Re: [9front] Questions about community dynamics

[ieliedonge@wilsonb.com]

Kurt,

Thank you for the thorough response. Point taken about there not being a single
community and that devs just kind of loosely operate on the honor system around
here.

I'll take your hints and poke around in other communities as well to find some
comfy place.

> I find computers in general discouraging.

You sure do make up for it with encouraging feedback. Much appreciated.

- B. Wilson

Kurt H Maier <khm@sciops.net> wrote:
> On Sun, Sep 24, 2023 at 09:02:39AM +0900, ieliedonge@wilsonb.com wrote:
> > For example, some communities operate in a somewhat laissez faire manner,
> > letting whatever happens happens. Other communities have explicit moderation.
> > Others still have strong enough rapport that people just naturally get led into
> > cooperative, helpful communication over time.
> 
> 9front is far from one community.  
> 
> There's the irc channel #cat-v, which has its roots in contrarian idiocy
> and people being mean to each other.  In #cat-v, we ban people for
> belligerent ignorance, help-vampirism, and bigotry.  There are five 
> people who can moderate that channel.  Most of them write most of the 
> code in 9front.  The other one is me, a historical accident nobody's 
> corrected yet.  I expect to be first against the wall when the
> revolution comes.
> 
> Then there's this mailing list.  It's run by sl and I won't put words in
> his mouth about how he chooses to run it.  sl also runs the 9front.org
> website.  
> 
> There's a 9front community on gridchat who prefer it as a chat medium to
> the hellhole #cat-v.  There's another one on discord.  There are
> probably others.  Some of them run their own websites and knowledge
> resources, like wiki.a-b.xyz.  These communities are run by other people
> according to their own priorities.  
> 
> Most people who use 9front dip a toe in many of these options and wind
> up gravitating towards a couple of them.  #cat-v and this mailing list
> are the oldest, but that doesn't make them the correctest.  That
> decision is up to each user to make for themselves.  They're all valid
> communities worth participating in.
> 
> Getting your code in the tree just requires consent from anyone with
> commit access to the repository.  Ori and sl manage those resources.
> Getting commit access yourself is just as easy; I'm not aware of anyone
> who asked for it having been turned away.  That doesn't mean it's
> impossible, it just means the people who have asked have generally had
> code to contribute.
> 
> > An element of the question is me wondering what 9front's values are. I see a
> > problem with the habits of some on this mailing list but maybe that's just my
> > uncalibrated view as an outsider.
> 
> 9front is an operating system; it cannot have values.  Each community of
> 9front developers and users develops their own set of values.  I can
> only really speak for #cat-v, because it's the only one I have any
> moderation powers in.  I focus on banning hate speech advocates and
> tire-kickers who make unreasonable demands on other people's time
> without attempting to develop investigative skills of their own.  Other
> than that it's basically anarchy.
> 
> > It's probably obvious that I'm also thinking about the recent discussion around
> > a sed patch. As an onlooker, I see a few people giving a thumbs up and one
> > loud, aggressive voice simply yelling that it's a worthless patch, without
> > articulating anything helpful. As someone who'd like to eventually contribute,
> > that kind of thing is pretty discouraging.
> 
> I find computers in general discouraging.  Learning when to ignore hiro
> and when to listen to him is advanced black magic that can only come
> from years of experience.  It's the same way with unix.
> 
> > So my meaning of "facilitation" here is asking both whether such
> > a sentiment is part of the 9front community and if so whether there is any kind
> > of mechanism to make things more welcoming.
> 
> As you can probably predict by now, this all depends on which 9front
> community you're trying to participate in.  In the short term, I
> recommend not taking it personally when someone freaks out about a
> patch.  In the old days, pre-9front, the process was to submit a patch
> and then get ignored for years.  Arguably, the whining is an
> improvement.  If you don't want the peanut gallery, you can always email
> some developers privately.
> 
> As for this particular patch, I'm ambivalent, but unix compatibility has
> not in the past been a high priority, because plan 9 is not unix.  Maybe
> this patch belong's in ape's sed.  I don't remember whether someone
> investigated whether ape's sed has the same behavior as plan 9 sed?
> 
> Thanks for doing the work, whatever the results.
> 
> khm