[EE84M3i]

It seems to me it should be

a) reasonable for gitpay to offer a way to 'opt out' if you don't want your information there anymore, even if they're not legally required to.

b) fine to let the gitpay folks wait to add that until the end of the holiday season.

The user who created the issue linked from the top of this thread seems to be overwhelming the developers, who have graciously taken time out of their vacation to say they'll follow up next week. The relative severity of this does not seem to warrant a more urgent response.

[guitarbill]

Yeah, the pushiness really isn't helping. Neither are nebulous legal threats like DCMA, etc.

The devs seem like rational people so far, so escalating things at this stage will win you no favours, even if you are "correct in this case". Faster would be better, but we're all just human.

Edit: Wow, it seems the comments on the github issue are degenerating fast. Remember, the maintainers are also people. I'm sure there's a teachable moment here, it being Christmas and all.

[hnysacct]

The devs are somewhat hostile in this case. It's a matter of introducing the feature to help out mitigate other requests to take down information. They have the entire user base of github as "inactive users" so they might get more requests.

But, the fact that the first comment from the dev came out sort of hostile is the major concern.

That's why the attention is brought to the community to decide which argument is right.

It's not pushing for action... it's deciding if/who is at fault and whether gitpay should have been doing this sort of thing in the first place.

It's a question of ethics in the bigger picture.

[guitarbill]

> The devs are somewhat hostile in this case.

You keep saying this, but they really aren't. At least as far as I can see from what's public. Communication is difficult, maybe give them the benefit of doubt? (And some peace and quiet)

To me, it sounds you're trying to make a huge issue out of this now, in the hopes it'll get things done quicker. Which is a horrible tactic. This isn't even about who's right or wrong. So far, it seems like nobody disagrees with your basic premise, just the timeframe.

Just look at your phrasing. "hostile in this case", "sort of hostile is the major concern", "which argument is right", "it's deciding if/who is at fault", "it's a question of ethics in the bigger picture". Until the say "No", this is all just overreacting.

[hnysacct]

I agree with you not the timing. Not the best.

However, the name of the post is "Is personal GitHub information public domain?"

Which prompted a discussion of the topic. This is simply what it is. I appreciate the opinions of others on this matter.

When I say hostile, the dev accused of sending unsolicited emails.

This matter has begun far before today, the initial request to remove the information came in Dec 21st.

It's not like this is the first day that this matter has been an issue.

[guitarbill]

> When I say hostile, the dev accused of sending unsolicited emails.

I don't think you're a native speaker. That's okay, neither am I. However, if you had bothered to look up what "unsolicited" means (like I did), it's

> not asked for; given or done voluntarily

So he's using the word correctly, no need to "accuse" you of anything. If anything, his phrasing of "May I request that you please do not initiate. unsolicited mails to members of the github team" is very polite, correct, and quite reasonable.

[hnysacct]

> So he's using the word correctly, no need to "accuse" you of anything. If anything, his phrasing of "May I request that you please do not initiate. unsolicited mails to members of the github team" is very polite, correct, and quite reasonable.

I guess I didn't see it that way, as yes English is not my native language. So I initially took the response as negative and as an accusation, I tend to take accusations quite seriously.

[hnysacct]

> it sounds you're trying to make a huge issue out of this now, in the hopes it'll get things done quicker.

Not at all. I actually didn't even expect anyone to really respond to this.

[kiernanmcgowan]

The take a breath and chill out approach is the most reasonable considering its the holidays. Calls for shaming on social media over New Years is going to drain any charity these devs have for OSS.

[chris_7]

Not that I agree with it, but would that not be a success for the person complaining?

[hnysacct]

It _is_ the holidays and the right course of action really is to simply take a breath and chill out. I'd agree with you.

This post isn't really for the purpose of shaming though. It's to bring up the issue of such sites doing this kind of thing.

This topic could have been easily brought up after the holidays... but why wait? It's a topic to be discussed.

[jwcrux]

> This topic could have been easily brought up after the holidays... but why wait? It's a topic to be discussed.

The way you're going about this entire conversation is simply too much. It sounds like you've reached out to multiple personal emails, created multiple issues, responded to those issues asking for updates, and brought the issue to social media in less than a day. During the holidays. That's overwhelming and doesn't put the devs on your side.

As others have mentioned, even if you're right, you really need to give the devs some time to think through the alternatives, consider your argument, come up with a solution, and implement it. This takes some time.

Removing information from a database may not seem hard to you, but you don't maintain the service. Sending a pull request is fine, but maintainers don't blindly merge anything. They have to review it, make sure it's the policy, quality of code, etc. that they want in the product, merge it, and deploy to prod after possibly testing everything.

Give it time (not measured in hours) and work with the developers.

Edit: This is exactly why maintainers don't blindly accept pull requests: https://github.com/gitpay/website/pull/4#pullrequestreview-1...

[hnysacct]

> The way you're going about this entire conversation is simply too much. It sounds like you've reached out to multiple personal emails, created multiple issues, responded to those issues asking for updates, and brought the issue to social media in less than a day. During the holidays. That's overwhelming and doesn't put the devs on your side.

Not at all. All that I've done is sent an email.. waited to hear back. Haven't heard back, thought it'd be a good idea to submit a pull request, and then took the conversation to github.

I have not been badgering the dev on multiple emails or social accounts at all.

[hnysacct]

EE84M3i

You're correct on both items.

Gitpay are not required to address the PR, as in reviewing the code and merging. It's code being introduced into their product and they must take their time into it. So no issue there.

There's no reason for an urgent response.

However, the matter here is:

1) They should not have been doing this in the first place

2) Initial contact, as stated in the pull request, was Dec. 21st, so Gitpay had plenty of time before the holidays to address the concern of the information being available. It's not difficult to remove information from a database.

Also, submitting the PR was a gesture of "good-will" in the sense that "Hey you guys should have this feature, so here you go" but the owners of the repo met this request with a bit of hostility which was unwarranted.

[bisby]

Regarding point 2:

> Dec. 21st ... plenty of time before the holidays

"The holidays" are not just "Dec 25" "Jan 1" and "maybe the time in between". A lot of places slow down in the weeks leading up to and the weeks after these "official" holidays. I'm not going to push out a major release in December unless I have to, because I don't want to deal with a fire the week of Christmas. Also, not going to push out a major release until after I get back from New Year's and have a chance to thoroughly go over things.

Maybe some people are different religions that have different holy days in this time frame. And that might not directly affect me, but indirectly, because a vendor or coworker is out for their own reasons.

You may have been working diligently 24/7 right up until christmas day proper, but that is not the case everywhere. And being slow to respond that close to Christmas is completely reasonable.

Also, I don't really see his comments as any more hostile than yours. IE: not insanely aggressive, but clearly not intended to be friendly either.