I heard a thought recently that went something along the lines of "if any outcome requires 'everyone to just X' then it is not a realistic outcome because everyone will not just X"

I've started to apply this line of reasoning to things like this. "If everyone would just be nicer" sounds great, but we can't expect it to happen.

It sounds defeatist but I think it can also be used to try and reframe things to find real possible solutions instead of wishful solutions

For example: "We know that everyone will not just spontaneously start being kinder. Is there a way we can incentivize people to be kinder when using our platform?"

Yes you can argue that people should just be kind, that we should not have to go out of our way incentivize good behaviour, but unfortunately everyone will not just, so we do have to give them a reason to

Edit: to your "how is cyberbullying real" comment, this sort of thing is an observation that we cannot control other people, we cannot expect them to just, but we can control our own reactions to things.

It's a good thing imo to point out to people that they do not have to take the ire of a random internet user very seriously

Edit2 of course we should not expect people to just stop taking the ire of random internet users seriously either ...

The “everyone will not just X” issue is, I think, less of an obstacle when you don’t need the “everyone” part.

If “Y% of people just did X, then things would be Y% • Z amount better” is a much better plan than “if everyone just did X, then the problem would be solved.” .

Some proportion of people are likely to be convinced by an argument that they should do something because it would make things better if they did.

You can’t practically expect to convince everyone, nor even almost everyone, to change their behavior with such an argument/plea.

But, if a marginal change in how many people do X would produce a marginal change in goodness of outcome, it can be effective to make such an argument/plea.

I claim that “how kind people are” is a situation where marginal improvements in what fraction of people are at least V kind, produces a commensurate improvement in outcomes.

That’s not to say that improving incentives wouldn’t also be good.

> Some proportion of people are likely to be convinced by an argument that they should do something because it would make things better if they did

"it would make things better if they did" is an incentive. As incentives go, it's a fairly weak one that doesn't tend to convince people

The problem with this sort of incentive in internet comment sections is that a lot of the nasty people don't tend to stick around long. They may just be doing a drive by nasty post. They may have even made a new burner account just to make one post.

If people are transient, then they will never see the outcome of "it would make things better", so they never reap any benefit from it

Anyways, my point was that argument is still trying to convince people of an incentive

Edit: I suppose what this is highlighting is that the "people will not just X" is really more "people will not just (spontaneously) X".

You need to give them reasons to X, if you want them to X.

Well, is “responding to someone saying ‘if people (“just”) do X, then Z” really “spontaneous”?

Like, presumably the person saying something like that at least thinks that the people listening would prefer Z to be the case. If they are right, then, if marginal increases in the doing of X results in marginal increases of Z, and the people listening want Z, then saying “the more you X, the more Z” seems like a sometimes reasonably effective way to cause more Z by causing people to do more X.

You can call that “an incentive” if you want - that wouldn’t be incorrect - though I think that word often has connotations of “artificial external incentive”, and I don’t think that’s always so necessary.

It would help to abandon platforms that encourage harassment. Or if such platforms actually bothered to fix their design. It doesn't matter if the encouragement is purposeful or by accident.

Have you noticed that those discussions weren't common before people adopted GitHub?

> Have you noticed that those discussions weren't common before people adopted GitHub?

This is objectively not true.

They were common, just not as visible. If you knew which mailing lists to be on, you saw all the same stuff.

If you used those mailing lists often enough you had a kill file so you could filter out those who were intentionally disruptive.

I think the negative contribution from Github is the "gamification" of development. Stars, in particular, are emblematic of this problem, as it grants a measure of "apparent quality" yet it's not safeguarded in any way at all so now it just measures "apparent popularity."

The mechanisms you have to employ to be popular are almost diametrically opposed to those you have to do to write quality code.

It was much less. Github is a social media, it has the like/dislike button

Usenet was much worse, the way I remember it.

> "how is cyber bullying real? Like just close your eyes lmao".

I guess I read this with a widely different angle of view.

I read it more like "it's fine to disagree with feedback", or "it's fine not to contribute 'back'", and you shouldn't feel guilty about this, or think people are guilty when they do these things.

I think having those things in mind can help feel better and have better communication.

About bullying, the author actually explicitly says that it's not okay:

> A user has the freedom to grumble about the software, or how some facet of the software means that they are not going to use the software. (Well, freedom within the constraints of the rules of whatever system they are using to document that grumble; if they’re doing so on someone else’s computer, whoever runs that computer has the freedom not to permit that grumble…). And, IMHO, the expectation that they should be free to do so without harassment.

> And developers should publish or not publish their code, but empathize that other people will potentially use it and might ask for things or point out perceived issues.

I think this is wrong and the problem. Developers really don't owe users anything other than honesty, which can be fulfilled by a generic disclaimer of all responsibility. It isn't "they don't owe you anything, but..."

Three notes:

1) What many FOSS developers need is therapy, because they have boundary issues that allow the criticism of freeloaders to register as a problem. You're already doing enough for freeloaders by contributing an enormous amount of effort to the ecosystem, and if they have a problem with you, they should just fork off. Most of these people are whining for you to fix something that helps them with their six-figure jobs, they're the last people who need charity.

2) A lot of Open Source isn't actually a gift, it's specwork and an act of ingratiating yourself to an industry that mostly hires friends and acquaintances. Which is why it's almost all software useful for big business, rather than at users. If this is what you're doing, be honest with yourself. If this is what you're doing, the demands of strangers are important, because you're cozying up to them with the hope of making money out of it. You're afraid they'll fork, because you're afraid you'll lose your chance. If you can't handle people, maybe find somebody to intermediate between you and the public who has better social skills than you. You're actually doing business, so you might even have to pay this person while not making a dime yourself. Maybe you'll end up a multimillionaire in the end, though, or at least get your foot in the door. That's how investment works, and your time was also money.

3) I'm reminded of stories about the past, some I think that David Graeber used to tell, where feeding someone meant that you were obligated to feed them again, that you'd taken responsibility for them. The debate about what people have the right to demand from FOSS maintainers is the best proof I see of this in life. But accept modernity in this case; you can't regulate beggars, but you can ignore them (or even ridicule them if you like.) I remember him also telling that story about the guy on the road who would rob everyone who came through by simply asking for a share of what they had, and convention meant that none of them could refuse him. Eventually, they all got together and murdered him so he wouldn't ask anymore. That, these days, would be an overreaction. Better to ignore silly conventions, especially ones drawn from communities that were smaller and tighter-knit than the random selection of jerks on the internet.

Lecturing everyone to behave better is a waste of time. They don't care what you think. They're healthier than the victims, which is why the victims are victims.