[kde-community] Plasmoids and Apps - was - Re: Applications in KDE Generation 5

[Sebastian Kügler]

Hi Aaron,

On Thursday, January 16, 2014 13:24:51 Aaron J. Seigo wrote:
> > > That particular statement has been used for years and I’ve
> > > patiently corrected it time and again, and it is still used to justify
> > > things like “don’t force this down our throat”. That is not fair play.
> >
> > Just to point out the obvious, while it might be human to lose patience,
> > it's not OK, and certainly not helpful.
> 
> After literally years of this, it is not a matter of “keeping one’s
> patience”.  I have kept my patience and tried to work through these issues
> over the course of some 6 years now. I think that is reasonable beyond
> reasonable, and I resent you asking the person who says “This has made me
> feel uncomfortable” to sit on it. It’s rather close to the ”blame the
> victim” pattern.

Had you said exactly that ("This has made me feel uncomfortable”), it would 
have been completely fine. Instead you implied ignorance and ill-intent. This 
makes all the difference.

> Martin Graesslin wrote: 'We all know Albert and we all know that his
> writing  reads more harsh than he intents to.’ IOW: it’s OK for Albert,
> because we all know he’s gruff and we should accommodate that. Others are
> routinely granted clemency for one reason or another, but should I not
> respond in perfect pitch to every email I get a different response.

I have pointed this out quite a lot of times to Albert, so the double-
standards-accuse you keep quoting is simply not true. (I personally find it 
offensive towards me, as did Martin.)

Albert's reaction is much more interesting: He usually noted that it was not 
his intention to come over as that, he explained what he meant, and he offered 
excuses. Most importantly, Albert has taken these complaints very seriously 
and has improved his behaviour. I can clearly see this reflected in his 
communication (not all the time, but more often than not lately), and he 
actively reflects on that and has no problem admitting that he sometimes 
expresses things in a way that others find intimidating or offensive, and that 
he's not very sensible to that. If everybody exposed this attitude towards 
criticism, many problems would vanish quicker than they showed up, they 
wouldn't escalate, and it wouldn't lead to grudge, or fear of opening email 
clients.

Also, this is not an isolated case, as you give the impression. It's a pattern 
that I and others noticed, and that hurts us as a team (us includes you). 
That's why I've invested the energy to point it out. (Surely, it would have 
been easier to ignore it, but that has repeatedly lead to escalations in the 
past and to the Plasma team almost falling apart. We decided to stop accepting 
this, and jump in earlier when we see this pattern exposed. You noted the 
reasons for this yourself, which makes it sadly ironic.)

So no, it's not OK to be grumpy, but it's more acceptable if one then does not 
act stubborn, but simply offers excuses and shows improvement in the future. 
Unfortunately, this thread doesn't seem to be leading to a solution or an 
improvement like that, so it doesn't feel like a worthwhile way to spend my 
time.

A personal remark, I regret that I personally, and we as a team and community 
haven't been able to shield you better from the negative sides of the 
responsibilities you accepted as a community leader, so that it has lead to a 
lack of energy to deal positively and well-assuming with others. You know I've 
tried hard. It kills me to see that this has worn you out in a way that it 
often seems to be hard to engage in a positive, forward-looking and productive 
way even among close friends. It really does. :'(

Amically,
-- 
sebas

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