Re: Kickstarter was not successful... but it did help things...

[Richard Frith-Macdonald]

On 26 Dec 2013, at 23:47, Doc O'Leary <droleary@7usenet2013.subsume.com> wrote:

> In article <mailman.10360.1387954424.10748.discuss-gnustep@gnu.org>,
> Richard Frith-Macdonald <richardfrithmacdonald@gmail.com> wrote:
> 
>> Clearly you don't use the standard meaning of the words 'brutal' and 
>> 'science'.
>> Science is an endeaviour of rationality and intellect.  Brutality is 
>> anti-rational/anti-intellectual.
> 
> Nonsense.  That is mere ivory tower pontification.  A science like 
> physics or biology is not just about controlled environments.  Even 
> computer scientists need to face the harsh reality of a world beyond 
> mathematics and code.  Through science we can reflect on both 
> irrationality and stupidity.  Brutality is in no way the antithesis of 
> that.

We are getting nothing of value here ... you are simpy demontrating that you 
don't understand science, or english, or are just trolling.  The phrase 'ivory 
tower pontification' is purely insult without information, the phrase 'not just 
about controlled environments' seems irrelevant since we weren't discussing 
them, and saying that brutality is not the antihesis of reflection is, while 
technically/pedantically true (in the sense that night is technically not the 
opposite of day) apparently a wilfull misstatement; reflection implies 
thoughtfulness, brutality implies mindlessness.  My use of the words here is 
not one of picking obscure secondary meanings, so my point should have been 
clear but I'll try again;

1. I said that the negative/harsh/insulting language you have used is generally 
counterproductive (refer to loads of psychology research if you wish)
2. It seems you justify the use of this language as being 'brutal/harsh reality 
and scientific)

Firstly, the point stands ... I was talking about the effective way to use 
language, not about literal meaning.  You can express the same information in 
different ways and cause different responses from your readers in the way you 
say things.
Secondly, your misuse of the word 'scientific' as a justification annoys the 
pedant in me.  I have a great respect for science and dislike it when people 
give science a bad name by misrepresenting it.


>> In what way does that demonstrate that gnustep is hostile to OSX users?
>> In what way does that demonstrate that gnustep is hostile to OSX users?
>> In what way does that demonstrate that gnustep is hostile to OSX users?
> 
> It's almost as if I have been talking about *more* than one thing here.  
> Shame on me for thinking more broadly than code, code, code.

It's almost as if you have never come across the technique (common in science) 
of focussing on particular points and keeping to them.

>>> Part of my point is that, yes, such things are *said* on the web site 
>>> and elsewhere.  But if you actually sit down and think about it, if you 
>>> apply the use case "I'm a Mac developer looking to try porting to 
>>> GNUstep", the *full* body of evidence makes it obvious that GNUstep is 
>>> not very welcoming.
>> 
>> Thankyou.  That sounds better than your original statement that GNUstep is 
>> hostile.  Now we are beginning to get enough detail to know what you think a 
>> problem is,
> 
> Beginning?  This was what I was saying back in November!  Shame on me 
> for expecting to have been heard the first time . . .

Perhaps what you think you say and what you actually say are very different (or 
perhaps you just like trolling).

>> I don't know in what way you feel it's unwelcoming exactly  ... maybe in 
>> several ways ... but if you addresed one at a time and suggested 
>> improvements, then the people who have been working at trying to make 
>> GNUstep 
>> appealing to OSX users would probably enjoy discussing those suggestions and 
>> doing something more, rather than being put off.
> 
> Then jump in your time machine and go back to a time when I said those 
> things.  Perhaps you responded, perhaps you didn't.  Perhaps it was 
> negative, definitely it was dropped (until the thread got resurrected by 
> Ivan).  And if you think things got any more welcoming in the past week, 
> back into the time machine for you.  :-/

I don't follow this time machine point ... I'm guessing that you may be trying 
to imply that you tried what I suggested at tsome point in the past?

>> Stop yourself and consider whether your behavior here is making any sense.
>> Some people are just ignoring you, one person has suggested that we all 
>> ignore you, that's just a normal reaction to insulting rhetoric.
> 
> I'll let the record speak for itself.  I'm not going to pretend I'm the 
> most sophisticated person in the world, but how I have behaved is 
> stellar compared to the juvenile and petty ways I have been treated.  
> I'm not crying because I get it: you found a way to be part of an "in" 
> crowd and so you engage in the all-too-predictable actions of tribal 
> exclusion that usually follow.  That's all a bit too cultish for me, so 
> all I can do is ask you to reconsider your actions.  I'll be on my way 
> shortly if you're still not yet willing to do that.

I had thought that your change of tone from 'hostile' to 'not very welcoming' 
(from the point of view of a Mac developer)  represented a revision of your 
attitude to a more realistic/workable one.  It seems it was just a slip on your 
part.  If so, I agree that it's best you move on.  That's a shame.

>> What people want are practical useful things (of any kind) suggested or done 
>> rather than vague ideas.
> 
> Nothing I have in mind has been vague.  If I have not expressed them 
> fully, it is because the leadership here has shown no interest in 
> exploring them further.  I mean, I could go down a big ol' rabbit hole 
> on the topic of brand messaging.  Feedback on having a slogan was mixed, 
> though, and I don't see anyone in charge who seems to put value on such 
> things.

Then *you* have a big communication problem.  You have ideas, but you will not 
express/communicate them because other people fail to show interest in the 
unexpressed things in your head.  It's so common that it's a cliche for 
teenagers 'nobody understands me', but we all have to lear to get past it 
because it's not something other people can do for you.  You have to focus on a 
particular thing anc express it clearly/fully.  It helps to engage in a 
dialogue to clarify things, but you need a good enough starting point for 
people to get the main part of your point immediately.

>> Note that I say 'suggested or done', not just 'done'.  Clearly everyone 
>> would 
>> like *you* to be doing the work rather than *them* to be doing it (after 
>> all, 
>> nobody wants to be loaded down with more work), but come up with good enough 
>> practical suggestions that people can do in a reasonable timeframe, and 
>> people will take on that extra work and thank you for the ideas.
> 
> Here's something that might blow your mind: *I* am more than happy to do 
> the work, if it ever becomes clear that having a coherent message is 
> worth it to the project.  What I'm *not* going to do is redesign the web 
> site to my own personal liking in advance.

Meanwhile, other people to whom it apparently *is* clear continue to work on it.

> And it might also blow your mind to hear this, too: the world is *full* 
> of developers who, like me, would rather work top-down than bottom-up.  
> Hell, I'd settle for middle-out at this point.

You keep saying that, and people keep pointing out that nothing's stopping you.

>> In particular, 
>> you needed to insult Greg quite severely before the politeness of his 
>> responses dropped to my level, and I don't think any of his responses have 
>> been as insulting as the emails from you that he was responding to.
> 
> I'm not sure what insults you're talking about.  I mainly remember 
> simply calling him out on his (still to this day) dismissiveness on the 
> usefulness of anything that deviates from his notion of 
> value/merit/contribution.  It's all there for anyone else to read and 
> reach their own conclusions, though.  Go ahead and quote anything you 
> think will paint me out to be a real bastard.

You don't need to look any further than the phrase 'mere ivory tower 
pontification' at the start of this email to see the sort of thing I mean.

>> If people are to value 
>> your opinion then you will need to work up to it.
> 
> And that's a two way street.  When I say "Mac users coming to the web 
> site are left high and dry",
> the response shouldn't just be "yeah, we 
> should fix that at some point" or "yeah, you should fix that for us".

When you say 'left high and dry' you should consider how badly phrased that is 
(ie its exagerated, it sounds hostile and it provides minimal information about 
what might be wrong) and try saying something that people can respond to better.
And once you have something specific identified and agreed on to fix, why on 
earth should the response not be either one of deciding to fix it at some point 
or asking you to fix it?
There's the vague/general point that we want to improve usability ... everyone 
agrees on that of course and it's an ongoing process.
Then you might identify specific points for improvement, and those would need 
to be agreed individually and prioritised against all the other improvements 
being done.

> To actually be welcoming, it should be more along the lines of "Yeah, 
> here's what we really think and here's how we back that up, and if 
> you're good at putting that kind of thing together, could you help us by 
> coming up with a better site design?"

Which is basically what you got.  The tone of the responses you got might have 
been colored a little by the tone of your emails though :-)

>>> It indeed is.  But, again, what is the point in doing so if the 
>>> leadership doesn't actually place the *underlying reason* for providing 
>>> such a thing as a priority issue for the GNUstep project?  Perhaps my 
>>> time is better spent on other things.  I'm trying to profile before I 
>>> optimize, which apparently makes me a jerkwad in this upside down world.
>> 
>> There's so much wrong with that statement:
>> 1. It seems clear you *still* haven't paid any attention to what the website 
>> and the emails in this thread have said about what GNUstep is and what its 
>> aims are or you'd know already that being OSX friendly is a high priority 
>> already, so all you need to do is pick things that will improve that.  If 
>> you 
>> don't think a VM will help, then work out what will and address that instead.
> 
> Again, no.  It continues to be the case that *lip service* is paid to 
> such issues.  Things have gotten *worse* when it comes to the message of 
> Mac support, going from MacPorts to unsupported, to completely 
> unmentioned.  All the evidence is in my favor.  I don't know why you 
> continue to insist otherwise.

You just continue to ignore any request to help and say you won't help because 
people asking you to help don't really mean it.

My personal feeling is that MacPorts is not that useful for the Mac users who 
want to port to windows, linux etc, but that a VM might be.
I asked you to come up with something other than a VM if you don't agree with 
my idea.  If you are saying that MacPorts is your idea of what's good then you 
can do it (or you could try to demonstrate to other people how/why it would 
help Mac users).
Also, going from unsupported-and-not-working to unmentioned is not a step 
backward by any ratrional measure ... it means that someon looking for a quick 
way to do things is less likely to waste their time sol ifg anything it's a 
(tiny) step forward.  However, this is a deviation from the point again!
The point being that GNUstep has a clear pro-OSX policy, and you can't 
plausibly use project policy as an excuse for not doing anything to improve 
things.
It is *you* that is only paying lip service to the issues ...

>> 
>> 2. Don't just 'try to profile',  do it!  That's what people are telling you. 
>>  
>> The information you need is out there but it seems you don't read/understand 
>> it (and in fairness it's hard to do so), so you need to get involved.  When 
>> profiling a progam you compile with profiling instrumentation and use tolls 
>> to gather the information you need and analyse it.   if you don't get 
>> involved in a project how can you expect to be able to learn enough to 
>> optimise?
> 
> What do you think I've been doing here?

Honestly, by now, rolling.
I'm trying to keep an open mind about the possibility of good intentions, but 
it hasn't been easy.

> The problem remains that most 
> of the people who've stepped forward to disagree with me have come with 
> an argument that amounts to:
> 
> "Who are you to tell me that one of my functions is a problem?  I'm so 
> awesome I don't need to profile anything!  You've probably never even 
> written a line of code in your life.  Shut up until you have something 
> worthwhile to contribute."

They really have tried to be nicer than that.  Email is a difficult medium to 
communicate well in; without the out-of-band cues (pace, tone, facial 
expressaions etc) it's easy for a reader to focus on or emphasise things in way 
that's not what the writer meant.  So your summary seems to me an exaggeration.
All I can really say is that, as an outsider (someone who didn't get involved 
in this thread until late on), it's my impression that your emails are the ones 
with a higher proportion of emotive words and phrases (ones where there's 
little precise information and a lot of implied emotional connotation) 
suggesting hostility and likely to induce similar (or by the feedback nature of 
the mechanism, more extreme) response.

I try to keep my language neutral (don't always succeed).  From my point of 
view Greg appears to be downright placatory in his effort to avoid conflict 
(which is one reason why I couldn't do his job).
Your use of english looks like that of a troll ... but not so extreme that I 
won't give you the benefit of the doubt and try to talk anyway.

That being said, I just noticed how looooong I have spent typing this email 
trying to convince you to be a bit more open minded.  I find I have to conclude 
that if others have spent a sim ilar amount of time, then your emails on this 
list have been very counterproductive overall.  If you want to go back to the 
start an approach this as if nothing had happened, I think you can build up 
trust and welcome in the community, but otherwise I'm done.