[dakiol]

> As a user of something open source you are not thereby entitled to anything at all

I understand what the author means, but I think that in any human-2-human interaction, we are all entitled to at least basic courtesy. For example, if you show courtesy by contributing to an open source project and following all the guidelines they have, I think it's fair to assume that courtesy will be shown in return. I know that may be difficult to achieve (e.g., a high volume of noise preventing project authors from giving courtesy to those who deserve it), but that doesn'tt mean we are entitled to nothing. And this has nothing to do with open source or software; it's just common sense when dealing with people.

But yeah, if you contribute something of very poor quality (you didn't give it the attention it needed, it's full of bugs, or shows no attention to detail; or these days, it's packed with AI-generated content that makes it 10x harder to digest, even if the intention is good), then perhaps you are not entitled to anything

[jmchuster]

> I understand what the author means, but I think that in any human-2-human interaction, we are all entitled to at least basic courtesy.

This only holds up for the "small" number of human interactions the average person gets. If my neighbor comes and rings my doorbell to say hello, I'm fine answering and shooting the shit, maybe invite them in for a quick coffee.

If every 5 minutes a strange comes in and rings my doorbell, I'm not getting up and answering it. And some people visiting will get angry and start pounding on the door and coming to my window and pounding on it glaring at me inside. And say, hey, I drove all the way from hours away to come visit you, the least you could do is open the door and say hello.

For them, it's their first human-2-human interaction that day, with someone they slightly admire even, and they're expecting basic human courtesy. To me, they're just the 42nd doorbell ringer today.

[wizardforhire]

Ah the dehumanizing nature of affluence… a right of passage for those fortunate enough to experience.

The challenge is in how to manage and and maintain the interest, less one falls back into the realm of obscurity or worse be tarnished reputationally so as to never recover.

[shermantanktop]

You as a first-time contributor need to know that the large group of first-time contributors has a lot of poorly behaved people in it, and that the burden is on you to establish that you are not one of them.

Trust is built through iterative exchange. This is Bayesian priors - default is average, and only moves on the introduction of new information.

Lots of examples of this. In 1950's westerns, if a stranger comes to a small town, the default treatment is a guarded form of hospitality with a health measure of suspicion. If you are dating someone new, you are by default understood as the average first date partner, and the average first date partner is not a great match.

[awesome_dude]

I'm not saying you're wrong - but I do detest that attitude myself

As you say, trust is a two way street, and first time contributors are being expected to trust that it's not personal when they are met with brusquerie.

I know it's hard when it's the 99th person and you've had to deal with 98 less than nice individuals, but defaulting to an abrupt or blunt manner does nobody any favours.

[bostik]

The demands here are effectively extensions of netiquette[0] and "how to ask good questions"[1]. Every code contributor should at least understand what is asked of them.

[Julia's post sadly does not include the blunt expression "demonstrate that you have done your homework", which is a fundamental tenet.]

0: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/netiquette

1: https://jvns.ca/blog/good-questions/

[shermantanktop]

What’s the solution then? This is one of those emotional-labor questions.

Who is responsible for new contributors having a good experience? Especially thousands of eager, misinformed contributors?

It’s a DDOS that exhausts and burns out the maintainer even while the supply of newbie contributors is rarely meaningfully impacted by maintainer conduct.

The world has givers and takers, and we are all both at different times. The newbie thinks they are a giver, but mostly they are a taker.

[awesome_dude]

I've also seen maintainers complain about "drive by contributors" where one complaint is that the submitter has provided a good patch/PR, but doesn't stick around to support it.

From the submitters point of view, why /would/ you stick around if your first (and only) interaction with the project is less than "ideal"

FTR I absolutely understand the "burnout" maintainers experience dealing with contributors that drain energy as well.

[blenderob]

> I understand what the author means, but I think that in any human-2-human interaction, we are all entitled to at least basic courtesy.

Correct. The article does not disagree with you.

[Lanzaa]

So, probably a dumb question from me, but why are we "all entitled to at least basic courtesy"? What is the "basic courtesy" that everyone has agreed to follow?

> this has nothing to do with open source or software; it's just common sense when dealing with people

Common sense is very different than entitlement. Back to the open source software point of view, your entitlement is described by the license. Basic courtesy, or even the opportunity to interact with anyone, is not included as a part of any open source license I remember. It isn't even a consideration for most [0].

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_free_and_open-so...

[palata]

> we are all entitled to at least basic courtesy

Basic courtesy here, to me, means that the maintainer should be polite and probably should say something (it's not very nice to be ignored), even if it is to say that they won't review the contribution.

But that's about it. My experience as a maintainer is that too often, people feel entitled to a lot more than that.

[hinkley]

There is not space in the collective consciousness for an infinite number of solutions to the same problem. I usually get downvoted for pointing this out but it explains why people shit on you when you start getting defensive about people calling your solution or attitude shit.

Reasonable people won’t start a project in an already oversubscribed niche. So yes, it does matter if you’re doing more than the minimum. It’s a social contract because you’re using up the oxygen.

I liken it to throwing a party. Yes it’s your party, but I can’t go to your party if it’s Timothy’s birthday. But if you’re popular enough then people will say “fuck Timothy” and that’s not cool. And you don’thave to be a great host and you can absolutely lock your bedroom door, but there better be snacks and maybe music, or people will talk about you behind your back. Or if you bring lutefisk and nobody there is Scandinavian. Read the room dude.

There are way too many software people who think, “well you didn’t have to come to my party/eat what I brought” is a valid response to criticism.

That’s not how social things work, and open source is one.

[bcrosby95]

The biggest assholes in your example are the people saying "Fuck Timothy". It's also not my fault those people are assholes. If they don't like my party that's fine. If they say i don't have music or whatever that's fine.

If they tell me I don't know how to run parties and all parties need to have music and snacks or else its not a party I'm gonna tell them to fuck off.

[hinkley]

I’ve never been the popular kid for more than a few minutes. It felt weird when it happened, both due to impostor syndrome and the unfortunate situations where it most often happened. Like an altercation where I found I was seen more than I thought.

But I’ve been involved with highly successful clubs from a young age, and I have to take things apart to understand them. I also lived for ten years with a woman who wanted to not only be in every club she saw but take over them, and I got a good anthropology study in to what things she made better and which she made worse (did I mention we aren’t together anymore?)

The reasons they were popular often turned out not to be the reasons I would have thought. Stupid little things like keeping a consistent location and meeting time seem small but the outcomes are outsized.

(Inline edit, I’m such a space cadet I left out the punchline) one of the biggest is figuring out how to successfully channel the enthusiasm of new members 90% of which will be gone in 6-18 months. Which OSS has in truckloads.

As I’ve matured I’ve realized that I should not dream of being in charge of these organizations anymore. The qualities (or energies really) I possess in insufficient quantities to keep that many plates spinning. Properly. So I help those people be the leaders we need, and I hop in when the stars align and my energies are sufficient to take something off their plate. And god forbid they get hit by a bus and I become acting president of VP, my first effort would be in grooming a replacement, not trying to take over.

You can’t have an objective conversation about this sort of stuff with people who still have a chip on their shoulder about how they’re right and the universe is wrong for not understanding how amazing you are. You’re right, but you’re also tragically wrong. And until you grasp that you will be railing against the universe for the indignities it thrust upon you.

I get that vibe in a lot of these conversations. And I wish I knew how to find the people who understand this. All I can do is talk to the people who rail and hope the silent audience gets something from it.

[PantaloonFlames]

I don’t know you but I like you.

Courtesy costs very little.

[munificent]

I agree with you, but this is one of those things where if you haven't had the experience of being part of a popular open source project, you don't realize how bad the scaling effects are.

Let's say courtesy only requires five minutes of my time. There are millions of users of the programming language I work on. Let's say only 0.1% of them desire my courtesy. Even at that small fraction, I'm going to spend 83 hours out of every 24 hour day (including weekends and holidays) giving each of them that cheap courtesy.

[PantaloonFlames]

Yes and if you have o(1000) prs or issues in a single day, I guess you have a different scale of problem and will need to automate triage and management, probably through an ai-powered tool.

Even if it is 0.01% per day it’s still a very high volume. At that point it’s not a hobby. Millions of users maybe would point toward a more formal management and governance approach.

See Gemini-cli for example. Or a bunch of Microsoft projects. They use ai to triage and respond to tickets. (And they pocket veto many of them)

[dark-star]

> I think that in any human-2-human interaction, we are all entitled to at least basic courtesy

Why? If you are hostile towards me, mock me, or attack me or are in some other way a douche towards me, I reserve the right to handle you in any way that I want to. My opinion of you has to be earned, just like respect. There is no entitlement for my basic courtesy. I am willing to give everyone the benefit of doubt at the beginning, and extend courtesy, but "entitlement"? no. You do not get to decide what I think or how I feel about you.