[haiku-development] Banning Jorge G. Mare
- From: Ingo Weinhold <ingo_weinhold@xxxxxx>
- To: haiku-development@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Thu, 13 May 2010 20:33:24 +0200
Greetings,
first of all, this not a voting thread -- I will start one in a few days
(with "[VOTE]" in the subject and a concise and neutral message text). This
thread is for presenting and discussing arguments for/against banning Jorge
G. Mare (aka koki) from the project. The primary audience are the
contributors with voting privilege.
What prompts me to write this mail is for one thing the developments in the
"Attribution for Haiku website design and theme" thread on the general
mailing list [1], but actually more importantly that I finally took the
time to watch the "How Open Source Projects Survive Poisonous People (And
You Can Too)" Google Tech Talk [2]. People have linked to it several times
already (unsurprisingly in "Jorge discussion" threads) and I can recommend
it to anyone who hasn't seen it yet.
It's not that the talk reveals some surprising new ideas, but rather that
it puts things in a practical perspective. The main point is that a project
has a goal and it should be able to recognize and deal with people who
(intentionally or unintentionally) hinder the progress towards that goal.
That also includes long term contributors. The people giving the talk even
mention a project that kicked out the project founder when at some point
his ideas for the project's direction where not compatible with those of
the other contributors.
As most of you already know, Jorge left and rejoined the project more than
once. During each phase of his participation long-winded, emotionally
draining discussions ensued, usually causing him to leave eventually. In
the past the argument has been brought up that something must be wrong with
the project, when such an important contributor as Jorge is driven away. I
say that in fact the opposite is true. It is a sign of a healthy project
when people not compatible with the other contributors are repelled.
Unfortunately this time things are escalating again and Jorge doesn't show
any inclination to leave the project on his own volition. That's why I
suggest to permanently ban him from all official communication channels of
the project (mailing lists, IRC, website, trac). In hindsight, it would
have saved a lot of time and drama had we done that years ago.
Well, let me get to the heart of the matter. Why is Jorge "poisonous" to
the project? His contributions in the marcom, website, artwork, and
translation departments are definitely valued (though he openly calls
certain people (including myself) who state that liars -- but more below),
so the reasons better be good. They are:
1. Jorge wastes people's time
As said in the tech talk one means to identify a poisonous person is
mailing list statistics: If you look at your mailing list and see
long-winded threads with almost half of the mails written by one single
person you have a good indicator.
A prime example of such a thread is "Tentative approval for paying for the
fliers" [3]. Total number of mails: 65, Jorge: 26 (40%). More than the
following five (Scott, Urias, Axel, Niels, myself -- each 4 or 5) together.
The still ongoing (or hopefully not) "Attribution for Haiku website design
and theme" thread [1] contains 58 mails so far, with 19 of them by Jorge
(33%). Two people have contributed 4 mails each, everyone else even less.
More:
* "Haiku User Groups" [4]: 18/54 (33%)
* "please keep non-GSoC comments out of these threads; was [GSsC] usermode
Haiku or file system development" [5]: 16/47 (34%)
All of these are threads from the last six months. There've been plenty
more over the years.
While generally active participation in communication is nothing bad,
producing a third or more of the mail traffic, with most of the rest being
replies to those mails by others clearly points to a problem. Besides that
a closer look at the threads in question shows that those turn
dysfunctional (concerning actual discussion progress) after a few mails.
Just deleting the 200+ individual mails of the above example threads takes
several minutes (assuming 1 mail/s), which for, say, 1000 subscribers
results in a total of more than a week of full-time work lost. This is not
counting the time people lose actually reading the mails. And this is also
not counting the time of the contributors who get engaged in those threads.
This massive amount of wasted time alone rectifies banning Jorge.
2. Jorge is unable or unwilling to communicate in a respectful manner
Particularly when other people are in disagreement with him Jorge uses a
manipulative discussion style, employing several rhetorical techniques to
evade or twist arguments, or divert the discussion entirely. This has been
pointed out to him several times [6, 7]. Which he utterly ignored, carrying
on as usual.
Such a behavior shows utter disrespect for people trying to actually
discuss with him and is simply unacceptable. This alone rectifies banning
Jorge.
3. Jorge is unable or unwilling to accept other opinions
It is only natural that in a diverse group of people such as the Haiku
community there are a good deal of conflicting opinions regarding various
related topics. Those conflicts are resolved by way of discussion on our
mailing lists. Usually leading to one party being convinced by the other's
arguments or at least accepting that the majority shares the opposing
opinion.
Jorge has failed repeatedly at that. By employing manipulative discussion
techniques (2.) and reiterating his point ad infinitum he drags on
discussions unnecessarily (1.) without any effect other than wasting
people's time and causing immense emotional drain.
Over time he has constructed an imaginary group -- apparently consisting of
people disagreeing with him on certain topics or just criticizing his
discussion style -- that he continuously denounces as liars and "Jorge
haters". Originally just referred to as "people like <name>" (replace
<name> with the name of a supposed group member), later as "clique" or
"in-group", that group has recently reached "cosa nostra" status [8] and is
a full-grown conspiracy against Jorge [9, 10].
I'm not the only one suspecting a mental disorder. Considering a rationally
founded agenda seems even scarier, though.
At any rate, Jorge has repeatedly demonstrated that he has trouble
interacting with people who have opinions conflicting with his. Again, that
alone rectifies banning him.
CU, Ingo
[1]
//www.freelists.org/post/haiku/Attribution-for-Haiku-website-design-and-theme
[2] http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-4216011961522818645#
[3]
//www.freelists.org/post/haiku/Tentative-approval-for-paying-for-the-fliers
[4] //www.freelists.org/post/haiku/Haiku-User-Groups
[5]
//www.freelists.org/post/haiku/please-keep-nonGSoC-comments-out-of-these-threads-was-GSsC-usermode-Haiku-or-file-system-development
[6]
//www.freelists.org/post/haiku/Propose-for-banning-was-Reducing-paper-waste-at-conferences,16
[7]
//www.freelists.org/post/haiku/Tentative-approval-for-paying-for-the-fliers,61
[8]
http://www.haikuware.com/20100509498/my-haiku-library-and-application-rant#comment-5158
[9]
//www.freelists.org/post/haiku/Attribution-for-Haiku-website-design-and-theme,21
[10]
//www.freelists.org/post/haiku/Attribution-for-Haiku-website-design-and-theme,22
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