[joshstrange]

Trek is making a huge mistake IMHO.

As a developer I can think of nothing more helpful than to get a "steam-of-consciousness" excerpt from our users. This is something no analytics package can tell you, if you want to make your "product" easy to use then this is the exact feedback you need. Delverworld was outlining the various pitfalls of getting started with ember.js and a core contributor shrugs it off because he didn't like the guys attitude?

No one likes having their shortcomings pointed out but it would have made much more sense for Trek to admit that getting started could be made easier and that the Ember.js team would look into ways to make it easier. Ignoring the issue like he is "above it" is pretty fucking pretentious if you ask me.

[mootothemax]

No one likes having their shortcomings pointed out but it would have made much more sense for Trek to admit that getting started could be made easier and that the Ember.js team would look into ways to make it easier

Agreed. I recently had a new user point out in quite spectacularly a direct fashion how unfriendly the "Getting Started" section of one of my apps is. It made painful reading, but I would happily pay for users to get in touch like that.

[joshstrange]

Same here, I used to be much more of a "hot-head" when it came to things like this (I'm still not perfect, far from it) but I try not to take things as personally, at the end of the day if it makes my product better then I should shut up and be happy.

[seivan]

It's not the first time. I've been in their IRC. They are friendly and helpful. Especially Yehuda, but there seems to be this idea that if you "don't" get it, you might just be stupid...

http://twitter.com/trek/status/302811479135092736

I got this tweet and I constantly look at it before deciding against giving Ember another try.

So far I'v done Backbone, Angular and Batman and I've had no problems with either of them!

I decided to go with Batman.js unless I need extreme performance, then I'd go with Angular.

Embers concept of iOS seems broken. I'm an iOS developer. They don't follow the same pattern. The best they could have done would be to use the same API structure. But no...

"@Seivanheidari @ahazem we'd love to know the root cause of your difficulty. Most people seem to be successful with guides + api docs now."

[rachelbythebay]

I came to a conclusion some years ago: if too many users are wrong, it's probably your fault. There's not some conspiracy by a bunch of unrelated users to all trip over the same things. It probably represents an actual problem. I learned this myself with a dumb little proxy instruction web page. http://rachelbythebay.com/w/2011/07/15/ui/

[daleharvey]

As someone developing a Javascript library, this a thousand times.

At some point I thought my library was easy to use and reasonably well documented for a very early stage library. Then I sat down at a little hack day with people trying to use it answering question over question about all those details that I had just assumed people would magically know, at the same time I though about for each of those questions there could have been hundreds of those that tried to use the library without me sitting next to them and gave up.

If I could get this type of feedback from every use, it would be amazing.

[daleharvey]

Writing this I remember at some point for an old startup I used http://feedbackarmy.com/ to have people run through the getting started tutorial for my app.

When I get to release and am happy with the state of the documentation I will likely try the same thing.

[vanderZwan]

I'm studying interaction design in Sweden at the moment. This is exactly the point they're drilling into our arrogant heads: you're not a genius, listen to your users. And then you actually have to convince your clients that they are not geniuses, that being an expert can also make you blind to things, and that they need to listen to their users.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Participatory_design

[k__]

True story.

I've seen 2 extremes in my career:

1. The "product makers" think they know everything and force the users to do it the way they want.

This often results in a bad to use product.

2. The "product makers" think the user knows best and do everything the users say.

This often results in a too specific/unflexible product.

[vanderZwan]

Oh, absolutely. It basiclly comes down to having a proper dialogue instead of one party dictating to the other what to do. It's just that in practice nr 1 seems more common.

[slantyyz]

I'd add to your point #2 - It can also result in a product that is way too broad and not particularly good at any one thing. i.e., the Homermobile.

[skarmklart]

Where in Sweden are you at?

[tixocloud]

You're absolutely right. I have seen this sort of attitude from quite a few domain experts - if you didn't get it, you aren't smart enough and "don't deserve to be in our group".

It's very sad because this is exactly the perfect feedback to know what the heck is wrong with your approach. We collect feedback for the tools that we put up on the web - these are usually non-technical people but people around me always dismisses it as "they aren't smart enough to get it" which annoys the hell out of me. Making things easy to understand and easy to use is what drives adoption rates. It's what made Apple the dominant. Sometimes handholding is necessary until knowledge has been successfully transferred over.

[CJefferson]

Yes, I agree. Just a couple of days ago I had a similar interaction with the mercurial folks, where I posted a (slightly overly annoyed) e-mail saying that their page about GUIs was awful.

In that case I got a nice reply, and they clearly took the suggestions on board and have massively improved the page. It gave me an excellent impression of the developers of mercurial.

[rxcfc]

Knowing Trek, I think his frustration here is in large part with himself. He cares very deeply about giving users a good experience with Ember and knows that we aren't achieving that as well as we'd like. We've been planning and working on an improved Getting Started story for a while now but, because all of us on the Core Team are very busy with our day jobs, it's been slower going that we would have liked.

To have more people point out your shortcomings when you're already well aware of them is very frustrating. I think this is what we're seeing in Trek's response. Now that doesn't mean that I think his response is helpful - it's not. But I do want it to be clear that we do care about these issues and sometimes maybe too much.

When our new Getting Started Guide is finally released, I promise that we will do our best to address all of the different comments and complaints we receive from our users.

-Peter Wagenet, Ember Core Team Member

[Uchikoma]

If he cares that deeply, I'd suggest walk instead of talk and fix the problems now instead of hand waving. The Emberjs documentation problems have been there since the beginning.

Instead of commenting on #HN how awful ungrateful sarcastic users are, write a new "Getting started" page.

[mgrassotti]

I don't think trek called anyone ungrateful. He's just tired. Also he already is working on a new getting started page. A few days ago he posted to the forum outlining his plan and asking for feedback. http://discuss.emberjs.com/t/todomvc-based-getting-started-g...

[joshstrange]

Peter, I get this, I get this 100x over. When I put my time/effort into something I try to do my very best. A user telling me it's wrong/broken/sucks makes me feel like my best isn't good enough. My point was that publicly a response like this hurts far more than the satisfaction you get from posting it. Trust me, I have been burned by this before and I had to learn from it. I have never used Ember.js but I plan to, I think it looks cool and have seen a few projects that use it to do really cool things. A response like this makes the community look un-inviting, the whole "Figure it out yourself"/"It's not worth my time to help you" attitude is not productive. I may realize that one developer does not speak for the entire project but not everyone will and there will be people turned off by such a response. I would hate to see Ember.js suffer because one developer found it against his "rules" to respond AND took the time to make sure everyone knew how he felt.

[jackmaney]

Why was the Getting Started Guide not at (or near) the top of your priority list for documentation?

[mgrassotti]

It is. http://discuss.emberjs.com/t/todomvc-based-getting-started-g...

[jackmaney]

Actually, let me clarify: why wasn't a Getting Started Guide/Quickguide/"Hello World" equivalent/etc one of the first written pieces of official Ember.js documentation?

[rxcfc]

It didn't come earlier because some of the core patterns were still solidifying. It would have been premature to put together something that was likely to change a lot. Now that we've hit RC the API is stable so it makes much more sense.

[trek]

I have admitted that, publicly, very often, in other topics on discuss.emberjs.com, on websites, on twitter, on videos, and elsewhere. It's no secret I'd like to improve the documentation for Ember.js and I'm already well aware of the places that people are facing difficulty right now.

There's work, if people spent a moment reading the top topics in the forum, on a getting started guide with a direct call for feedback http://discuss.emberjs.com/t/todomvc-based-getting-started-g...

I've been extremely vocal in soliciting actionable feedback on that. I'd like to help!

Discourse isn't for making places like hackernews, where a playful, sometimes discouraging culture of dickitude is acceptable and encouraged. The goal of Discourse (a "Civilized Discourse Construction Kit") and our use of it is to create a place where civil discussion can take place to improve Ember.js as a framework.

Delvarworld's tone strayed into territory I don't think remains civil because of his use of sarcasm:

"are you serious?"

"oh god this is going to be fun, isn't it?"

"by the awful grace of god"

"3 more results linking to the first dead article! FANTASTIC!"

And so I signaled that I empathize with his frustrations (because I do) but I can't participate in that discussion because it violates community norms I'd like to uphold. If he'd like to rephrase his topic, I'd be glad to help.

Ego and pretension have nothing to do with it. Contributing to OSS is something I make a personal decision to do with my time. I wish I had an infinite amount of time, but I don't. Most people associate me with Ember.js, but I'm very active elsewhere. Did you know I regularly run through all the TodoMVC examples looking for bugs https://twitter.com/trek/status/313015370728501248 ? Most people don't, because it's just something I quietly do. Less quietly now, I suppose.

In addition to working on OSS, I'd love to maybe find a nice boy to date (https://github.com/trek/lonely_coder), see my friends, visit my aging, ailing parents more often, maybe catch a moving once in a while, or eat a meal I'd don't grab on the go running from one obligation to another.

Like most OSS contributors, this isn't my job. It doesn't pay my bills or put food in my belly. I do it because I'd like to improve the tools I work with and share those improvements with the larger tech community. In the finite time I can offer, I have to make decisions about where to expend energy. I choose to do that in places where I can have the most impact. I don't feel that I can be helpful when people approach with sarcasm. Rather than remaining silent, I let people know I'm happy to engage when we trend towards civility.

[bphogan]

You got feedback from a frustrated user, and I'm sure you didn't just dismiss it internally, so why did you dismiss it externally?

Listen, I'd love to be able to write what I want, teach what I want, and do what I want without getting sarcastic reviews. But unfortunately people get frustrated and that's how they respond. "Oh, a tmux book? Who needs that?"

"You suck" is very, very different from "the thing you built sucks."

Customer service 101: Go punch a punching bag, have a cry, have a scream, have a drink, whatever. then reply with

"Thank you for your detailed feedback. It's most welcome. We've already started taking appropriate steps to build better guides and tutorials. We'll roll your feedback into those. We're always working on improving Ember's documentation and every bit of feedback helps."

And then go do those things you want to do for a while.

No disrespect, but this guy gave some pretty valuable feedback that I love to get when I'm working on a book. He told you exactly where the holes are, and those are so easy to miss when you're too close to the subject matter.

[trek]

In any other venue, I would 100% agree and would not have responded this way. Delvarworld's tone is totally mild and in keeping with typical internet culture.

But Discourse's goal is to raise the bar. Significantly. They blog rather eloquently about it http://blog.discourse.org/2013/03/the-universal-rules-of-civ...

And new topic posters are asked to keep that high standard in mind when posting. I'm sure his sarcasm was meant lightly, but it still deviates from the high quality of discussion I'd like to have, and rather than simply ignore a discussion where I was specifically invited, I opted to publicly explain why I wouldn't be participating.

What I failed to do, and this shows my failing to keep that high bar, is explain what we could change to make the discussion civil.

[tomku]

I can't help but feel that you're doing an excellent job of proving that a single short, civil post can do more damage to the community than any amount of slight sarcasm. If "absolute civility at all costs" is the basis for Discourse, I'd much rather try to have high quality discussions elsewhere.

Edit: The link you provided has "responding to a post’s tone instead of its actual content" as part of a list of things to avoid.

[FireBeyond]

That rule/principle seems a quick route to Wikipedia's meta-drama. Where things are not about what is true, but what is verifiable, and what is verifiable is about someone's arbitrary standards. Where an argument can be "rebutted" with "WP:NOT WP:SOMETHING WP:NORLY".

Demanding that other people (ahem) discourse with you in a way espoused by the philosophy of your forum software seems, at best, counterproductive, and at worst, openly hostile.

One wonders, would the result have been the same if such "sarcasm" had been used in praise of the library? Would it have been ignored due to "tone", and "not meeting Discourse's goal"?

Speaking of which, what? If I sign up for a support forum, I'm signing up for that. If FormumSoft 1.1's backend engine and developers are all about 'increasing awareness of mung beans', am I somehow at fault because OtherSoftwareDeveloperCo decides to use their engine, whilst I personally have disdain for mung beans?

[trek]

Which is why I opted to say "I'm sorry, I cannot respond".

[jaggederest]

Can't you see that that, in itself, is a response?

To not respond would be to not post at all.

Edit: After reading the FAQ you linked elsewhere, your response is explicitly tone-based and unhelpful. I believe that violates the polite discourse rule more than anything the original poster said.

[tomku]

You chose to respond to the tone of the post while ignoring the content, while simultaneously claiming that you aren't actually responding. That's both annoyingly passive-aggressive and exactly the opposite of what the Discourse guidelines encourage.

[kenko]

And yet of course you could have responded. You could in fact have simultaneously pointed out that you find the tone of the original post unfortunate and then also addressed the substantive issues raised therein. "I can't respond" is ludicrous bad faith. Nothing is stopping you.

[marbletiles]

So what you're basically attempting is the Discourse equivalent of a StackOverflow "This question is offtopic" thread-close. Good job.

What you're attempting is amateur anger management. It doesn't work like that. Your approach is almost classically designed to escalate tensions, not defuse them.

[trek]

It's probably relevant to note that we haven't heard from delvarworld, who I reached out to personally explaining in greater detail why I was opting not to reply and what we could do to create a discussion we'd both want to participate in.

You're only seeing the brief, public acknowledgement that I wouldn't participate despite being called out with an @ reply.

The tension only escalated when people from HN decided to chime in.

[anigbrowl]

It's entirely possible that you haven't heard from delvarworld because that person felt hurt and humiliated by your public response, which may also have colored the impression made by your follow-up private communication.

It's also disingenuous to say you were called out; a third party (locks) mentioned that you were the appropriate point of contact for suggestions like this. In no way could this be construed as a challenge or mockery of you personally.

I don't wish to belabor the point so I will not comment further about it. I just urge you to take a step back and try to consider the whole conversation from the perspective of a neutral third party.

[kenko]

"I'm sure his sarcasm was meant lightly, but it still deviates from the high quality of discussion I'd like to have"

Sarcasm and quality of discussion are orthogonal. It's very easy to have 100% "civil" discourse that is of absolutely no quality, and the only difficulty in having high-quality sarcastic discourse is the difficulty inherent in having high-quality discourse sans phrase.

Civility is a purely formal virtue (the virtue, in fact, of specious op-ed pages, where the only discursive sin is an uncivil tone), and it's far too common (one sees this in political discourse especially) for "lack of civility" or "uncivil tone" to be used to exclude people who are, often justifiably, frustrated or passionate about the topic at hand. It is of course possible for someone to be so relentlessly rude that there's no point in further (nb further!) engagement with them, but that clearly isn't the case here. It looks, to be honest, as if you're indulging in the first plausible excuse to avoid engaging with the problem the poster raised---and, what's worse, pretending, as you do so, that your hands are tied.

There is really no reason why all complaints or issues raised should be couched in a hands-off, disinterested tone. (Or rather, the only reason that all complaints or issues should be so couched is that normatively bad but instrumentally unfortunately good reason that otherwise people will take your tone as an excuse not to engage.) You're doing yourself no favors by getting on this particular high horse.

[JohnHaugeland]

> But Discourse's goal is to raise the bar. Significantly.

Well then it's probably not the right place for ember, because programmers don't behave that way, and your response has been to lock down all forms of criticism, even things you find to be in keeping with internet and programmer culture.

That's criticism you need - criticism you say is in keeping with the culture, and that you say you've been actively soliciting.

.

> "[the sarcasm] still deviates from the high quality of discussion I'd like to have"

I think what you might be missing is that nobody else is reading it that way except you. Most of us are trying to tell you "guy, you're being way over-sensitive, and you aren't rising on your own to the standards you set for others."

.

> "I opted to publicly explain why I wouldn't be participating."

And the response you got was "you're lowering the bar; stop it."

And you have dug your heels in to insist you're doing the right thing.

We disagree.

.

> "What I failed to do, and this shows my failing to keep that high bar, is explain what we could change to make the discussion civil."

What you could have done is responded to the actual legitimate criticism, which you pay lip service to being appropriate in typical internet culture.

Dancing around it then shutting the topic off is not a form of keeping a high bar, sir. It is my opinion that this phrasing is self congratulatory, so that you don't have to face the nature of what you're actually doing.

Have you considered that your behavior here is doing serious damage to the reputation of the ember community?

It doesn't really matter if you agree with yourself; the rest of us don't. Repeating yourself, "clarifying" yourself; these things don't matter.

In reality, someone joked around, told you what they needed; you paniced, and yelled at them for giving you what you pretend you want. Then you told everyone "oh this is totally appropriate, but Discourse wants something else."

Except Discourse didn't do this. You did.

Please understand, sir, that to the rest of us, you just appear to be back-pedalling and blame shifting.

To the rest of us, it looks like you barked at someone because you didn't want to know that your role as documentation maintainer had not been well fulfilled.

And "explaining" won't change that that's how this is being interpreted, because if that's what really was going on, someone would respond by "explaining."

Civil discussion doesn't mean discussion you like, and it doesn't actually exclude sarcasm, either. What civil discussion is is factually based discussion which does not make personal attacks.

He didn't make personal attacks. You did, extensively, in three places that I'm aware of.

If you find him to be uncivil, get a mirror.

[Jgrubb]

Thank you for that Tmux book. I found it very helpful.

[bphogan]

You're most welcome. I'm glad it helped.

[re_todd]

Thank you for your Web Design book. As a programmer, it gave me the confidence to explore the design world.

[bphogan]

That's really, really cool to hear. Thank you so much.

[Uchikoma]

Thanks for the Tmux book from here too.

[bphogan]

Thank you as well.

[bcantrill]

So, here's the challenge: if you're going to develop systems software (which is to say, software that is consumed by a fellow software engineer), you're going to find that you're much more likely to hear about how the software doesn't work than how it does. This is frustrating because you -- like every other human -- react much better to praise than to scorn. But here's the leap you need to make: when you have someone taking the time to criticize you in depth, it's because THEY WANT YOU TO SUCCEED. (If they didn't want you to succeed, they wouldn't bother reporting their experiences to you, because they wouldn't actually want you to fix them!)

So as hard as they can be to read sometimes, experiences like the one you replied to are actually essential to you and your project: it is someone who wants you to succeed explaining in detail how you fall short. The proper reply is to thank them for the time they took, apologize for any inconvenience -- and then try to figure out forward progress on the problem that they've identified (which in this case seems as simple as pointing Delvarworld to the nascent "Getting Started" guide). No, this isn't always easy (and you can take solace in the fact that it's hard for the rest of us too) -- but it's essential if you want to develop systems software.

[pekk]

I object to one thing you said. Criticism is often NOT because the critic wants you to succeed. If more than a few people know about your tool, some of them will hate your project and want it to be rejected and die. And they won't necessarily play fair. There are so many ways and so many reasons why an open source tool will be attacked, many of which are not constructive at all, not even honest, just intended to make your project look terrible in public so that they can "win" somehow. This is a social reality of writing tools for other people to use for free.

[olivier1664]

When I fail to learn a new technology, I prefer to say the technology sucks than to say I'm too stupid to learn it. In this case, I do not really want them to success...

[brazzy]

Sorry, but that's just ridiculous. You get some very detailed actionable feedback and flat out refuse to engage with it because it contains some mild sarcasm?

No, obviously you would not like to help unless it's 100% on your terms, and you're not even telling which terms they are. Which is not very helpful at all and, in fact, showing a considerable degree of dickitude.

[paulhauggis]

I have been following the ember.js community for awhile and also trek.

It's this attitude that makes me never want to use ember.js. If you check out his twitter account, you can see countless battles with new people just getting into ember.

If you want someone to use your framework, it shouldn't be a verbal battle of passive aggressiveness and other childish antics.

He is doing a disservice to the community and the framework.

[jackmaney]

"It's this attitude that makes me never want to use ember.js." Agreed. In fact, I suspect I'll never end up using it, now.

[pekk]

I'm sympathetic. There is nothing you can do in open source which will not result in a political response.

Before, I had no interest in ember.js. Today I am willing to give it the benefit of the doubt. Because so many people are trying to bury it, for some reason which has nothing to do with technical concerns.

[scottcanoni]

I couldn't agree more. Thanks but no thanks. I hope that was a civil response.

[ryderm]

While I totally agree that developers actions can be a turn off for using a library/framework/whatever, it also reminds me of political scandals. Just because person A cheated on his wife (or something similar) doesn't mean that his policies were not good.

[paulhauggis]

The problem is that the community is a big part of a framework/language/library these days. If I have an issue and I need some help, I will first go to the community if I can't figure it out myself.

If I feel like it's just going to be met with someone personally attacking me because I don't agree with their practices, I will just find another community (and framework/library).

It's funny because I've seen some of the same sort of issues with the Ruby community...and Trek is part of that community too.

I don't see nearly as much of this in other communities and I often wonder if it's because of the leadership/certain type of culture that the community is built upon.

[bpatrianakos]

I'm on your side here but I still have to defend trek on this one. This sort of feedback is not all that uncommon and at this point the Ember team has to be deaf, dumb, and blind not to know about it. Trek even says he knows about this and that they're working on it. And he's right that HN can sometimes be a place where people come to talk down to other people and rant like entitled assholes about asinine topics and the community can sometimes get so wrapped up in it that we almost truly believe we're the center of the universe (myself included). So I can understand his "dickitude" remark.

I think what this really comes down to is a few very simple reasons he doesn't need to respond to this:

- He and the Ember team have heard it before and many times said they're working on this (I know I've seen that stated publicly many times)

- There are only so many people you can respond to. Again, the team knows, they're on it, no response required

- A front page HN post does not automatically mean the project maintainers need to respond.

- This is OSS. Like Trek says, there's only so much time he can devote to this stuff especially for free.

I think we need to give him a break here.

[tomku]

The problem is that he did respond, to tell the user that they were too uncivil to deserve a more helpful response. Not responding at all would've been completely understandable, for all the reasons you gave.

[white_devil]

> This sort of feedback is not all that uncommon and at this point the Ember team has to be deaf, dumb, and blind not to know about it.

The kind of feedback that has a point?

[spellboots]

I see what you're saying, and it is a fair attitude. The problem is that I think others disagree on your definition of civility; for example I am of the opinion that the post was perfectly civil, and I think others would tend to agree.

You are of course free to set your own standards in your own community, however I think it would serve you well to recognize that the implied standards you are setting are extremely, extremely high. In my opinion they are so high that they are counter productive, and I posit that the fact that this article is now at the top of hacker news suggests that many people agree with me on this point.

[rxcfc]

I think it just shows that HN likes controversy. Which is news to no one :)

[jtms]

Nailed it.

[fnordfnordfnord]

That's your opinion and you're entitled to it. My opinion is that your deference to such a strict definition of civility is really a hindrance to civil discourse. There is nothing really insulting in his comments. It is obvious that the guy was frustrated when he wrote it. It is also obvious that there are many helpful comments or advice that could be given to help alleviate the source of the user's frustration. Your isn't helpful, and it wouldn't do anything to defuse a real civility crisis any more than it has this imagined one. It reminds me of the prototypical aggravating DMV person sending a client to the back of a long line ostensibly because of some triviality such as an easily corrected typo on a form but really because they enjoy using their ability to annoy people.

[Terretta]

> create a place where civil discussion can take place to improve Ember.js as a framework. ... Delvarworld's tone strayed into territory I don't think remains civil because of his use of sarcasm: "are you serious?"; "oh god this is going to be fun, isn't it?"; "3 more results linking to the first dead article! FANTASTIC!" ... I don't feel that I can be helpful when people approach with sarcasm. Rather than remaining silent, I let people know I'm happy to engage when we trend towards civility.

@trek, let's check your comment about backbone.js in your excellent "Advice on & Instruction in the Use Of Ember.js"[1]:

“Ever run into zombie events in a Backbone application? No? You've either not used it for anything big, have Rain Man-like ability to craft software, or are fucking shitting me.” -- trek

Your "fucking shitting me" seems somewhat less civil than Delvarworld's "are you serious?" and "FANTASTIC!", but maybe that's just me.

Or maybe it's okay to use that language because it's about Backbone and not about Ember?

PS. I've been actively trying to influence a group to adopt ember.js. Your responses here aren't helping, though your sarcastic and expletive laden advice article was.

1. https://github.com/trek/trek.github.com/blob/4bc36e47a9017be...

[trek]

People can, and do, write in that tone on their personal blogs all the time. I have no issue with it and often in engage in hyperbole for effect in that arena.

The context you're probably missing is that my comment about the expected level of discussion isn't abrupt or coming from nowhere. In this particular venue you are specifically asked to keep the level of discourse higher than is typical on the web at large.

You're asked to do this when you first join and reminded with a summary before you are allowed to create your first two topics: http://discuss.emberjs.com/faq

I reminded the poster that his tone put him below the level of discussion the community has agreed to engage in within this particular space.

Posters can, and do, ignore this all the time and I often go around trying to prod people back towards civility and correct places for types of discussions:

http://discuss.emberjs.com/t/todomvc-based-getting-started-g... http://discuss.emberjs.com/t/ember-computed-halp/388/5 http://discuss.emberjs.com/t/ember-vs-angular/374/5 http://discuss.emberjs.com/t/best-way-to-handle-mongo-couch-...

[Terretta]

> The context you're probably missing

I don't believe I'm missing context. You keep explaining what you did, why you did it, where you did it, but I believe readers here see all that. Many still think you were mistaken. We don't see this as prodding anyone towards civility, we see changing the subject from legitimate issues to an individual's tone.

> I reminded the poster that his tone put him below the level of discussion

So you are above him and he is below you. You are his patron, reminding him of his place. This is not civility. This is the literal definition of condescension.

Civility doesn't mean avoiding hyperbole or other effective rhetoric. Civility means keeping a debate about the subject rather than the individuals discussing. You failed to do that.

From "Civility in Public Discourse"[1]:

Clearly, civility has to mean something more that mere politeness. The movement will have accomplished little if all it does is get people to say, "excuse me please", while they (figuratively) stab you in the back. Civility also cannot mean "roll over and play dead." People need to be able to raise tough questions and present their cases when they feel their vital interests are being threatened. A civil society cannot avoid tough but important issues, simply because they are unpleasant to address.

You avoided the tough questions, and changed the subject from the identified issues.

Constructive debate needs to focus on solutions which are most likely to be successful, and not upon personal attacks leveled by adversaries against one another.

He used hyperbole for effect, about the process of using the tool, not about the interlocutor. That didn't undermine civility by this canonical definition. You attacked his tone, personalizing the discussion. That did undermine civility.

Constructive civil debate, therefore, requires that the parties work together to resolve factual disagreements wherever possible.

He spent time walking through a process, factually. You ignored the facts, and replied about civility instead. That was not working together.

The most destructive confrontation process, escalation, arises when accidental or intentional provocations beget greater counter-provocations in an intensifying cycle that transforms a substantive debate characterized by honest problem solving into one in which mutual hatred becomes the primary motive. De-escalation and escalation avoidance strategies are needed to limit this problem.

His post was effective at highlighting the real user story about trying to get started with the platform.

And though you yourself use sarcasm about other products like backbone.js in a piece presented as a canonical getting started reference, your dismissive line escalated the situation into a Streisand effect turning off countless potential users of the framework.

You could have at least not replied at all, as a more civil response than what you wrote.

One crucial element of civility is recognition by conflicting parties that it is possible that they are wrong and that the policies advocated by their opponents are actually better. This entails an obligation to seriously consider the persuasive arguments made by opponents.

You did not seriously consider the persuasive arguments made by the OP, you attacked his tone instead.

Here on HN, you've demonstrated unwillingness to acknowledge, even by a single phrase, that you might have been wrong and policies around civil discourse suggested by others here might have been preferable in this instance. Elsewhere you've jumped on people trying to get into the framework, so this personalizing criticism of the framework isn't new.

Thankfully, a careful reading of this HN thread suggests contributors to ember.js disagree with you, and have suggested your response was a tired mistake. So perhaps readers here can still agree not just with the philosophy of ember.js itself, but with the philosophy of its contributors. That's important, and missing that point can cost a project dearly.

TLDR:

By most of your replies here, it seems you've confused pleasantries with the real meaning of "civil discourse" which can be quite spirited or contentious but remains focused on framing the identified issues in ways which transform win-lose confrontations into win-win opportunities.

1. http://www.colorado.edu/conflict/civility.htm

[tomku]

I truly believe that you had good intentions posting that, but what you said makes it look like you're prioritizing being the civility police higher than helping a frustrated user.

[JangoSteve]

Being in the same boat (re: OSS contributor, not my day job), I can totally empathize with your initial reaction to his post, but honestly nothing you quoted is incivility. It's genuine frustration from a new user caused by your documentation with complete steps on how to reproduce the problem. If you printed the average open source user's feedback out on gold foil using platinum ink, this guy's feedback would still be more valuable.

[nolite]

Just wanted to say that i love your stuff! You've saved my life multiple times

[JangoSteve]

Thank you!

[white_devil]

> And so I signaled that I empathize with his frustrations (because I do) but I can't participate in that discussion because it violates community norms I'd like to uphold.

I wanted to post this to your original comment there, but couldn't be bothered to make an account: "Get over yourself".

The guy was just (quite rightfully) venting about his frustration trying to get Ember to work, and the venting itself was still relatively tame. Besides, it wasn't a personal attack against you.

Pretending you're somehow above the discussion because of "the tone" is just lame, especially when there was nothing wrong with it. So much discussion is suppressed all over the world because people insist on latching on to how something was said, instead of whether there was any merit to it.

[nsxwolf]

Where I think you went wrong is the homepage. When you see it, you get that warm, fuzzy feeling that you're about to use one of those projects that "just works", the kind that delights you with how easy it is to get up and running and makes you wonder why all software doesn't work that way.

There's a promise that getting started is "easy", and a short code snippet that gives a false sense of confidence. It just shouldn't be there if it isn't true.

[michaelwww]

No response would have been better, at least until you are in a lighter mood. That's a rule I try to follow.

[slantyyz]

I agree.

This is obviously oversimplifying, but there are two common approaches to how to respond.

The first is "You're my customer" (figuratively speaking), which means you try to be helpful in spite of the tone of the person asking for help. Sometimes empathy goes a long way -- instead of thinking "This guy's being a such dick", ask yourself "Why is this guy being such a dick?". On the other hand, if the tone is a little too belligerent, it's also important to note that some "customers" aren't worth having, and you get rid of them.

The second is "I'm doing you a favour, you should appreciate it". Usually taking this perspective starts with "if you don't like it, go elsewhere" and it rarely ends well.

I typically try to treat everyone in my dealings (employers, employees I manage, and my peers, etc.) like customers unless they force me to not to, but they always get the benefit of the doubt the first few times around.

What I typically find with people who are extremely frustrated who are looking for help is that they become extremely thankful and contrite once you've helped them, especially if you showed them a little empathy in helping them.

[mst]

The thing is ... if it had been sarcasm in the name of snark, I think I'd agree. But it really didn't sound like that, it sounded like sarcasm as a means to distract your attention from the quiet, soft sound of heartbreak that heralds the shattering of a dream.

That's what, I think, led to such negative responses. You read snark; we read a cry for help from the darkness and imagined a child who'd trusted your site on the verge of tears over a broken promise.

Anguish, anger and assholery can all sound very similar, and I'm sympathetic to your definition of that level of sarcasm as uncivil, but I suspect that the perception gap here is why most of this conversation seems to involve people talking past each other.

Or maybe I'm misinterpreting it completely; conversation's fun like that ...

[JohnHaugeland]

"sometimes discouraging culture of dickitude is acceptable and encouraged"

Being honest, I believe that you're being a lot more severe than the person to whom you're responding. He made no personal accusations, he didn't talk about people's nature, whose job what is, the demeanor of other communities, et cetera.

It was not, in short, a complaining post.

What he did was document the steps he went through, why he thought the way the library was presented wasn't accurate, and said "may I please have XYZ." He didn't talk about ego or pretense, he didn't talk about his dating situation, he didn't talk about his food schedule.

He said "could I get a quick start guide please?"

Look how you've responded.

With respect, sir, he isn't the problem here.

[PuerkitoBio]

That's actually a very decent answer. You should've expanded your reasoning a bit on the ember thread. Although to be honest, I thought the tone was more funny than sarcastic, but I'm emotionnally detached from the subject. With your explanations, your reaction makes sense. Sarcasm is a slippery slope.

[GhotiFish]

I am envious that you are able to remain emotionally detached from this subject.

I have experienced this kind of thing many times over the course of my life. There's no way I could remain emotionally detached.

[Uchikoma]

You're reply and hand waving here is worse then your comment there.

[joshstrange]

@Trek

I do understand what you are saying and I don't want for a minute to imply that you are required to help, I understand that you are a volunteer. That said my point is that while you might not have liked the way he phrased his post, writing him off because of it is not what I would have done. I will be the first to admit that I can be a VERY sarcastic person if I put my mind to it and so maybe my opinion is biased to agree with the style and even enjoy reading things written in this style. Reading Delvarworld's post brought back many memories on trying new software/code (not ember specifically) and the irritation felt when something has such a high learning curve. However, I believe that it makes more sense to simply agree that the documentation could be better and possibly even invite Delvarworld to jump on IRC or discuss on the forums ways he thought the docs could be improved instead of ignoring him.

In my mind I saw it as someone explaining the steps they took to try something and outlining the various ways they failed in that endeavor and then you, a core contributor, coming down to essentially tell him to fuck off, it wasn't worth your time. I know that's not what you wrote and I don't think that's how you felt but it is what I got out of it. I think bphogan makes a great point with "I'm sure you didn't just dismiss it internally, so why did you dismiss it externally?". I don't know you, I have actually never heard of you , this was the first thing (to my knowledge) that I have ever read of yours and what I took away from it was that you simply didn't care. Like I said I don't think you don't care, it's just how it came across, at least to me.

[phillmv]

"discouraging culture of dickitude", nailed it.

We have to moderate the kinds of communities we want to see and participate in. You don't have to put up with people's shit.

[ajross]

We might choose to, but we don't "have to". It's about tradeoffs. A polite question might have been politely answered in the thread. A sarcastic rant like this results in a 110-response story at the top of HN with multiple apologetic posts from the developers.

I think I know which strategy is more likely to result in better documentation.

[adyio]

Your reply on the ember forum seemed packed with frustration, hence the response so far I guess.

Wouldn't it be better to include a brief note on the homepage to highlight that docs are WIP and point to other getting started resources? Just to avoid further frustrated newcomers?

Anyway, your reply here paints a more complete picture and just wanted to say thanks for your contribution to OSS.

Looking forward to the updated emberjs docs.

[Shish2k]

> I don't feel that I can be helpful when people approach with sarcasm

In general, I agree with this sentiment. But this post, which appeared (to me, at least) to contain extremely mild, non-personal-attack sarcasm, used to highlight areas of particular frustration, seems to be a shining example of how being 95% civil can result in much more effective communication than 100% civility.

If I were moderating that forum and wanted it to be a happy friendly constructive place, I'd let his post slide as a one-off, but give you a warning for being a condescending dick, since I find that kind of attitude in a community far more off-putting >_>

[csense]

> Delvarworld's tone strayed into territory I don't think remains civil

> violates community norms I'd like to uphold

> I don't feel that I can be helpful when people approach with sarcasm

> places like hackernews, where a playful, sometimes discouraging culture of dickitude is acceptable and encouraged

You definitely have the most ridiculously uptight worldview of anyone I've ever met. If you're expecting any more than a tiny fraction of the people who adopt Discourse to come anywhere near your norms of "civilized discourse," then you must not be very familiar with the interwebs.

[jonahx]

I don't think many would disagree with this principle, but I don't think his response qualifies as out-of-limit discourse.

I just read it as honest and accurate. He's not being a dick just for the sake of it. His thoughts sound exactly like what I would be thinking in his shoes. Knowing an actual user's moment-by-moment thoughts as he uses your product is invaluable. You shouldn't be encouraging him to bowdlerize that because it puts you off.

[benburton]

I'm in the minority here, but I 100% agree with you. I could see myself posting the exact same response.

[kalms]

Just don't let it get to you. You seem like a proud person, which can be a great thing in itself, but this is not an attack on you personally. You've done great things. Acknowledge him and quietly move on.

[8ig8]

Ultimately, the Discourse OP just wants a better guide. Would someone with a Discourse account be willing to rephrase the OP's issue with less sarcasm?

[rxcfc]

Did you read the whole forum thread? We are planning to address his complaints.

[xmlblog]

Sometimes I miss the good old days of RTFM.

[k3n]

Although he's already replied to you, I wanted to point out that a refusal to respond to a post in no way indicates whether or not the communication has been received. In other words, he's not ignoring the feedback, he's just refusing to engage in discourse which he sees as already unproductive.

Quite the opposite, he sympathizes with the OP to begin with, and so he most likely read it. He just doesn't want to engage in what could easily turn into a flamefest.

[joshstrange]

With all due respect I don't think that this is what happened here. That's fine if he felt no need to help, to problem is when you go out of your way to let someone, someone who is trying to learn, that you think they aren't worth your time due to the tone of their post. I understand where the OP is coming from, the frustration at trying to learn something and constantly hitting roadblocks. Was he a little sarcastic? Yes, however I would be too if I couldn't find any help. This situation was escalated by the fact that his cry for help was met with a core contributor taking the time to tell him he wasn't going to help. I would compare that to going up to a homeless man and telling him you weren't going to give him any money. There just wasn't a good reason to post something like that.

[k3n]

Good points, and you're probably correct.

However, to your last point, I can see how it'd be challenging to convey your stance that you won't allow uncivil discourse other than how he did so. If you go ahead and respond normally, you're just reinforcing the bad behavior, ergo it makes the "discourse must be civil" an empty promise/threat. Perhaps he could have replied, with a caveat that further uncivil posts would be ignored, but I can also see getting tired of that sort of behavior (and as a former forum mod, continually having to 'remind' people of the rules that they've already agreed to wears out really quickly).