[adeptima]

10+ years in Japan. The message here is much deeper from my perspective. “Let’s jump on the call” is not the solution. The guy was stripped off of his face. I love Japan for being human. Small business bar or restaurant with 3 tables. Not everything should be streamlined for a quick call solution… the process was pushed on his head. Google nemawashi decision making process

[alwa]

I did as you suggested with respect to “nemawashi.” I read about that and “ringi,” and I’m glad I did. Even to get just the gist of what I’m sure is a thin interpretation: that nemawashi refers to a “laying-the-groundwork” process of circulating a proposal between peer-level counterparts, before formalizing it and proposing to act on it.

Much less crashing in with it in the form of a “SumoBot,” as Mozilla seems to have done to its non-English communities… (with the disclaimer that I have zero insight into Mozilla’s process here outside of this writer’s account).

It puts a name to a considerate consensus-based way to approach change, that seems humane (and effective) in any culture—leave it to the Japanese to have a specific term for it…

[martin_henk]

common sense... no real need for digging into japanese culture and so on. really no idea why Mozilla is so disrespectful to it's volunteers. well, that sweet 400m a year from Google... no need for volunteers anymore, eh

[alwa]

For sure. Common sense <> common, etc… although it does seem relevant that it was specifically a Japanese-language sub-community who were reacting here.

I have to say it feels like a really familiar, NGO-flavored disrespect, though: “we’re doing this favor for underrepresented language communities,” regardless of whether they want/need it or not.

“There’s only X number of you having to shoulder the load in XX sub-community, don’t you want us to impose a bunch of ‘help’?”

Well, no, if the choice is between a formidable volume of slop and a smaller but well-executed volume of volunteer labor-of-love…

(…I say as a person very much without all sides of the story, and shooting from the hip a bit. I don’t mean to impugn anybody’s intentions, and I imagine at the end of the day we’re all on the same side here.)

[shaky-carrousel]

Enlightened despotism, all over again.

[toyg]

mixed with good ol' white-man-saviour attitudes.

[TheJoeMan]

That reminds me of internet RFC’s… like by the time they are formally published, no the author is not interested in your “comment”.

[Arnt]

I've written a few RFCs.

For any RFC, there will be a "comment" after publication from someone who did not take earlier comments seriously enough to read them.

[eschatology]

Exactly the attitude described by GP comment

Mind boggling

[Arnt]

You may be relieved to hear that there's a straightforward process to have an RFC revised. Step 1 of that process, however, is reading the the RFC and the archived email about the RFC.

You can't just arrive after publication, ignore what others said before you, and expect anyone to listen to you.

[alwa]

…and, for that matter, there was an earlier draft phase where the author was R’ing For your C. And you could have jumped in then and been more-or-less welcome.

[hunter2_]

Sounds like RFC ought to be the name of that draft phase, rather than a name encompassing all phases, especially not the final phase in which C's are no longer R'd.

[eesmith]

Times changed. Historical names did not.

"many of the early RFCs were actual Requests for Comments and were titled as such to avoid sounding too declarative and to encourage discussion.[8][9] The RFC leaves questions open and is written in a less formal style. This less formal style is now typical of Internet Draft documents, the precursor step before being approved as an RFC." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Request_for_Comments

[dsr_]

Historical precedent. They assigned a grad student to write up the notes; he wasn't sure he had got everything, so he titled it an RFC.

At this point, as we close in on 10,000 final-stage documents, it's better to pretend that "RFC" is just a name, not an acronym.

[humanrebar]

RFCs can be titled Architecture Decision Records (ADRs) or policies once they are accepted.

[pengaru]

We Americans call this garnering buy-in.

[antonymoose]

I’ve more typically heard it as “consensus / coalition building” - but in any case it’s such a sane way to work. No one wants a rude surprise, so why make one for your teammates.

[xaedes]

> It puts a name to a considerate consensus-based way to approach change

When reading about nemawashi I immediately thought about its usage in software refactoring.

This is something you often intuitively do when making bigger refactors. Lay the foundations before actually doing it. Affected code parts and stakeholders should not be surprised by one big change. Instead they should be consulted before hand, building consensus, modify the planned big refactor itself and preparing the individual parts for it by small changes. Otherwise you will encounter a lot of friction, introduce bugs, etc.

It is very nice to have a proper term for this.

[p0w3n3d]

I predict that these times of excessive trust in AI during decision making will be written in history books at some point of time. Providing that there will be books at all.

I already suspect that Duolingo destroyed real people's recording of Spanish conversations and replaced them with AI. For example I can quite often hear continental Spanish accent which has never been taught to me before (as I started with Duolingo as a freshman) - it used to be always American Spanish accent. Wrongly cut conversions is another matter.

[rester324]

I am not sure I am buying this. There is nothing human about japanese business procedures. Most japanese business procedures usually only serve micro managing purposes, and the nemawashi procedure is basically stripping people who were not consulted before, from giving their honest input and impact in the decision making. In my opinion it creates more problems than it solves

[ekianjo]

> nemawashi

Long time in Japan too, I would not consider newamashi as being Japan's strengths.

[krick]

I can imagine what you mean, but since I am not in Japan, it would be interesting why you feel that way.

[rtpg]

long and slow consensus building that weighs existing stakeholder's opinions heavily vs doing "the right thing" from the outset. So you move slowly and end up having very annoying conversations and compromises instead of just pushing something through. And the formal process is just a formality anyways, so then anyone not in the informal chatter just gets to experience the capriciousness anyways

The sort of consensus building ultimately involves having to do stuff to make people's opinions feel taken care of, even if their concerns are outright wrong. And you end up having to make some awkward deals.

Like with all this "Japanese business culture" stuff though, I feel like it's pretty universal in some degrees or another everywhere. Who's out there just doing things without getting _any_ form of backchannel checking first? Who wants to be surprised at random announcements from people you're working with? Apart from Musk types.

But of course some people are very comfortable just ripping the band aid off and putting people in awkward spots, because "of course" they have the right opinion and plan already.

Why context matters in judging whether some practice is good or not.

[moonlet]

Who cares if they’re wrong? The point is respect for their opinions and feelings since you’ll have to work with them for twenty years. If you respect them, you get to do what you want to do and they won’t fuck with you or shoot down your proposal.

To be clear this is Japan we’re talking about with the twenty years part. The same thing applies in the US but on smaller timescales though. If people feel appreciated and respected and you have good relationships, they will basically back whatever you want.

[rtpg]

To be clear I'm describing a point of view, but not always ascribing to it.

I tend to lean towards thinking backchanneling makes sense as a general vibe, if only because it's a way of doing things that lets people have dignity, and the costs _can be_ low.

[rester324]

I think this is a very naive take. Japanese people will blame you for any failure regardless if you respect them or not. And many times failures happen in japan exactly because people are sitting around doing nothing without acting even when it's urgent to make decision. Backstabbing and toxicity is the major feature of japanese business culture

[armada651]

Move fast and break stuff didn't work out much better though.

[rtpg]

Yeah sure, I feel like back channeling stuff is generally just the respectful thing to do, so I'm not on the side of the debate I'm expanding upon in most cases.

Just that lacking context one really can't make that many blanket statements.

[ivell]

Not only respectful. Also it ensures that all different aspects of a decision is considered before making the decision. If not aligned with all parties, we would miss important flaws in the plan. It is just a sensible thing to do.

[stackedinserter]

But it does work much better, why do you think it didn't?

[pezezin]

Yeah, Japanese economy has been quite stagnant since the bubble collapse in 1990. Pretending that their model works is ridiculous.

[ekianjo]

You have more than 2 choices

[ssivark]

Peter Drucker has an interesting analysis of the "American" -vs- "Japanese" styles of decision-making + alignment, presenting a complementary perspective: https://www.joaomordomo.com/files/books/ebooks/Peter%20Druck...

IMHO the only correct way to measure the effectiveness of decision making is from the quality of executed outcomes. It is somewhat nonsensical to sever decisions from execution, and claim that decisions have been made rapidly if the decision doesn't lend itself to crisp execution. Without that, decisions are merely intentions.

[palmotea]

> long and slow consensus building that weighs existing stakeholder's opinions heavily vs doing "the right thing" from the outset.

How do you know what "the right thing" is at the outset without talking to the stakeholders?

I'm dealing with someone's "the right thing" that is actually wrong and dumb. They didn't ask us before rolling out the new "standard."

[rtpg]

Some people are very confident in their understanding of a problem! Others will discount the validity of the stakeholders involved having good judgement.

I think most people have at least one issue where they discount one of the stakeholder's judgement, it's all fairly contextual. But hey, if you're the CEO of some company you have the ability to act on that discounting.

[jack1243star]

Not OP but the phrase in Japanese also carries a negative connotation, that important issues are decided by a shadow process hidden below the surface, beforehand by those in the loop. Meetings are just for show.

[ekianjo]

would take a long time to expand on this in sufficient details, because it's hard to understand unless you live it and see it. People very rarely speak up in meetings (silence is the norm, just like they were taught in school), and therefore you never get to see exactly what people feel or think about what you are planning to do. So the norm is that most people talk and exchange in other venues (usually in your back, in smaller groups - I don't mean this in a negative way, it's just what they are used to do). So when you are set to achieve something, it's a long road of 1:1s, drinks or informal meetings to get to know what they think, what they want, and how they can help you to get there. Multiply this by the number of stakeholders involved, and the politics at play between all of them, and you end up with a very slow and inefficient model to drive decisions and buy-in.

[pezezin]

I also live in Japan and everything you wrote is true, but I would add more point: extreme risk aversion that results in any tiny change getting discussed to ridiculous levels.

[agnishom]

Isn't "nemawashi" just a term for building rapport and sensible networking practices, but in Japanese?

[guicho271828]

Japanese here. You got it right. That message is an ultimatum. No mercy for the dishonorable.

[trallnag]

"I love Japan for being human". What does this even mean? Immediately followed by something about food?

[pezezin]

Be glad he didn't mention that Japan has four seasons...

[jesterson]

> Not everything should be streamlined for a quick call solution

If you have a better solution to correct an error or solve a problem than having a call/meeting and openly discuss situation and possible resolutions - I would love to know about that.

[port11]

The response was condescending and very… American. The call ensures what, that you'll be more receiving to their grievances? That nothing is on the record? A lot of people don't want to jump in calls, ever. The initial response should've validated that the community feels slighted, that they should've brought them onboard for the decision making, etc.

Acknowledging the mistake immediately seems like a good start.

[latexr]

> The call ensures what, that you'll be more receiving to their grievances?

It ensures you truly understand what the crux of the grievance is and what they would like to happen to get it resolved, instead of being distracted by tangential points.

> That nothing is on the record?

If you’re already assuming malice before the resolution process even had a chance to begin, the conversation has little chance of being productive. Do you know this particular person? Have you interacted with them before?

> A lot of people don't want to jump in calls, ever.

Then say no! But being preemptively mad because someone asked is absurd and does nothing to fix the problem. The asker shouldn’t assume what the other person wants or doesn’t, they should ask. Which is what they did.

> Acknowledging the mistake immediately seems like a good start.

Yes, very much agreed. But you can’t take back what you did, only try to make amends. And that’s very difficult if the other party demands perfection while you’re still even trying to understand the situation.

[Almondsetat]

>the response was condescending

in your own opinion

>and very American

from an American company? that's what I'd expect. Should they have brought up some Japanese PR consultant just to reply to a community post?

>acknowledging the mistake immediately

Who says a mistake happened? You? Before apologizing maybe we should understand the problem?

[fragmede]

> Should they have brought up some Japanese PR consultant just to reply to a community post?

Yes! It wouldn't even have had to have been a good one to have done a better job. Shit, just find the closest weeb and run it past them.

A developer relations person needs to understand developers so why shouldn't we expect the community person to understand the community they're interacting with?

Mozilla doesn't have the community goodwill to burn, it's hanging on by a thread - so not hiring someone with an idea if how to actually do that job would be penny wise pound foolish.

[jesterson]

Ok, how the perfect reaction would be if you were at charge?

I understand people have sympathy inclination to victims, so everyone would assume the victim is good and other side is bad. I have worked long enough with japanese people knowing they can throw unpredictable tantrums.

As a manager, what would be your best course of action to deal with similar situation?

[port11]

Acknowledging the mistake immediately seems like a good start, as I've said.

Life doesn't always have to be from the perspective from “a manager”, these are community volunteers doing untold hours of unpaid work. Just be a person, whose acquaintance is upset you replaced their handmade postcard with an AI-generated one.

[jesterson]

Acknowledging a mistake, no matter genuinely or not, doesn't solve the situation. It just makes victim feel good a bit.

Agree on manager view, I was rather putting situation in a wrong perspective. It doesn't change the questions though - what would you do to resolve the situation (not to make the other side feel good)?

[port11]

> Acknowledging a mistake, no matter genuinely or not, doesn't solve the situation. It just makes victim feel good a bit.

This feels very wrong to me, I'm sorry, but I'd be very pissed if you told me such a thing in a personal context. Reminds of Stanley from The Office, who claims he never apologised to any of his wives.

[Jach]

Written communication is usually better and allows for more clarity, investigation, preparation, careful thought, and exploring of solutions. When it's not better it's usually because one party doesn't like to read or write and so avoids it as much as they can.

[watwut]

> If you have a better solution to correct an error or solve a problem than having a call/meeting and openly discuss situation and possible resolutions - I would love to know about that.

I do, actually. You first read what the other person wrote. Then your response will take whatever they wrote into account. If they did not expressed themselves clearly, you explain what it is that you do not understand. The "We want to make sure we truly understand what you're struggling with." is wholly inappropriate if the only reason you do not understand is that you did not read what they wrote.

Second, you dont suggest the other person is struggling with something, unless they are actually struggling with something. The original post does not show someone struggling at all.

Tl;dr if you want to "openly discuss situation and possible resolutions" you dont start by ignoring what the other person wrote. This response makes it very clear that manager does not intend to openly discuss the situation or possible resolutions, the manager is not taking the complaint seriously at all.

[skywhopper]

How is a private call about a community issue an “open” discussion?

[ezoe]

Exactly, this is just a 面子(face) problem.

Also, his demanding of not using his work for AI training is nonsense. Because entire articles, this one included is published under a Creative Commons license.

Didn't he agree on that?

Mozilla must reject his further contribution because he stated he don't understand the term of Creative Commons license. His wish granted I guess.

[wartywhoa23]

Creative Commons License was created without any AI in mind.

And

> Licensees may copy, distribute, display, perform and make derivative works and remixes based on it only if they GIVE THE AUTHOR or licensor THE CREDITS

[ezoe]

Is an ML model binary file created by using copyrighted work as its learning data, a derivative work of the copyrighted work? I don't think so.

[umanwizard]

This is the most fundamentally important question of AI-related law, and nobody knows the answer as it hasn't been tested by any court AFAIK (at least not in the US).

[ghssds]

We already know the tribunal will take AI's side, not because of any justice or ethical reason but because of capitalism. They will interpret the law as saying whatever they want the law to say.

[wartywhoa23]

If one takes another's work, cuts it up and makes collages out of it, however multidimensional, what is the piece size threshold that makes the collage non-derivative?

[kuschku]

Is the AI published under the same CC license, with attribution?

[ezoe]

CC only works on things that are copyright protected works. Is ML model binary file a derivative works of the learning source? I don't think so.

[AlexandrB]

Why not?

[ezoe]

Because it doesn't.

The Japanese copyright law clearly stated decades ago and recent US court favors Anthropic on this regard.

Copyright isn't granted on mere information or thought.

If you take somebody's copyrighted writing, analyze it and publish information such as how many words or sentence in it or other information about that copyrighted work, that's not a derivative works of original copyrighted work.