#winehq admin troubles

feba thatl febaen at gmail.com
Mon Nov 5 06:06:23 CST 2007


> On 11/5/07, Alexander Nicolaysen Sørnes <alex at thehandofagony.com> wrote:
> On Monday 05 November 2007 11:49:52 Hans Leidekker wrote:
> > On Monday 05 November 2007 10:39:32 Kai Blin wrote:
> > > Personally, I would like to see more people stepping up to help run
> > > #winehq instead of just complaining about the work of one of the very few
> > > people who actually are out there helping users.
> >
> > As I understand this history feba thatl tried to do exactly that: help
> > others on our user channel... and got banned by vitamin. So if vitamin
> > is really under stress from all these complaining users, he's not helping
> > himself by kicking out others who try to help.
> >
> >  -Hans
>
>
> No, he was just telling the user to upgrade Wine, which vitamin knew would
> have no effect whatsoever.  The only thing that could have benefited from
> that advice would have been his self-image.
>
>
>
> Alexander N. Sørnes
>
>
>

What? How does giving someone a basic bit of advice, usually the first
advice you hear (It's even in the channel's topic), do anything to
improve anyone's self-image? If I was going to try to feel better
about myself, it wouldn't be by sitting on IRC acting like I know all
the answers to something I don't. I no more help people for my
self-image than Vitamin kicks people for entertainment-- that's not
the case, and we shouldn't act like it is.

Even still, why should someone who helps others because it makes them
feel good be shunned? They can still help. Not to mention, where do
you draw the line? People who can only give basic advice and their
best guess? People who know more than that, but are off the mark?

People shouldn't be expected to think in code and memorize every
tidbit under the sun if they just want to try to help people, there's
no reason someone should be kicked for making a good faith effort,
especially without being told otherwise. I could understand if I had
been sitting in the channel, and popped in with a comment that was
obviously out of place based on what had already been mentioned, or if
I had been asked to stop, or if my advice was obviously and
intentionally harmful (telling people to rm -rf / and such), but it
wasn't.

If people really are expected to know everything there is to know
before they try to help, is it really such a wonder that there's only
a few solid contributors left, and they're stressed from it?

This really has little to do with myself, Vitamin, the other person,
or what happened; it's about winehq's problems where it should be
concerned with helping people. There are definite civility problems;
of course on the side of those that seek help (As many feel like
customers instead of part of a community), but also on the side of
those that give it. Now, I can obviously understand mistreating people
who are just screwing around, or treating people who are trying to
help them like crap, but it's treating people that are trying to give
or get help the same way that bugs me. I can understand it how it
happens, like I said above, I'm not saying I'd be better in such a
situation.

I have nothing to gain from this being corrected that anyone else
seeking help wouldn't, and I'm not asking for any action to be taken
against Vitamin for anything, at least yet. I've got nothing against
him-- I might have a sour taste in my mouth when I cross him, but I
don't think he's a bad person. He knows and cares a lot about
something, tries to improve and help people with it, and dislikes
people who he perceives as stupid or harmful; even to the point where
he becomes a bit too annoyed and starts mislabeling people, or
treating people who don't deserve it wrongly. I don't blame him for
this, as I've done the same myself. Multiple times. Under different
circumstances, I could easily see us being friends.

What I want to see changed here isn't treatment of any specific
person-- in fact I would probably disagree with any action major
enough to matter being taken against Vitamin, as again, from what I've
seen he seems to be a valuable asset to Wine and #winehq-- just for
some sort of adoption of rules for how to treat other people being
established, even if they're as simple as:

1. Users: Be nice to the helpers. We are volunteers, not employees,
and have no obligation to help you.
2. Helpers and Admins: Remember Hanlon's razor.


P.S. I accidentally only sent this to one email address, and had some
trouble digging up the sent message to try to get it out again. Sorry
about any trouble this might have.



More information about the wine-devel mailing list