[ndiddy]

The tweet he got called out for on the thread was

"Thinking of literally starting a Linux maintainer hall of shame. Not for public consumption, but to help new kernel contributors know what to expect.

Every experienced kernel submitter has this in their head, maybe it should be finally written down."

[dralley]

The person who called him out for that made some testy social media comments of her own this morning.

Personally, seeing

> Being toxic on the right side of an argument is still toxic, [...]

written unironically, on social media, immediately after that person wrote @marcan

> and if that then causes you to ragequit, because you can't actually deal with the heat you've been dishing out coming back around the corner: fuck off

leaves me feeling more sympathetic to marcan's argument about the kernel being full of toxic attitudes, not less. Maybe public shaming isn't the answer but there's a problem here. Maybe don't make comments like that on social media if you want to criticize people for leaning on social media in kernel disputes.

[ImPostingOnHN]

> Maybe don't make comments like that on social media if you want to criticize people for leaning on social media in kernel disputes.

This seems like a tu quoque fallacy. The feedback is either applicable or not, regardless of who said it. They're absolutely correct that Being toxic on the right side of an argument is still toxic.

Even if there is hypocrisy (whether judged by you personally or someone else), it wouldn't invalidate the point.

[mort96]

I disagree. The behavior of the person who complains about decorum is relevant because it may indicate a double standard in the community. If a community (such as the Linux kernel maintainer community) is ganging up on an outsider using arguments of decorum, it's highly relevant that the already-accepted members of that community themselves act in a way which would've been deemed unacceptable if they were outsiders.

[dralley]

Of course it doesn't invalidate the point, but it's hard to blame being so exasperated by the incredible hypocrisy that you ragequit at that point.

[ImPostingOnHN]

I can also see him quitting because he was unhappy with people pointing out the toxicity of some of his posts

[WesolyKubeczek]

Kind of reminds me of Kenneth Reitz somehow

[arp242]

> and if that then causes you to ragequit, because you can't actually deal with the heat you've been dishing out coming back around the corner: fuck off

Certainly in context, this seems fairly reasonable: https://chaos.social/@sima/113961283260455876

Yeah this isn't about "being civil" or "friendly" and even less about "don't call out". This is about calling out in an ineffective and imprecise way, so that the people actually trying to change things are busy patching up your collateral damage instead of implementing real changes, while all you've achieved is airing your frustration for internet drama points.

When you're that harmful with your calling out, eventually I'm going to be fed up, and you get a live round shot across your bow.

And if that then causes you to ragequit, because you can't actually deal with the heat you've been dishing out coming back around the corner: fuck off.

Or as Dave Airlie put it upthread in this conversation: "Being toxic on the right side of an argument is still toxic, [...]"

So please do call out broken things, do change things, I've been doing it for well over a decade in the linux kernel. But do it in a way that you're not just becoming part of the problem and making it bigger.

---

And this is not the first time something like this has happened with Marcan. He may be tired of the Linux devs, but many of them are also tired with him (including some of the people working on Rust, it seems).

And this is part of a conversation on what went wrong here, not an attempt to rally the troops. You really can't compare it to Marcan's stuff. This kind of (selective) demand for absolute perfection is really not great.

[stock_toaster]

> Every experienced kernel submitter has this in their head, maybe it should be finally written down

If true, then it sounds like there are some “missing stairs”[1] (the professionally difficult kind, hopefully not the other kind) in Kernel development.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Missing_stair