggeration is very normal in everyday speech, and it isn't limited to prima donnas. How many times have you said "this is useless", or words to that effect? Useless is an absolute - it means it has no use at all, when most of the time you mean "it doesn't do what I want". Or have you said whatever $favourite_sportsman is "useless" when he didn't come up to your expectations? It doesn't have to be to him directly, but I am sure that you have said something like that about somebody to somebody else. Mike Tyson self titled himself the "baddest man on the planet". I would not go that far, there are plenty of worse candidates. So exaggeration is normal.

-> open source contributers are all too often both under resourced and under appreciated

Very true, as we saw with log4j. That was hideous.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Eh?

"Mike Tyson self titled himself the "baddest man on the planet". I would not go that far, there are plenty of worse candidates."

Maybe so. But I wouldn't choose to argue the point with him.

[doublelayer]

Re: Eh?

We interpret their comment very differently. You took this from it:

"Sounds to me like somebody knows a better way to do something, and yet is being forced into doing it in a way that drastically slows down the entire process."

I doubt it on both points. First, if they know a better way, they could implement the better way. Proving something better often gives clearer results if you have working code to demonstrate the advantages. This sounds to me like they have a preference and they're unhappy that the authors didn't go make it. It could be better, but just because I think it's a good idea doesn't make it the best course of action for all users and doesn't guarantee the developers will do it.

As for being forced to do anything, no, they're not. You are not forced to use a project, to refrain from forking it for your purposes, or to care what the developers think. If they disagree with your idea, they are not forcing you to abandon your idea. You can try selling it more, usually by taking more initiative because they have already said no to the level you had. You can fork their project to take it in your direction, optionally bringing it back if you turn out to be right and they want to merge. You can make your own alternative. You may be able to make a plugin or overlay adding your feature. That they didn't take your suggestion immediately without reservation does not constitute forcing you not to use it. It just means there's a bit more work involved, and it's your idea, so it's not surprising that implementing your idea may take work.

[werdsmith]

Re: Eh?

A developer has to decide how to do something, and follow that direction. It is not possible to design a project to please everyone. If it was changed to follow the requirements of a particular user then they might then break the requirements of another user.

[JDC]

Re: Eh?

If you read the linked thread you can see that the author ("spirulin") is definitely toxic: they're rude, demanding, and when their demand isn't immediately agreed to they resort to belittling the project's owner (Daniel).

[jake]

Re: Eh?

When one feels pushed into a corner, one usually pushes back.

Both "sides" seem to be punch-happy. It could have been handled more gracefully by all concerned. But it only grew acerbic[0] with give and take.

As they say, it takes two to tango.

[0] IMO, the word "toxic" is far too toxic to be used in this kind of context. It implies the writer is automatically correct, and the writee is automatically incorrect. That's toxic in and of itself.

[Doctor Syntax]

Re: Eh?

I get the feeling that this was a corner of his own choosing. The devs make Elementary as they see fit. He wanted something else. There's always been a something else in the Linux world without throwing toys out of the pram.

[VoiceOfTruth]

Re: Eh?

I read the link, and the resort to the personal attack is what I found far more toxic than the original post. I'm surprised that Miller, in his quoting the whole thread as an example, did not choose to highlight that rather than the initial post.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Eh?

I agree that the other comments in that thread are far more toxic, but they probably weren't highlighted as they're not really represenTative of the claim being made about OSS

> "Toxicity is different in open-source communities," Miller said in a CMU news release. "It is more contextual, entitled, subtle and passive-aggressive."

I'm not sure that

> I think Daniel was too young when he wrote it and thought he may be the next Inventor or something and changing people's lives and habits or whatever. Hope now when he is a grown-up person his attitude is different and he realized that it won't be the next big thing and it's better to make your users happy than being so self-absorbed and forcing them using it the way you want them to use it.

fits that so well, and the collapsed messages are more like "traditional" toxicity than the OSS specific traits the researchers describe

[Doctor Syntax]

Re: Eh?

" Sounds to me like somebody knows a better way to do something"

From the succeeding comments it sounds as if it was a youngster. And there are plenty of other distros he could choose from if he didn't like their way of doing things.

[Bitsminer]

Re: Eh?

"The problem is your team forcing us to use the OS the way you want us to use it although it makes it 1,000,000 times harder to use it your way, than what would be convenient for us."

What about the above opinion is entitled, demanding or insulting?

It's not a great sentence, I had to read it twice. I believe the phrase "the way you want us to use it..." is the part the non-paying user was complaining about. As in, RTFM is just not good enough for them, so they complained.

Prefixed by "your team forcing us" is the shit on the (sad) shoe.

And appended with "...what would be convenient for us" is the broken shoelace on the shoe.

It's a toxic sentence with privilege and expectation all over it.

Posting something like this on the OpenBSD misc@ list would have resulted in violations of at least three non-proliferation treaties. They got off easy.

[Kevin McMurtrie]

Re: Eh?

I agree that it's not a good sample quote out of context.

The GitHub ticket appears to be part of a larger battle where people are forcing unyielding ideals onto each other. The most talented contributors will be first to notice this toxicity and leave if there's not swift progress towards a resolution.

I'm not a manager because I dislike having to solve problems like this. I'm here for the technical challenges.

[SnijtraM]

Re: Eh?

I agree that this is a very unfortunate and ambiguous example. You really do not see what has happened before this comment, and at the point where discontent is being openly vented, there may have already been a lot of behavior that annoys the first person who simply does not like to be coerced, just because others feel entitled to restrict him from acting anywhere outside of their scope of imagination.

At the point where you see this entitlement, and it is done in a manipulative way, that often indicates narcissism, and in case of the open source community, where individuals want to be perceived as "giving" "good" "altruistic", when in fact there is a deep sense of egotism running behind it, that points to covert narcissism, and I do believe that that is what this article is fundamentally about.

It is not easy to tell a covert narcissist, for the precise reason that they do not want to be known as having these character traits.

Usually, when confronted with a toxic person, another participant may get angry and it is important for any moderator that they do not intervene in somebody's language just because the person happens to be visibly annoyed.

This is a mistake that I see made often, and the actions of the moderator really play into the game of the toxic individual who wants to pretend that they're not undermining a discussion with covert aggression.

[doublelayer]

Re: Eh?

"there may have already been a lot of behavior that annoys the first person who simply does not like to be coerced, just because others feel entitled to restrict him from acting anywhere outside of their scope of imagination."

I'll say it again. Not implementing the feature you want is not coercion. It's not restricting the user from getting what they want. It doesn't force the user to use something specific. A user who doesn't like a decision may well be annoyed that the developer won't do it for them, and they're allowed to express that annoyance if they want, but they shouldn't be defended as if the developer's decision is in any way coercing them into never seeing the idea come to fruition. They have lots of options left, even when the developers they're asking aren't going to do it for them.

[SnijtraM]

Re: Eh?

It is coercion if the developer is living in a bubble and sits in judgement, deliberately making it impossible to work around their interface. Who is to say that the user has any options? But to fork the product, maybe. The original product may be a contribution to the world, but there are strings attached (you know, the fine print, and other nasty things from the commercial world that we're all running away from).

You should be allowed to call it out when an individual acts like a messiah, and you should be allowed to call it out when you believe that their "altruism" is damaging, and there is no godly article stating that you should have to deliver this message on a silver plate.

People very, very often make this mistake that through contribution, you "owe" them a favorable opinion.

This is the sneaky kind of grandiosity that I am talking about, and lots of academics have this problem, waving their degree, position, or unasked-for melodramatic interference when in actuality they fail to make a point.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Eh?

I agree. Maybe his tone wasn't the best, but if it's something simple to add, and defaults to off anyway, what's the big problem with putting the option in?

That's my bugbear with a lot of software these days (and it's not just me - how many times do people on this very site moan about changes made to firefox etc.?)

Even worse is when something useful is REMOVED for no other reason than the devs thought it would look better (i.e. there was no code-rot or maintainability issues)

Disable it at default if you must, but leave the option there!

[R-D-R-R]

Re: Eh?

Did you look at the GH issue the quote was from (it was linked in the article)?

I agree with what they're asking for but the way they're asking absolutely comes across as entitled and demanding and has the opposite effect of what they want. Which fits the definition of toxicity being applied by the paper, I.e. it kills the discussion before it begins.

Maybe the devs would never have agreed to implement the functionality asked for, because it doesn't fit their vision, but the manner of the request guaranteed that they wouldn't.

Like you said

> Personally, I'd just answer something like "Your opinion is noted. Thank you.", and move on with more productive things to spend my time on.

[Ignazio]

Re: Eh?

Read the thread and all shall be made clear.

The requester claimed keyboard shortcuts are always slower than point and click with a mouse. If that's not trolling I don't Ctrl-c Ctrl-v even.

[corestore]

"Alexa, what does a pissing contest look like?"

https://github.com/simh/simh/issues/1059?

[Ben Tasker]

Jesus.... Fucking.... Christ

[emfiliane]

Thank you, I spent too long reading that entire thing and could not stop cracking up at how ludicrous it all was.

[that one in the corner]

On the edge of my seat

I've worked my way down to 27th May and have to stop reading (SWMBO calls) just as the plot thickens: will the s/w be chucked from Debian?

This, and many other questions, will be answered in this weeks episode of: simh!

[Benegesserict Cumbersomberbatch]

Re: On the edge of my seat

TL;DR: One maintainer changed the license and forked the project rather than listen to community consensus.

[Anonymous Coward]

Hoping they can publish a fix soon.

The open source community is faltering because of the behavior you'd expect from unsocialized men.

CMU is a great school, and I'm happy they were able to identify the problem so clearly. Obviously they will next turn their attention to the software to fix this problem. I look forward to it.

[Khaptain]

Re: Hoping they can publish a fix soon.

The open source community is faltering because of the behavior you'd expect from unsocialized "men"...

If it's Open Source then you are free to do your own thing, why would you remain in such an environment if such is the case.. Do your own fork and develop a nice group of people, why is that a problem for you..

Don't look for a problem, become the solution.

[VoiceOfTruth]

Re: Hoping they can publish a fix soon.

You could argue that a fork is unfriendly. The argument is made here: https://mako.cc/writing/to_fork_or_not_to_fork.html.

One quote for you: Forking has historically been viewed as a bad thing in free software communities: they are seen to stem from people's inability to work together and have ended in reproduction of work.

[Flocke Kroes]

Re: Hoping they can publish a fix soon.

In proprietary software, duplication of effort is a waste of money. With software libre, it is people's own time to contribute or not as they see fit. After a fork, one side will be more valuable to the community, attract more contributors and make more progress until the other side fades away from neglect. Truth found by experiment, not direction imposed by by the winner of a debate conducted in the absence of evidence.

[VoiceOfTruth]

Re: Hoping they can publish a fix soon.

-> software libre

Much "software libre" is actually done by paid developers. It is the reason why RedHat, for example, exists.

[Doctor Syntax]

Re: Hoping they can publish a fix soon.

True, but forks are to FOSS what mutation is to biological evolution.

[VoiceOfTruth]

Re: Hoping they can publish a fix soon.

In other words, sometimes not good.

Perl went through this a year ago. https://dev.to/leontimmermans/a-year-of-strife-16o9. A quote: there is a third option that had been unthinkable a year ago: forking.

Forking Perl would have been the worst of outcomes. There is no way to put a spin on forking Perl would have been good.

[Yet Another Anonymous coward]

Re: Hoping they can publish a fix soon.

>behavior you'd expect from unsocialized men.

Your comment violates our community guidelines on sexist language and you will be 7zipp'ed and feathered

[Claptrap314]

Re: Hoping they can publish a fix soon.

Your mask suggests you are being sarcastic (which I certainly hope), but this being the internet, it is impossible to tell without an explicit flag. So--no vote either way.

[Pascal Monett]

No, the mask suggests that the post was made from a phone, or the user just wanted his anonymity (the case here).

We don't have a sarcasm icon.

We do have a troll icon, and I use it liberally :)

[Anonymous Coward]

I was unaware of the troll icon. Next time. Odd that it wasn't spotted as sarcasm... I tried to make it kind of obvious.

[Ken Hagan]

I thought the 7zip reference made it pretty obvious, but as was known even back in the days of Jon Postel, nothing is completely obvious in online discourse.

[emfiliane]

Thank you for this and the replies it got, it takes me back to classic Usenet days where all things were VERY SERIOUS BUSINESS.

[jake]

Re: Hoping they can publish a fix soon.

"The open source community is faltering"

Post proof or retract.

"because of the behavior you'd expect from unsocialized men."

What an awful, sexist comment. Have you reported for reprocessing yet?

[Doctor Syntax]

Re: Hoping they can publish a fix soon.

Poe's law?

[Khaptain]

Stress and idiotic questions/requests

I wonder if the study will also take into considersation the extreme levels of stress, lack of sleep, endless 24h thought processes and problem resolving mind games that a developer has to endure in order to perform his craft only to be confronted by a question from someone that can see no futher than their own belly button..

The toxicity often comes from the opposite end of the stick...

[Throatwarbler Mangrove]

Soon . . .

. . . toxic comments in this thread about how their toxic comments are unfairly being perceived as toxic and then something about "cancel culture" and "wokeness."

[Claverhouse]

Sissies

Whenever I have been unemployed, I've been able to console myself with the fact that half the world's work --- particularly in academia --- is useless, and people are being paid large sums for the sake of 'Growth' and 'Progress.

.

They should just walk it off.

[Anonymous Coward]

Racist, Sexist, and Antisemitic

One discussion group I no longer read, because, although it was generally well moderated, contributors had a free hand to label other people racist, sexist, or antisemitic. This with the aim of making the group more inclusive. Although it didn't affect me directly, it was just unpleasant to watch.

And then there is The Register, where the comment area is full of vituperous (arrogant and entitled) slanging directed at M$ and anyone who uses their products.

[Yet Another Anonymous coward]

Re: Racist, Sexist, and Antisemitic

Sounds Luke a typical Mac user

[werdsmith]

Re: Racist, Sexist, and Antisemitic

Thank you, vituperative added to my personal lexicon.

As for The Register, it’s actually a rare miracle of modern web discussion, such a civil place is actually to be cherished.

[jake]

Re: Racist, Sexist, and Antisemitic

"Thank you, vituperative added to my personal lexicon."

You'll probably love contumelious and opprobrious, too :-)

[R Soul]

Re: Racist, Sexist, and Antisemitic

Are these cromulent words?

[Pascal Monett]

Re: vituperous [..] slanging directed at M$

There was a time where the banner of El Reg contained the words "Biting the hand that feeds IT".

El Reg is full of people who are intelligent and competent, and the incompetence that Borkzilla regularly demonstrates is just insufferable.

So we vent.

But don't worry, Apple gets its share, as does IBM, Intel, and any other company that makes an incredible blunder.

[Tom 38]

Re: vituperous [..] slanging directed at M$

It's only the true diehards that continue with the Microsoft hatred. I was certainly amongst them "back in the day", but nowadays it just doesn't seem necessary. They lost, we won, the world runs on open source ideals now. They can keep their consumer sector, their office money, etc - that's fine, I don't begrudge them some minor success.

Anyone arguing this just needs to look at Azure. MS's big play these days is offering to run your Linux images and apps for you using open source orchestration tools developed by Google. Game over man, game over.

[Doctor Syntax]

Re: vituperous [..] slanging directed at M$

"and any other company that makes an incredible blunder"

Remembering always that the man who never made a blunder never made anything.

[Doctor Syntax]

Re: Racist, Sexist, and Antisemitic

"although it was generally well moderated"

It doesn't sound so. Moderate such posts as being OT.

[Pirate Dave]

Re: Racist, Sexist, and Antisemitic

"And then there is The Register, where the comment area is full of vituperous (arrogant and entitled) slanging directed at M$ and anyone who uses their products."

That was actually only true in the days before systemd.

We learned to branch out with our arrogant, entitled hatred.

[Totally not a Cylon]

Mos Eisley

Any technical forum will converge to looking like Mos Eisley Spaceport or Illium.....

Without the face to face element of conversation where sarcasm or humour can be detected in the 'side channel' of voice tone/body langauge heated debates degenerate into slanging matches and insult fests; but in most cases this is merely hyper smart people working out their frustration that someone else is not seeing 'the problem'. Often simply using a different way to describe 'the problem' would work.....

Besides if you think tech forums are toxic you should see a few military/veteran forums...... (except they aren'r; just the language seems to be but isn't)

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: if you think tech forums are toxic

.... you should try reading the letters page of your local newspaper!

"Latest news: people don't like each other and have arguments!

Film at 11."

Twas ever thus.

[Yet Another Anonymous coward]

Re: if you think tech forums are toxic

Sir, the technical deficiency in your code and the fluency of your prose suggests a heritage rich in interspecies intercourse.

I remain your most humble servant

L. Tovalds

[Paddy B]

Great responses tho

While it's nice to see the reg comments fulfilling their role as a useful dataset for further study, leaping to the defence of the poster, was anyone else impressed with the calm responses this elicited from the Devs?

[Cederic]

Re: Great responses tho

Not really, no.

They declined a feature because of a reason that doesn't logically hold up, then shut down the conversation pointing that out for being 'extremely disruptive, abusive, and in violation of the Code of Conduct'. Which it wasn't.

Their choice to decline the feature, but in my view they breached their own Code of Conduct, and were more toxic than anybody to whom they replied - including the initial statement highlighted in the report.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Great responses tho

Having been affected by an issue that only still existed because earlier reports had been closed by devs with the same approach, I agree.

There's a balance between "we designed it this way and it's not changing without good reason" and "we designed it this way and it's not changing".

If you implement something, it's wise to take feedback on board for analysis rather than blocking/rejecting it, especially when users are complaining that your change is breaking their environments.

But, on the other hand, if feedback is getting toxic, why _would_ you read updates rather than muting (and eventually locking) the thread?

[doublelayer]

Re: Great responses tho

There's a balance between "we designed it this way and it's not changing without good reason" and "we designed it this way and it's not changing".

That's very true, but that balance is often more obvious to the developer who read all the requests rather than the kind of user who doesn't understand that "good reason" doesn't automatically include "I want it". I've had to deal with users who figured that demonstrating that they would benefit automatically meant the request was high priority to change right now. For that matter, I've dealt with users who figured just stating the request meant that, not even bothering to work with me on explaining why this was a good thing for them.

[Joe W]

The ogre tells us we must not be trolls

On an rpg mailinglist above gem was posted after a heated discussion. This made everyone relax and be quite sorry about their stupid earlier behaviour.

Ogre referred to the mod/list admin.

[Will Godfrey]

Why must a difference of opinion be regarded as hostile?

Particularly regarding code forks. The FLOSS project I'm involved with is a fork, and after more than 10 years both still seem to be going along quite happily in their (now) quite different directions. There is the occasional troll who very publicly asks which they should use. My answer is always "Try both and go with which you prefer".

[Antipode77]

Re: Why must a difference of opinion be regarded as hostile?

Yes. People can agree to disagree on certain subjects.

[Philip Stott]

I've been a professional software developer for 30 years and have noticed in myself and colleagues that we generally seem to inhabit the lower rungs of the autism ladder.

I'm working with a guy right now who is particularly difficult, and I believe it's because he generally can't see other people's point of view.

Perhaps there's an element of this that leads to the snarky comments on FOSS projects ... ?

[Doctor Syntax]

And codes of conduct, if they exist, should be framed to respect that.

[Yet Another Anonymous coward]

The problem is that codes of conduct tend to be written by the sort of people who inhabit committees

I'm not sure my C++ coding guidelines need to "Acknowledge that the lived experiences of marginalized groups are valid."

[Cederic]

I could even tolerate that, but try pointing out to them that you're a marginalised group and they're diminishing and discriminating against you by rejecting your lived experience that their code of conduct is making a raw living hell.

Suddenly it's you at fault, somehow.

[Kevin McMurtrie]

Trash talking the 32 bit operating systems again? Digital Resources would like a word with you.

[Ozzard]

ASC *requires* communication difficulties with neurotypicals for diagnosis... surprise!

(Background: Yes, I have an ASC diagnosis. Yes, I'm involved in autism research. No, I'm not a great fan of Baron-Cohen's deficit model - few autistic folks are.)

It's worth looking at the double empathy problem here - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_empathy_problem (and I recommend papers by Catherine Crompton in particular for some well-thought-out further research) where autistics communicate well with autistics, neurotypicals (NTs) communicate well with neurotypicals, and communication between the two groups is confused, confusing, and full of emotional and technical misunderstanding. "Why are they so rude? We're not even through the intros!" "Bored now. Why is he telling me his life story when the meeting's already thirty seconds in and we're still on small talk? And I can't disguise that boredom on my face."

I strongly suspect that NTs find autistic comms terse, arrogant, and entitled. Given the strong presence of ND and especially autistic people in tech - and remember, an ASC diagnosis *requires* you to have communication difficulties with neurotypicals or you don't get the label - then the fast, efficient, and open comms between autistics is going to come across as toxic. We don't dress things up. Mostly we don't say please, because the other autistic person doesn't care about hearing it and it's a wasted word. We say what we want. Toxic? Depends which side of the mutual incomprehension barrier you're on. I'd much rather receive clear, simple comms where the position and intent of the other side was clear; I spend far less time parsing it and I'm far more certain of the intent of the comms.

I'd be fascinated to see a version of this study where a group of autistic people rated the threads for toxicity, and a parallel group of non-autistic people did the same. I think the comparison of those scores would be very, very interesting.

[david 12]

Re: ASC *requires* communication difficulties with neurotypicals for diagnosis... surprise!

Classic paper from 1998 on the topic:

http://www.mit.edu/~jcb/tact.html

This is because when nerds were growing up ... their parents continually drilled into their heads statements like, "They're just saying those mean things because they're jealous. They don't really mean it."

[R Soul]

The bleedin' obvious

WTF? You can get research grants to find out people say rude and offensive things on the Internet! What will these researchers do next, get money to find out water is wet or it gets dark at night? Research into what bears do in the woods is probably beyond them.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: The bleedin' obvious

Water is not wet, it makes other things wet.

[Yet Another Anonymous coward]

Re: The bleedin' obvious

Technically correct, the best kind of correct

[yetanotheraoc]

not even sure about the definition

"rude, disrespectful, or unreasonable language that is likely to make someone leave a discussion."

If two people have strongly held but differing opinions, the _only_ reasonable course is for one of them to eventually SIGHUP the discussion. It doesn't matter which person (one of them has to leave first), and it doesn't mean the other person was toxic. Even if they say "I'm leaving because you're toxic", that doesn't make it so.

I wouldn't say there is no toxicity ever. I would say there is stuff that is definitely toxic, there is stuff that is definitely not toxic, and there is stuff in the gray area where it depends on the context, on the individuals, etc. Eliminating the definitely toxic stuff is worthwhile. Categorizing the stuff in the gray area as _definitely_ toxic is a giant step in the wrong direction.

[vincent himpe]

endless

vi vs emacs

kde vs gnome

suse vs debian vs ubuntu vs whatever

command line vs gui

mac vs pc

The endless debates go on and on and on. It's like saying no to Ms Doyle offering you a cup of tea. At one point you just go: "feck off cup "!

[Pirate Dave]

Disclaimer

All we need now is a judging committee, and OSS projects can add an official badge to their home pages to the effect of

"No feelings were hurt during the development of this software."

Won't the world be a better place then...

Personally, as a 53-year old toxic white Southern male, it still brings a tear to me eye when I see how the Godfather has been shackled. His rants against knuckleheadedness used to be such entertainment in an otherwise beige world.

[Steve Channell]

The problems is not Linus Torvalds, it's the mediocre that behave like Linus

I well remember Linus's post on usenet because I was using minix (pcnx build) and it was a great argument for upgrading to a 80386 PC.

It would not have got anywhere if [1] Linus hadn't worked so hard, [2] he hadn't been responsive to feedback, [3] he'd allowed all the Computer Science PhD student to shovel code into it for bragging rights.

Fast forward thirty years, and [1] he's still working hard, [2] he's still responsive, [3] People are still trying to shovel code into. When one rogue commit can trash the whole edifice, we have to accept that proportionate behavior.

The problem is not Linus, but the many mediocre developers that think they've acquired god-like status because a corporate policy mandates code reviews for Pull Requests and there is no specification to constrain the terms of a rejection/change-suggestion. There really was a time when rejection in a core-review required a reference to functional/architecture requires, standards or defect.

[Anonymous Coward]

> Toxicity in open source projects is relatively rare – the researchers in previous work found only about six per 1,000 GitHub issues to be toxic.

There's your headline. Rare and needs a finely tuned academic nose to spot because it's so subtle. Moving on.