Would one potential solution be to create a secondary optional gatekeeper?
The basic idea would be - don't submit directly. First submit to the community gatekeepers, they will look over your work, and if they think it will meet approval, they'll pass it on. Otherwise they can give helpful feedback. They can have strong standards about how contributors are treated.
This extra step can be optional - if you don't mind rough treatment or are confident of approval you can skip it...
The result: less work for existing gatekeeper(s) without changing their process, more friendly and helpful interactions for contributors, and no slowdown if you really know what you are doing.
Of course the cost is that people need to volunteer to be that secondary gatekeeper! (and have some tough skin when interfacing with the primary gatekeeper)
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In an ideal world everyone would have the skills and interest to efficiently be pleasant to everyone else while vetting infinite code. But in this world of finite time and not everyone having every skill it can make sense to have some more "division of labor".
That said - I'm very curious if there are aspects of this that I'm missing that make this perspective insufficient.
It could be a solution but that already kind of exists (with forums/IRC etc).
However, these "gatekeepers" can be just as unhelpful.
I have been studying this behavior for some time - and it's very interesting. I have found that C++ communities to contain members that talk down to new members, yet in Assembly language communities (which is arguably a harder more advanced language than C++) I have seen members offer extremely helpful advice and even sample code.
Sometimes though people can be too friendly - in some communities people post something they are working on (which is basically a copy/paste from the sample code provided by the language/library) and the other members are like "THAT IS AWESOME".
I'm not saying library/language/framework developers have to remote into people's computers and hold their hands - but at least try to show some professionalism and respect. Instead of replying with "this has been asked a 1000 times - please use the search" and close/lock the thread, reply with "Have you seen these other threads? They may contain what you are looking for - otherwise let me know". The later will go a lot further in encouraging new members to join and current members to stay. To me, in my opinion, the first indicates a lack of knowledge and/or maturity on your part.
From what I hear, the subversion guys are always polite and have used this to battle off trolls. Be immature as the trolls and you are just feeding the trolls...and the sign is clearly posted "Don't feed the trolls".
The issue is that it really appears that it is a clash in personalities. When someone says they love R's community and then emphasis that it is a terrible language they lost me. In Open Source there are many examples of "mean" gate keepers. We see splits in the communities with examples all over i.e. ffmpeg vs libav.
This isn't the way to go about change by belittling the language and then say ALL of mail list when he has a personal issue with one person. This is not going to be healthy nor helpful unless there is documentation on conflict resolution that already took place.
Comments
Would one potential solution be to create a secondary optional gatekeeper?
The basic idea would be - don't submit directly. First submit to the community gatekeepers, they will look over your work, and if they think it will meet approval, they'll pass it on. Otherwise they can give helpful feedback. They can have strong standards about how contributors are treated.
This extra step can be optional - if you don't mind rough treatment or are confident of approval you can skip it...
The result: less work for existing gatekeeper(s) without changing their process, more friendly and helpful interactions for contributors, and no slowdown if you really know what you are doing.
Of course the cost is that people need to volunteer to be that secondary gatekeeper! (and have some tough skin when interfacing with the primary gatekeeper)
==
In an ideal world everyone would have the skills and interest to efficiently be pleasant to everyone else while vetting infinite code. But in this world of finite time and not everyone having every skill it can make sense to have some more "division of labor".
That said - I'm very curious if there are aspects of this that I'm missing that make this perspective insufficient.
It could be a solution but that already kind of exists (with forums/IRC etc).
However, these "gatekeepers" can be just as unhelpful.
I have been studying this behavior for some time - and it's very interesting. I have found that C++ communities to contain members that talk down to new members, yet in Assembly language communities (which is arguably a harder more advanced language than C++) I have seen members offer extremely helpful advice and even sample code.
Sometimes though people can be too friendly - in some communities people post something they are working on (which is basically a copy/paste from the sample code provided by the language/library) and the other members are like "THAT IS AWESOME".
I'm not saying library/language/framework developers have to remote into people's computers and hold their hands - but at least try to show some professionalism and respect. Instead of replying with "this has been asked a 1000 times - please use the search" and close/lock the thread, reply with "Have you seen these other threads? They may contain what you are looking for - otherwise let me know". The later will go a lot further in encouraging new members to join and current members to stay. To me, in my opinion, the first indicates a lack of knowledge and/or maturity on your part.
From what I hear, the subversion guys are always polite and have used this to battle off trolls. Be immature as the trolls and you are just feeding the trolls...and the sign is clearly posted "Don't feed the trolls".
Not defending anyone just a 30,000 foot view.
The issue is that it really appears that it is a clash in personalities. When someone says they love R's community and then emphasis that it is a terrible language they lost me. In Open Source there are many examples of "mean" gate keepers. We see splits in the communities with examples all over i.e. ffmpeg vs libav.
This isn't the way to go about change by belittling the language and then say ALL of mail list when he has a personal issue with one person. This is not going to be healthy nor helpful unless there is documentation on conflict resolution that already took place.
Just my humble opinion.
Down vote for giving an opinion great to see the defenders of Hacker News.