Katherine Mcmillan <kmcmi...@uottawa.ca> writes:
Hi Harald,
I am compiling a qualitative list of experiences of those who
have requested help from various user groups who/which have been
rejected or ignored, to try to find similarities between the
approaches used by the poster; a grounded theory
methodology. Would it be okay if I included yours?
Thank you for considering, Katie
Hi Katherine,
As someone who's been participating in multiple online tech fora
for well over two decades, i'd like to make some comments, based
on my own experiences.
Some common problematic approaches taken by posters include:
* Not demonstrating any awareness of group rules or culture.
In the case of OpenBSD, the 'netiquette' for the mailing lists is
laid out at https://www.openbsd.org/mail.html; each point is
explained with a rationale.
One thing not mentioned there is top-posting, which is common
outside tech communities, but often frowned upon within tech
communities. 'Top-posting' involves adding one's reply _before_
the message one is replying to, rather than _after_.
There are a few reasons this is discouraged in tech contexts; one
is that top-posting not only removes potentially important
context, but often results in important questions not being
answered. Many of those seeking help don't answer questions that
they've been asked - questions that have been asked in order to
diagnose what the problem might be. Top-posting seems to
exacerbate this phenomenon, and it can be exhausting to try to
help someone, only to find it's like pulling teeth.
* Treating volunteer communities as though they consist of paid
staff.
OpenBSD is primarily a volunteer effort - the
developers/maintainers, the documenters, the people trying to help
out on the mailing lists. Yet people regularly interact with the
OpenBSD community (and other volunteer-based tech communities) as
though we're a business offering a product seeking 'market share'
- and in a number of cases, act as though they're entitled to the
sort of support one would might associate with a _paid_ support
contract. But OpenBSD is developed/maintained _for the
developers/maintainers themselves_, even if it's nonetheless made
available for others who might also find it useful.
* Assuming that "lack of response" must mean "being ignored"
(often in a way that implies that the user feels entitled to
others' volunteer time).
There's a general phenomenon called "Warnock's dilemma":
"Warnock's dilemma, named for its originator Bryan Warnock, is the
problem of interpreting a lack of response to a posting in a
virtual community. The term originally referred to mailing list
discussions, but has been applied to Usenet posts, blogs, web
forums, and online content in general. The dilemma arises because
a lack of response does not necessarily imply that no one is
interested in the topic, but could also mean for example that
readers find the content to be exceptionally good (leaving nothing
for commenters to add.)"
-- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warnock's_dilemma
In the specific case of people asking for help, people will
usually not answer with "Hmm, I don't know", just for the sake of
answering - that would flood the group with useless
messages. Additionally, however, there are common behaviours that
can result in volunteers not feeling inclined to put in the effort
to help someone, which are described on the "I downvoted because
..." site:
https://idownvotedbecau.se/
Hope that helps - please feel free to contact me off-list with any
followup questions.
Alexis.
