> There is literally nothing that you gain from being derisive that you can't also gain from being polite.
As maintainer of a large open source project, this isn't entirely true. I would agree that derision is bad. But being blunt is good. Many people confuse bluntness with rudeness.
There is every benefit to being blunt with stupid people. The people who intentionally and wilfully ignore the documentation, who demand that bugs get fixed NOW, who refuse to follow instructions when they ask questions.
The benefit is that they go away. Rude people are toxic to a community. Stupid, rude people.. doubly so.
My personal approach has evolved over the past ~15 years doing this. I no longer try to educate them. Once they've made it clear they're intentionally stupid, they get told "shape up, or be banned from the mailing list / forum". Many do.
Others reply with hostility, curses, private emails denigrating my mental health, paternity, etc. They get banned permanently.
I agree with you 100%. The post in question specifically mentioned ridicule, including comments like “wat” and “stupid pull request of the day”. That's derision, not bluntness.
While I try to be polite regardless, I have no strong issue with people who are blunt by default (I also happen to think there's a fine line between bluntness and rudeness, but that's a different topic altogether). I think the key of what you said is “once they've made it clear they're intentionally” doing what they're doing. That is what makes a person toxic. Missing documentation or contribution guidelines or what have you on the first try, less so. On the second try, I'd say bluntness is in order (“we've already asked you to do X, please keep that in mind in future requests” or somesuch). After that, you're dealing with a person who is dragging down both your community and your own time. That's a problem.
And still, it's more productive and beneficial to the community as a whole to be blunt rather than derisive.
As maintainer of a large open source project, this isn't entirely true. I would agree that derision is bad. But being blunt is good. Many people confuse bluntness with rudeness.
There is every benefit to being blunt with stupid people. The people who intentionally and wilfully ignore the documentation, who demand that bugs get fixed NOW, who refuse to follow instructions when they ask questions.
The benefit is that they go away. Rude people are toxic to a community. Stupid, rude people.. doubly so.
My personal approach has evolved over the past ~15 years doing this. I no longer try to educate them. Once they've made it clear they're intentionally stupid, they get told "shape up, or be banned from the mailing list / forum". Many do.
Others reply with hostility, curses, private emails denigrating my mental health, paternity, etc. They get banned permanently.
Banning toxic people is good.