[vikingcaffiene]

I would like to propose something that has long been simmering in my mind: zero tolerance to toxicity from the open source community at large. Too often I see entitled developers show up in these forums and just hurl abuse at the people who provide these wonderful tools free of charge. I propose that, if the request is anything less than respectful or if they, say DM a maintainer with abuse or what have you, they get banned. Shoot I'd say they not even be allowed to use the damn software anymore (although that would probably be difficult to manage). If what I am proposing sounds impractical, thats because it is but that doesn't mean we shouldn't start setting precedents. You don't like the new Mint logo? Fine. Tell them but do so nicely. Shoot maybe offer up something substantive and actionable. Whatever you do stop yelling things like "new logo is terrible change it back NOW". There's no excuse for going after someone to the point that THEY ARE CONSIDERING QUITTING MAKING THE SOFTWARE YOU CARE SO MUCH ABOUT. We all know how hard this job is. We should be lifting each other up and ejecting anyone with extreme prejudice who thinks that treating people in this manner is ok. </rant>

[dexen]

>zero tolerance to toxicity

That's a straightforward path into irrelevance. Every user and developer has a bad day or two; every user and developer has an obscure subject that riles them up well beyond what's reasonable. Zero tolerance here means they do go elsewhere, where quality of discussion is at maybe 90% instead of 100%, but at least they can partake in the discussion. Lastly, assholes make for effective leaders. Unfair? Maybe, but holds true through ages and cultures.

A perhaps contrived example, but here goes: email spam. We have complex solutions to it, blacklists, whitelists, heuristics, whatnot, spread between servers and mail clients. Some end-users may indeed be running zero-tolerance rules, but by and large the system as whole is elastic. If you ever end up on a spam shitlist, be it due to a mistake or actual malice, there's always a way back. If the system was indeed geared for zero tolerance, it would be close to useless, if for no other reason because it would be pretty easy to get unsuspecting victims on a shitlist, dealing them permanent harm.

Coming to think of it, no system in wider society is truly zero tolerance, except the death penalty - and that one is usually very heavily protested, just as well as guarded against mistakes and abuses by several layers of interleaved protections.

[vikingcaffiene]

I would respectfully ask you to re-read my comment. I did acknowledge that zero-tolerance would be impractical (perhaps not as clearly as I should have) but its the ideal to strive for. A sort of "shoot for the moon and hit the stars" type thing. I think that we need to deter abuse in OSS as a whole. Right now it's a way for developers to vent frustration into a faceless void which is part of where the vitriol comes from I think.

To your point, I think also that practicality dictates an escalating type of warning system such as we see in social networks. You mistreat developers in a forum you get a warning about it, next you can't comment for 30 days, finally you are just banned. If you send a direct message to a maintainer or the like with abuse, you get immediately banned. Something like that. The point is, it's not cool to abuse people who make you stuff for free that you use to earn a living. Just a giant hell no.

And lastly, I would like to tell you that you are dead wrong about assholes being effective leaders. Effective leaders are people who are right more often than they are wrong. Effective leaders have vision. Effective leaders inspire people to be better than themselves. If they also happen to be an asshole that is in SPITE of their success. Not because of it.

[Certhas]

"Lastly, assholes make for effective leaders."

I wish that this idea would die out. I have seen no evidence for it. The most effective leaders I have worked with and under, and those I try to emulate were never assholes. Or if so then only in rare moments that they regretted (and I agree that everyone can get triggered). Effective leaders need to be strict, they need to make unpopular decisions, but they never need to be assholes.