On Thu, Jun 19, 2014 at 9:36 AM, Dmitriy Lyubimov <[email protected]> wrote:
> i have an impression that mr. Dunning has masterfully concealed a very > targeted insult in his carefully worded statement with the sole purpose of > forcing certain participants to go into defensive and to turn a technical > discussion into trading insults, in which he has obviously partially > succeeded. > > I have an impression this has not been an isolated incident on mr. > Dunning's part in the past, and i have strong suspicion that it was the > wrong balance of technical merit and posturing in the project that drove > more than one accomplished committer or candidate out in the past. > > I also have been receiving an impression that I am next such target on > mr. Dunnings part just because my arguments are not technically favorable > where he needs them to be favorable for whatever other-than-technical > reason. I love the code in the project, that's in part why i am candid in > its discussions, but it is repeated agrumentum ad hominem from mr. Dunning > that is very close to driving me out. And I don't think beers can smooth > that. > I can say that my only intent was to try to help get the tone on the mailing list back to a more gentle and encouraging path. I did not intend any insult and purposely tried to refer to all of us together as having the problem. In general, the only target I have is building up the Mahout community. I don't want to encourage a negative thread to continue very far, but I do feel that there is a difference between technical discussions about technical merit, technical discussions that descend into personal attacks and discussions about the form, tone and manner of discussions. Only the second is, in my opinion, ad hominem. I think we all agree that it is a bad thing. The first form of discussion is what we should mostly have, but occasionally there needs to be a bit of discussion of the third kind. In particular, occasional feedback such as the impassioned comment by Yash just now that things are not working right can be very, very helpful. Whenever anybody gives this feedback it is important to step back a bit and think about what it means. For instance, even though I disagree with Dmitriy's assessment of my motives, I am going to think carefully about how to improve his impressions. This third kind of discussion can be delicate and difficult. It can be distasteful to have in public, but I think that we all owe it to the project to try to make things work better if we possibly can.
