> anyone that works in the service industry has to have an iron-clad patient and friendly manner with all forms of idiots and jerks
> giving each of these users a clue that there's something they could be doing to make life easier for the maintainers of the project that they are using for free.
The intersection of these two things is something I've been mulling over lately. In other words, how do we respond to the implicit proposition of "I'm going to pay you $0 and expect the effort and patience of a well-compensated service industry employee"? Putting in the mental energy to deescalate conflicts and be diplomatic with challenging personalities is something I'm willing and able to do... but not for a hobby/unpaid volunteer project!
But then there are many different types of people behind those interactions, including but not limited to:
* Someone who's genuinely a sociopath, or at best an entitled ne'er-do-well who just wants free labor
* Someone in full "socially inept engineer mode," with terse communication that comes across as curt or demanding via text, but are otherwise reasonable if you spend more time talking with them; in their own mind, they're probably just being "direct" or "efficient"
* Someone new to open source etiquette, who doesn't yet know what a good bug report or feature request looks like, but are willing to learn with a little guidance
Sometimes it's hard to tell the difference, and all of those cases can have the same effect of being rather draining, at least in the short term. Longer-term, I've had at least a few cases of someone who seemed like an entitled jerk at first blush, but turned out to be a valuable power user who stays engaged with the project and provides useful feedback. Of course power users come with their own challenges, like wanting to cram every feature under the sun into your project without appreciating the long-term maintenance costs. But at least they're more fun to work with!
> giving each of these users a clue that there's something they could be doing to make life easier for the maintainers of the project that they are using for free.
The intersection of these two things is something I've been mulling over lately. In other words, how do we respond to the implicit proposition of "I'm going to pay you $0 and expect the effort and patience of a well-compensated service industry employee"? Putting in the mental energy to deescalate conflicts and be diplomatic with challenging personalities is something I'm willing and able to do... but not for a hobby/unpaid volunteer project!
But then there are many different types of people behind those interactions, including but not limited to:
* Someone who's genuinely a sociopath, or at best an entitled ne'er-do-well who just wants free labor
* Someone in full "socially inept engineer mode," with terse communication that comes across as curt or demanding via text, but are otherwise reasonable if you spend more time talking with them; in their own mind, they're probably just being "direct" or "efficient"
* Someone new to open source etiquette, who doesn't yet know what a good bug report or feature request looks like, but are willing to learn with a little guidance
Sometimes it's hard to tell the difference, and all of those cases can have the same effect of being rather draining, at least in the short term. Longer-term, I've had at least a few cases of someone who seemed like an entitled jerk at first blush, but turned out to be a valuable power user who stays engaged with the project and provides useful feedback. Of course power users come with their own challenges, like wanting to cram every feature under the sun into your project without appreciating the long-term maintenance costs. But at least they're more fun to work with!