Re: Down with Canonical - Boycott Ubuntu Spyware

Hi,

GMail won't let me change the subject line on this part of the thread -
perhaps whoever replies next can do it...


On 28 January 2013 16:28, Alex King <[email protected]> wrote:

>
> >
> > Communities (online, or otherwise) only work when all participants
> > share roughly the same set of social and behavioural norms. This
> > set of
>
> OK, that's an assertion, do you have any evidence to back that up?
>

There's a very large body of work on social psychology that looks at
exactly this. One such study by Richard Hackman (of Harvard dep. of
Psychology fame) was published in a book*: *"Leading Teams**". He asserts
that having strong social norms reduces wasted effort and "thrashing" (my
words, not his - he's much more eloquent). It's widely accepted that strong
group cohesion can lead to negative effects as well, such as group-think.
Group dynamics has been studied by everyone from Gustave le Bon in the 17th
century onwards. It's a huge field, with people much smarter than I trying
to solve exactly these questions.



> Arguably one way of having a group that works well is to have everyone
> act in a similar way and have a strong set of rules/expectations.
> This is the "ethnically clean" way of working and it works pretty well
> for Scandanavian countries.  However, there is also an argument that
> tollerance is another way of achieving the same end.  This is the UNIX
> philosophy, accept a wide variety of input, and always produce well
> structured, polite output yourself.  In this way we can have a
> community that is more diverse, more uncomfortable at times, but I
> would argue can work equally as well or better.
>
>
> >
> > When meeting a new group of people (at a dinner party perhaps),
> > the smart thing to do is to try and assess what behavior will be
> > tolerated, and which won't. This is easy when face-to-face with the
> > other participants. Body language, verbal and other clues signal
> > approval or otherwise. In this way, the norms of the group are
> > communicated *implicitly*.
> >
> I simply note that while most people who go to dinner parties will
> assess the expected standard and adhere to it, a certain percentage
> will assess the expected standard then delight in pushing the boundaries.
>
>
Heh... I call these people "trolls". A certain amount of disruption in a
group is a healthy thing, I suppose.

> You're absolutely correct when you say that "You can't control how
> others behave or what they say.". As just one member of this
> community, I can't do that. However, *we*, as the DunLUG community,
> can decide the kind of behaviour we will tolerate, and the kind
> that we won't. If I thought that my own views were not shared by
> anyone else in the group, I'd either accept the majority decision,
> or leave to find a group that did share my views. However, I don't
> think that's the case here. The feeling I get from the other
> messages in this thread is that most folks either don't care, or
> agree with 90% of what I'm saying.... but I could be wrong -
> judging these things from email text is tricky.
>

> Well, you're mixing up two things here.  You acknowledge that an
> individual can't control someone else's behaviour, but then say that a
> group can define rules of acceptable conduct.  Well, even if a
> majority of the group can agree on a set of rules, how will we enforce
> that?  So the two issues are how to come up with the rules, and how to
> enforce them.  Of course there is a long history of people grappling
> with these problems, and coming up with various forms of governments.
>
> You're right - that's two separate issues. In my experience, explicitly
defining what is, and is not acceptable behaviour goes a long way towards
stemming the tide of unacceptable behaviour. In a face-to-face group this
can happen naturally. In a virtual community that's a lot harder (but
certainly not impossible).


> If you define this set of rules that defines acceptable and
> unacceptable behaviour, you then have to have a system of complaints
> and judgement, and sanctions for wrongdoers, since not everyone will
> abide by rules just because they're there.  That's why we have police,
> prosecutors and prisons.
>
>
Sure - and there are many online communities that have adopted a wide range
of different "enforcement" techniques. BTW, I don't like the word
"enforcement" - it implies forcible compliance, which is not what I'm
talking about. The current trends seem to be towards explicit gamification
of contributions. As an example, look at the stack-exchange network, or at
any of the crop of "social" news sites. The thing they all have in common
is an explicit way for members of the community to signal disapproval (or
approval). Stack Exchange has 2.8 million users, and the developers are
continuing to refine their particular approach all the time. It's certainly
not without its downsides though.... but better (IMO) than a totally
unregulated forum.


> In my opinion, the problem with this is the very fact we judge
> people's actions as "right" or "wrong", "acceptable" or
> "unacceptable".  If instead we try to meet our own needs and
> contribute to others out of the joy of giving, we'll have a lot less
> trouble with law and order.  Actually, as soon as you start labeling
> some people as unacceptable or as displaying unacceptable behaviour,
> they will be motivated to "fight" you.
>
>
I suspect it's a sliding scale - you can either have the hassle of policing
an online community, or you can have the trouble of dealing with trolls. I
know which one I'd rather have.


Well, what do you suggest we do about the non-"ordinary" members, who
> won't or can't abide by the rules?  If we don't use NVC, how do we
> effectively deal with trolling when it inevitably pops up?
>
>
*shrug* - grab the nearest ban-hammer? It may sound over authoritarian to
you, but it's all a sliding scale.


> NVC does not advocate asking anyone not to do something or to stop
> doing something.  Instead it advocates asking for what they do
> want/need.  Perhaps the list needs to have accurate information so
> they can understand topics being discussed, so we could request
> contributors stick to facts as much as possible.


Now I don't understand - this is *exactly* what I'm talking about - this is
a social norm that you and I have just explicitly stated, and we agree on.
So the first item on the hypothetical DunLUG etiquette list coule be
something like: "Please stick to the facts" - if you read the "How to ask
questions the smart way" that I linked to previously, it's exactly this
kind of thing.

You can define these things in either a positive way "please stick to the
facts", or a negative way "please avoid emotional language". I personally
don't think it matters which you use, as long as the intent is clear.
However, it sounds like you think it does matter, and I'm more than happy
to bend to your wishes :)


> Perhaps we want to
> encourage participation from people promoting Linux, so we could ask
> people to support that.
>
> Another good idea - explicitly state the goal(s) of the group.


> Marshall gives the example of why you ask for what you want and not
> what you don't.  He met with a group of teachers who were having
> problems with the schoolchildren who were throwing rocks and breaking
> school windows out of hours.  His answer was, "kill all the children,
> you won't have a problem with broken windows any more".  His point
> was, if you define what you don't want, it inevitably leads to
> violence, better to rephrase it as what you do want.
>
> Well, to be honest, I disagree with that - it sounds like a bit of a
platitude to me.


> NVC as a discipline certainly restricts you from "calling bad
> behaviour", but it's all about being assertive.  It's all about
> getting what we need in an effective way.
>
> NVC can sound wishy-washy at first, but my experience is that it is
> both more challenging and more effective than blame and punishment.
> There are certain things you can't do with it, like uphold large
> social structures/institutions where the people in them don't agree
> with what's happening, but I don't see that as a disadvantage.
>

Blame and punishment is a bit strong. I realise now that if I'd been
quicker off the mark I should have replied to the original message with
nothing more than:

TROLOLOLOL

How's that for calling out undesirable behaviour without resorting to blame
or punishment? ;)
-- 
Thomi Richards

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