[Waterluvian]

> I am not sure what to do about the burnout problem.

Pacing and self-regulation. It’s a marathon not a sprint. Set an hours-per-week budget. Beyond that things just don’t get done. That’s okay.

If the community needs faster pace, they can consider supplying hours or dollars to fund more developers to work full-time.

[markphip]

I should have clarified, I meant I am not sure what an OSS Project can do about it. I think this ultimately has to be managed by the OSS contributor.

[Waterluvian]

Ah yes. I wonder if an OSS project should set forth a time budget in some way? Hard to “enforce” though. And goes counter to wanting contributors to feel free to contribute on their terms.

[bombcar]

The best I’ve seen is have additional contributors (often who just like the project but aren’t coders themselves) who run interference for the dev team. They can triage feature requests, filter out the spam and repeat issues, etc.

Also, and this can be the hard part, is sometimes you have to have someone who (even politely!) can be a bit of a dick when necessary. People scan be quite entitled and want to boss everyone around and tell them the project is run wrong - if you don’t actively run at least some of them off the devs will curl up and disappear.

Also having a defined procedure for “hiatus” helps quite a bit - make it easy for a dev to say “I’m off” and it can be indeterminate - this allows them to easily come back later. Encourage devs to use it liberally.

[pdimitar]

> People scan be quite entitled and want to boss everyone around and tell them the project is run wrong - if you don’t actively run at least some of them off the devs will curl up and disappear.

As an Eastern European I always found fascinating how many Westerners are struggling hard with this. To me and many of my peers (and apparently to Linus Torvalds and a good chunk of the entire Nordic culture, probably?) it's the easiest thing in the world to say something like:

"Listen up dickhead, I do this in my free time. If you don't like the direction of the project or the urgency with which your issues are [not] being addressed, you are free to not use it, and it also costs you nothing to not comment at all. I got better things to do than to reply to entitled cunts, now piss off."

It's very amusing what a huge drama many Westerners make out of just... being direct. Honest. Straight to the point.

"But he won't ever contribute and he might infect others with the opinion that the project leaderships is toxic!"

OK. That's a price I am willing to pay. My mental health > the second-hand opinion of people who were only 0.1% likely to contribute anyway. The math is very easy yet so many Westerners struggle so much with these [to me and many] mega obvious solutions, like "be a bit of a dick when necessary".

This is really very similar to the discussions I had with a lot of women long time ago. It goes like this: they tell me:

"I have to go tell X and Y about event A because otherwise Z will tell them lies and they'll think something wrong about me."

To which I reply with a cold expression: "Then you don't need X and Y in your life, if they can be so easily influenced by lies and won't even ask you about what truly happened."

Their expressions were priceless. The cognitive dissonance can hit us all VERY hard.

Back to the topic at hand, yes, I firmly believe all open-contribution projects need a Linus type of person. It's also a fact that many devs are introverted and can be chased away by entitled and insolent loud people. So somebody must put a shield in front of the devs.

[lbalazscs]

I guess you missed the part where Linus Torvalds has apologized for years of being a jerk.

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2018/09/linus-torvalds-apolo...

[pdimitar]

I did not, but I have my doubts as to whether he was made to do it or if he truly meant it. I tend to believe in the former because it's always accompanied by "stepping back for a while" and "get help on how to behave better". Seems like a standard procedure after somebody manages to overpower you (in whatever hierarchy they have there).

Were cursing and expletives necessary? Absolutely no. They don't drive any point forward.

But: is showing people the door when they are entitled or unprofessional necessary? Very, very much yes.

Feel free to read into the article as your beliefs incline you to. I've known many people like Linus and they don't get "change of hearts". They simply get sick and tired of being misunderstood and just remove themselves from the situations that cause it.

[jodrellblank]

> "Westerners are struggling hard with this [...] it's the easiest thing in the world"

But why pride yourself on taking the easy way out?

It isn't being honest and direct and straight to the point, it's a power move being deliberately rude/offensive/cruel hiding behind "just being honest and direct". Which only works as long as you have the power behind the powerslam putdown (in a personal project you do) and can deal with the consequences of cutting people off (which you say you are willing to). For everyone who doesn't have that power, and needs to work with others, it's not an option. Compare a physically large man saying "I find it funny that people don't just stare others down and threaten them like I do" and thinking that will work for everyone in every situation.

If that's your project selection criteria - "don't be thin skinned, man up, grow a pair!" - it's not-meritocratic; like a selection based on wealth or social class or accent or nationality isn't. If you want X and Y's skills (public project) or contacts or signoff (professional work) then you will have to face their susceptibility to Z's manipulations and deal with it. If you need help to do more work than you can do alone, you will have to work with other people's issues. "If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go a long way, go together".

> To which I reply with a cold expression:

> Their expressions were priceless.

That story shape is a perfect fit for "everybody clapped" meme, you feel superior to the stupid women who didn't even think of this power move, and wait for your applause. Were their priceless expressions "you solved my problem, my hero!" or were they "you have no clue that my life is different to yours and with no attempt to empathise or understand, you expect the first thing you thought of will solve my problems and want me to be impressed?" Women generally have less power in society, in companies, far less physical intimidation, less respect, fewer options, and need to depend more on social networks and support and building consensus to get along in life or get things done. Cutting off the network and getting a reputation as difficult to be friends/work with risks a lot more for women than it does for you.

That "I'm colder, more vicious, than you so I win. Empathy and emotions are weakness." is so ... last season.

> "It's also a fact that many devs are introverted and can be chased away by entitled and insolent loud people. So somebody must put a shield in front of the devs."

It isn't a shield, it's a counter-offensive. Many devs don't want their workplace turned into a battlezone by people trying to shout the loudest. Again, fine for your personal project, but having a shouty vicious bouncer is turning away the porentially useful contributions of unknown people who don't want to fight their way into that kind of workplace. Consider @dang here at HN doesn't take the easy way out of shouting people down, swearing at them, putting them in their place; instead he patiently links the HN rules and politely explains what he's doing and why (your account is doing A, against the rules here, will be banned in this time, please do this or that specific thing), over and over and over.

Trying to build a community of disparate people is much harder than being a dictator who can tell disagreeable people to piss off. Is it any wonder people who are trying to do that, are struggling with it?

[pdimitar]

> But why pride yourself on taking the easy way out?

Meaningless question. I can prove that to you by turning it around: why choose a harder path? What is to gain? You only lose mental health. Having to grind my teeth and not telling someone they're being an arse is bad for me.

> It isn't being honest and direct and straight to the point, it's a power move being deliberately rude/offensive/cruel hiding behind "just being honest and direct".

No. That's your interpretation because you are offended. I am in "the Linus camp" and knew many others like me and him and I am telling you that this absolutely is about cutting to the chase and solving the problem at hand on the spot.

I have no motive to lie to you or anybody, nor any face to save.

If you don't believe me and keep arguing that it's "a power move" then you're arguing with fictional people and not the real ones standing in front of you. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

> For everyone who doesn't have that power, and needs to work with others, it's not an option.

Obviously yes, what's your point here? I don't get angry at work (where I don't have the power to tell people off) which is a double win. I got stuff to do, sometimes others get in the way, sometimes I make bad calls. Oh well, I made my peace with the fact that things can't happen as quickly as I want them to. And it's not even about "thick skin", it's more "giving up on perfectionism".

> If that's your project selection criteria - "don't be thin skinned, man up, grow a pair!" - it's not-meritocratic; like a selection based on wealth or social class or accent or nationality isn't.

The hell are you even talking about, and even bringing class / accent / nationality to the picture? It seems you just wanted to get stuff off of your chest and I was a convenient target. You're not even talking to me, again, you are talking to some fictional guy who does not exist.

> That story shape is a perfect fit for "everybody clapped" meme, you feel superior to the stupid women who didn't even think of this power move, and wait for your applause.

Your snark does not change the undeniable fact that I gave them advice that would have helped them with their mental health. Whether they accept it or not is on them. Those who didn't accept it also taught me a good lesson: to mind my own business and only give advice if I am asked to. It was a valuable life lesson that I am utilizing often (though definitely not always).

And yes, some people were mind blown... though they did not clap. :D You got one thing right at least.

> Cutting off the network and getting a reputation as difficult to be friends/work with risks a lot more for women than it does for you.

Context matters a lot here. I was talking about completely optional interactions where zero work / money / influence was involved. They were "buddies" for 10+ years and their main goal was to basically outdo each other. Extremely toxic and I pointed that out to them. Some of them listened and said it felt very liberating to just stop. The rest I was not interested in communicating further with because they had a tendency to bring the same drama to our extremely casual communications, which naturally led to them fading away with time.

> That "I'm colder, more vicious, than you so I win. Empathy and emotions are weakness." is so ... last season.

For the third time: you are not even talking about me. I am not cold at all, I simply learned to pick my battles. Seriously no idea what made you explode with so many assumptions, it must be somebody in your past and I probably reminded you of them. You should probably go talk to them though, not me.

> Again, fine for your personal project, but having a shouty vicious bouncer is turning away the porentially useful contributions of unknown people who don't want to fight their way into that kind of workplace.

Nowhere did I even implied I want a "bouncer" or that he/she must be "shouty". Stop projecting (4th time now).

Also that phrase of yours reeks of FOMO. I am sick and tired of being a victim of FOMO. Somebody doesn't like that I called them out for being entitled and spamming my OSS project's issue tracker and as a result they go away and won't contribute anything ever? Cool! Win for everyone.

You conflate a very classic case of "fear of missing out" with "showing rude a-holes the door".

> Consider @dang here at HN doesn't take the easy way out of shouting people down

I have considered him and other moderators a long time ago and found that I don't have what it takes to be a moderator, I don't want to have it and I am very fine with that. I am impressed by people who manage to keep the peace without alienating anyone except the biggest detractors but this is a non-goal for me, especially in the open-source contributing scene. I don't moderate forums and don't want to, and I'd be terrible at it. Again, I pick my battles.

> Trying to build a community of disparate people is much harder than being a dictator who can tell disagreeable people to piss off.

Another non-goal for me. When I start doing more open-source I'll be looking for people who contribute astute observations ("You made mistake X in file Y") or code. If somebody politely asks "is this feature on the roadmap?" I'll also politely say "yes but it's a low priority for me, what's your use-case?" and we can continue the interaction from there.

But, somebody doing a drive-by saying "I tried your project and it couldn't do X, your project sucks lol" then I have zero qualms blocking them and removing whatever they posted.

Did they have the worst day this year? I don't care. I had days after which I wondered if I even want to continue living, and nobody around me was none the wiser. They only saw a very tired guy who wasn't chatty, nothing else.

I can protect people from my bad moods and bad days. I expect all people I interact with to do the same. And I am very fine with cutting off those that can't do it.

---

No idea why you fixated on me as some sort of an enemy but you have aimed wrongly. Severely so.

What I was saying is that I don't feel the need to smile politely at a-holes and use a soft language. And I don't. The rest is a plethora of projections from your side.

That's one side of the coin. The other side is: if you are Linus, you have heard the same dumb questions or obviously wrong assertions, thousands of times. It's absolutely normal to start telling people to go RTFM and stop talking without thinking things through and without doing the proper due diligence. Ask anyone working in retail.