Since you’re here @trohde , shouldn’t the now already too personal parts of this discussion belong in a different thread? I’d like to ask you to please split it.
With no offense intended, I think it has gone off-topic, at least for the nominal subject of the thread. No one will be able to really comment on the feature itself after so much noise. Either that, or the conversation has become stale beyond repair.
Speaking from experience, these kind of arguments are often endless and lead nowhere, unless all parties involved are willing to de-escalate.
Sorry, I’m afraid I cannot do this – I’m involved and biased, and I also wouldn’t know where exactly to split and what to keep … IF it should be done at all, then someone else should do it. But I’m not even sure that it should be done, because it is about something factual becoming personal, an ad rem dispute becoming ad hominem, and splitting it might muddy it.
Good on you – but IMO it’s like with skin colour: some people say they are colour-blind in this regard, and this simply is not true, there is no such thing as being colour blind when it comes to “race” … so the only way we can be totally sure that we (including myself here) do not care is when we really don’t know. But the moment we do know, we cannot exclude being biased one way or the other. I’m not happy about than, TBH.
I find it terrible when people I appreciate, people I actually LIKE – and that includes @Gia, and, believe it or not, it also includes you, @GreenAsJade – get at each others’ throats, it makes me want to cry, it makes me want to curl up in embryonal position, it makes me feel totally helpless. Maybe I should just have kept quiet and stayed out of all this, but I just CAN’T keep quiet when I feel there is some injustice, and in my perception Gia was – in the beginning – criticizing things on a factual level, and at some point GaJ began reacting on a personal level … and then Gia (of course, and unfortunately, and IMO very understandably also) joined there.
I definitely know that Gia had (I’d wish that she still has!) so! much! love and kindness (maybe a tiny bit less patience) for OGS – even if sometimes somewhat “edgy” (don’t know for sure whether that term is 100% correct here as English is not my mother tongue), but that is part of her temperament, and it also shows IMO that she is/was really invested in the community.
And I know for sure that GaJ of course also has love and kindness for OGS (and maybe a tiny bit less patience for the community?) – and maybe the same thing with being a bit “edgy” applies here also?
So … maybe you’re somewhat sort of polar opposites, both also with blind spots for the tribulations of the other side …
Back when I was young there were a few times when friends got into fights in my flat, and at least twice I was able to intervene by angering BOTH sides so much that they agreed that I was actually the asshole, then told them where to find stuff for preparing tee and coffee, and then I left the flat (remember: my own flat!), left them alone, only to return after an hour to find them sitting together peacefully, sipping whatever hot liquid they had prepared …
But today I’m not as good at that anymore, I’m afraid. But if you folks could both agree over something like me being the idiot and get together and talk earnestly, I’d really be glad.
I assume you’re referring to that incident … that was different though, and, unfortunately, you’re apparently still missing information
There were other incidents before, which we never really dealt with, that IMO would have needed more internal discussion, they just happened, and some mods left, and the community didn’t seem to notice. Maybe it also went that way because we as “OGS” needed to continue functioning …
In the case you assumedly are referring to, however, that person managed to pull people over to her side – heck, even I was supportive at first – whom that person, of course, didn’t tell everything, otherwise some people probably wouldn’t have suddenly even resigned games they were playing with me. But because I uncovered the intrigues of that person, I was suddenly the villain for those who did (and still do) not know what had happened
Personally, I still want to fix the problem that they reported here.
I want them to enjoy the site in the way they were able to before the problem was caused.
I also just wanted to share my exasperation at how their comments land, the effect that they have, and I fell for the temptation of “fighting offence with offence”.
This is a real and ongoing thing.
That is precisely how it comes across. It was precisely this that triggered the whole thing.
And it is not just GIa - I have reacted in the same way to other folk, who’s gender I have no idea about, in the same way in the past.
It makes me feel “why do I have to be polite while you are being so rude and demanding of me?”
This question is the reason why I’m rude.
The bottom line is that I wish users would be able to see that the “OGS” that they attack (“ridiculous”) is just the people right here, and railing against the anonymous “terrible ridiculous OGS” demonstrates a lack of understanding and/or caring about that.
“This is a problem, this feature ruins it for me” - this is easiy received as constructive criticism.
“This situation is ridiculous, why doesn’t OGS honour the settings they’ve given me” - this lands as an attack especially in the context of a thread where “OGS” just said that they will fix it.
All that said, once again I’m reminded that rudeness never does good, even in the fight against rudeness, and have once again resolved to remember that next time around.
This time is better than before because the underlying “cause” has been surfaced well, and I’ve appreciated the constructive and supportive feedback (special thanks to JD for his post that crystalized how it unfolded in this thread).
BTW, there is a partial answer to the question of “why does someone who does dev work have to be more polite and understanding of rudeness than someone who is requesting change?”.
It’s because devs have to bear in mind the power imbalance. I totally appreciate how frustrating it is to want something changed, and to have to be polite to a person who has the ability to change it but won’t do so yet. It’s incumbent on folk who, through whatever luck of the draw, can code to be mindful of this (speaking to myself here of course) and a bit forgiving of hyperbole designed to prioritize an issue.
Whether or not it was intended that way, an unprompted comment saying “I don’t know if y’all realize how ridiculous it is” comes across as quite hostile. Whether or not it was intended that way, it can be read as an accusation that other people are obtuse for not realising something is clearly ridiculous.
I’ve seen people be critical of developers, with comments along the lines of this is silly, why haven’t you changed it? and how is this still an issue, I can’t believe it’s not fixed yet!?!!?? Frustration born of impatience, and it gets taken out on the developers. Gia’s comment was a reply to their own comment asking for an update. Asking for an update, not receiving a response, then coming in and making the comment that they did, unprompted, comes off as frustration directed at the developers for not recognising the issue and not acting fast enough. I can see how it can be read this way, whether or not that was the intention.
When we have these kinds of discussions GaJ often seeks clarification on what exactly people are saying, and what they think the consequences will be. People will have different views on the issue, and there is often a back and forth.
Before GaJ was criticised for taking things personally, Gia was taking things personally and accusing GaJ of attacking her words
When GaJ takes something personally he “needs therapy” but apparently it’s fine for Gia to start accusing people of attacking her.
Gia later makes this comment:
Imagine if I made the following comment in regards to a new feature:
I think people are undervaluing how much this negatively affects someone in a situation like mine.
Now imagine I post this instead:
I think people are undervaluing how much this negatively affects someone in a situation like mine. But I guess I’m a complete moron for thinking people will care.
The second one is clearly condescending and hostile. Do people see how the text “But obviously I’m deluded in expecting for this to matter” is quite rude and condescending? Perhaps I may be accused of twisting Gia’s “words to mean whatever they want them to mean”, but I, in my honest assessment, and I could be wrong, see the comments to be rude and condescending.
The next part of Gia’s comment is also condescending:
This all comes off as rude, it reeks of frustration at the developers and it reeks of condescension. ALL of this was before GaJ made the comment where he used the word “hysterical” and spoke of needing to be more mature. That absolutely doesn’t make GaJ justified in saying every single thing that he did, but at least GaJ was willing to step back and acknowledge some wrong doing on his part. There’s been no recognition by Gia that they might have done something wrong, apparently others are just “so emotionally illiterate that they can’t tell criticism and personal attacks apart”.
In a thread where GaJ acknowledged issues and was trying to work out a solution, I totally understand why he might get frustrated when people keep saying this is “ridiculous” and accusing him of attacking their words as he tries to work things out in conversation. I can also understand why Gia would take offence to some of the things GaJ said. These kinds of things tend to snowball. But I take issue with the accusation that this was initiated by GaJ and that it was all because he took good faith criticisms too personally.
