Don't get pwn3d: Why Professionalism Matters In Community Discussions
Some years ago (as penance for working at MySQL during some temporary corporate brain-damage about Free Software licensing) I began volunteering at the Free Software Foundation.
For the most part, I have spent my time providing support on Free Software licensing questions for the FSF Compliance Lab and helping out on the GPL v3 effort.
While both activities are quite rewarding, the work at the compliance lab tends to be most interesting. We serve a wide variety of people and organizations who have a correspondingly wide range of experience, views and questions. This leads to rewarding experiences, as well as experiences that are more educational in nature.
While I don't discuss the specific details of any particular question sent to the compliance lab, a recent exchance is being made public by the submitter (this isn't that uncommon) and I don't mind at least discussing the general issues encountered (and linking to the exchange, if I can find it.)
The submitter (let's call them "Coyote", if they decide to not post the messages and don't want to be identified) has led me on a merry little goose chase where they seemed to work fairly hard to misinterprete most of the rather sloppy answers that I provided. As the mail thread grew and grew, I got more and more irritated (and sloppy).
Finally, at the climax of the exchange, this little gem emerged:
…
Me: Your questions have been less than clear.
Coyote: your answers have been less than forthcoming and offtopic. We can play this game all day, I have what I needed from you, I await Dave's response.
Coyote: This issue can potentially apply to far more than this particular instance, however it is one that was easy to illustrate this. I will be publishing these emails in whole. Estoppel is a wonderful thing :)
Me: Coyote, stating that we don't have a formal policy is hardly damning (unless I have a tremendously weak understanding of estoppel)
Coyote: There is more than the fact that you dont have an official policy, there are other things that were said that, as a whole, paint a picture. Estoppel can apply in this case when the whole picture is looked at instead of the individual peices by themselves. Maybe I caught you on a bad day but your responses to me now are less than professional, overreacting and infact somewhat childish. You were the one avoiding the gpl questions all along, and to a point belittling my knowledge a bit from the first reply, even after I explained my knowledge of certain facts you continued through at least 2 more replies continuing to avoid the question asked and belittling my knowledge.
Maybe after you get some sleep, smoke a cigarette, have a drink, or whatever it is that you do to relax things will change. I formally request that until this is done that you dont reply to me anymore except to forward Daves response on the issue.
This definitely raised my blood pressure a few notches. I may even have cursed… It is hard to remember because, as the kids say, I was so completely pwn3d.
However, the last bit of advice provided was rather good - I caught some dinner and had a cold one. Then I came back and wrote new, detailed and professional (or so I think) answers to every issue raised in each of the nine messages in the thread.
If you are working as a community advocate or ombudsman, you can't give careless answers and you definitely can't let yourself get suckered into exchanges that don't help to solve the problem at hand. Your job is to give professional, ethical and considered advice to the communities you are supporting. Even if you write for one person, write as if everyone was watching.
In the end, Coyote didn't seem to be very impressed by the improved answers - hopefully they will be more useful once he does whatever it is that he does to relax.
However, I felt pretty good about it - while I did get pointlessly upset for a bit, going back to give more considered responses meant that I am now thinking a bit more clearly about the specific issue of how trademarks interact with the GPL and the broad issue of how other mechanisms can limit the freedom of Free Software licenses. Also, I do mean to provide good service to people who write the Compliance Lab - I did a bad job on the first round and doing a better job on the second round gave me a good feeling.
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Posted on Sunday, July 30th, 2006 at 1:48
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