@Moon Venting to a sympathetic ear is an important part of coping with life. We're all at capacity and investing energy in one thing means deprioritizing something else.
On the internet is hard to know if someone wants solutions or sympathy or something in between, and people make honest mistakes, but when someone posts "not looking for solutions, but am I unreasonable for thinking X should have an option to Y" and people respond "just use Z", that is nothing other than obnoxious.
The classic of course is the ubiquitous Stack Overflow Q&A that goes:
"I'm trying to do X, is there a way to make Y do it?" "Why on Earth would you want to do X?"
On the other hand even that one can be warranted, as people have a bad pattern of looking for solutions to their incidental problem at hand rather than stepping back and looking at reaching their actual goal.
On the other other hand, the above happens even when people show their work and explain the circumstances that make their problem essential to the goal.
@clacke the context of my subtoot was someone complaining about getting bad recommendations to use libre software, yeah. I got turned off because there was also an implied "this turns me off of all open source software". I was trying to explore how in some cases, the recommendation is born out of an earlier annoyance with a person not doing the minimum to help themself. Basically just "you aren't just annoyed by us, we are also annoyed by you"
@clacke I am actually in the middle. I remember when Linux stuff was way more hostile. I went into the Debian IRC in the late 90s and asked for help setting up Xinerama and someone berated me "why do you even want dual monitors?". It's 2024 and I've never gone back in a Debian IRC channel because of that prick.
@clacke I actually agree with the person and wish that people would stop being like "just use [free thing that sucks]". I think that in many cases, the free software extremist is, uh...legitimately autistic and doesn't realize they're being incredibly annoying.
@Moon I think there's a difference between "ugh, why does this thing suck" and "ugh, why aren't people investing effort in my requirements", or worse, "why aren't you people investing effort".
@Moon I was going to go into libre software specifically next. 😊
I really really want people to have a usability-first attitude and build software that solves real problems and treats people fairly. I want to be one of those people. I want projects that serve a lot of people and involve a proper development organization to be structured like that. I think it's an essential part of project maturity.
So I get sad when I see people dismissing feedback with "whatever, you're a niche use case, most people don't care, this is how the software works, why don't you make some effort", etc.
On the flip side I get sad too when someone just Built A Thing, gave it to the world, and they get back "why doesn't it do X, huh? you're making the world worse".
@clacke sometimes people talk about software as a social activity but I don't think they think through the implications of that. It also means you shouldn't objectify the person who made the software, she isn't a slave. has to make sacrifices with her time to make the features she needs in there for herself; and isn't good at every single task, maybe isn't good at so good at working with others either. so, accepting the free software with grace even if it has problems.
I used to just want to tinker with stuff and build random tech, but as I get older what I want to do more than anything is to get in the middle and talk to both of these sides in a more empathetic way.
That's what I enjoy in my role as a PO at work now. I'm trying to learn as much as I can about how to balance these things, and whenever in the future I can create space in my life for doing work outside Work, I want to bring that experience into the libre world and help developers help the world.
@Moon If I'm asking for alternatives, it is usually because I am looking for something free, as opposed to stealing something. I know that doesn't really make it any less toxic though :angrylaugh:
I just did a landscape rough draft using MS paint and clip art due to my cheapness 🤣
@Moon All of this, yes, 100%. People can't expect a young adult in mom's basement to be a community relations expert. Or an old nerd in their own basement for that matter. People don't have the skills and motivation for doing everything.
In the ideal world we'd have people passionate for community relations, usability, generally organizing things and technical development all working together.
I want to somehow create the conditions for more of that to happen, but currently I'm at capacity trying to run fast enough in the rat race that I don't fall behind.
@Moon Yeah! There are more people like you for sure.
I want to get people who want to make stuff for people, people who want to just deep-nerd into hard problems and people who can figure out what people want, all into one project. That could work wonders.
@Moon Yes. As a project though, I'll want people not to have "me problems" with the project. And that means getting people with empathy into the support channels.
Cranky nerds are important, but don't let them near user support. 😅
Like, cranky nerds and cranky "wow I hate free software now" people ... they can both benefit from each other if they just don't have to suffer contact with each other. 😃
It's a problem as old as free software though, how to get people who are not deep in the bits and bytes to care about free software. The most common solution is to pay people.
@hakui@Moon@romin long nose tribe say shiny rock for many grugs mammoth meat grug say shiny rock look smoother and smaller than last shiny rock long nose tribe say look nice easy carry grug no want shiny rock anyway grug want mammoth meat
Sometimes in FOSS discussions it sounds like the only people who ever have a calling, who can't stop doing a thing because they have to do it, are deep tech nerds. But that's not true. The other people with a calling aren't much in software though.
There are so many community organizers and volunteers out there helping people with real-world problems. Some of what they do benefits from software support, and they often rely on proprietary software to do it. They get locked in and the coporations extract rent from money people donate to social causes.
Imagine getting our surplus of people who just want to build something, anything, just want to be useful, and applying them to those problems.
Most of what I see along these lines is like save the world hackathons, and maybe I'm unfair, but most of these seem misguided at best, insincere at worst.