OpenStreetMap

Lets tone down mutually offensive and insulting statements with Harry Wood

Posted by d1g on 24 September 2015 in English. Last updated on 25 September 2015.
  • Not sure how title this post
  • I send a message to Harry to join this post instead of discussing it in PMs

We definitely should have this discussion 3-4 months earlier, but I hope it’s never late

Me: > I mean, Harry. I don’t want to offend you. Or anyone. Why I have to prove that I’m sane person after you ban me 3 times in row without really discussing topic in detail?

Probably we should use different words next time not “you are editing too much”, “STOP with you edits”, but “lets prospond them for 3-4 weeks when we discuss everything in detail”.

I would use these verbose words by myself but: 1. I’m stupid Russian 2. I was busy with edits, so things weren’t looking even more ugly during process

Do you understand that claimed editing politicly “be bold” turn out complete bullshit. I was always pointing you that I preform changes according wiki guidelines. There no “don’t edit too much” rule. That’s insane justification to anything.

Do you realize that my edits were helpful? Can we say sorry to each other publicly and continue positive work in OSM without drama festivals?

Our common mistake is that we should plan changes with respect to each other. I really wanted to see these changes and they were helpful, but lack of time or sufficient discussion was the most crucial from side of admins avail at the moment.

I would automatically be more polite if you dedicated MORE TIME to my edits/changes/plans or just shown “ok bro I will check your work later” but not “omfg stop making 100-1000 changes per week repeatedly at my user page.

Would be it fair if someone would assault you on number of child you have? Would be it fair if someone would assault you on conferences you take in OSM? Would be it fair if someone would assault you on number of days you spend or not-spend in OSM?

Why no one haven’t payed respect to my edits in time? You cannot truly judge me by my edit history, there many-many more people who were involved or interested in them.

Is there option for us to reset situation?

Harry Wood:

I would automatically be more polite if you dedicated MORE TIME to my edits/changes/plans

Yes this is something you have demonstrated several times over. If people are willing to spend time on you, if people manage to keep their cool after getting into an angry aggressive impolite conversation with you, if people spend time talking you through something to see your reasoning or to explain their reasoning, …then after a while you might start to be a little bit polite with them. That’s not an acceptable way to interact with other members of this community, but we know it is the only way you will interact, so we’ve reached the point where this has been brought to an end.

The message you’re sending here is yet another occurrence of that, and your more polite tone now doesn’t impress me at all (particularly given you that you still have a published diary entry attacking me personally)

Is there option for us to reset situation?

Don’t you think that maybe you should come with this polite and an apologetic tone in a more public place after you took the decision to be extremely impolite and attacking me personally on a public diary entry? I’m not willing to try to have a polite conversation with you in private while you attack me in public.

Should I explicitly say sorry to anyone who had unpleasant time with me? I don’t want to belittle the issue, but I want to add slightly different perspective on this. It is very common for non-native English speakers to edit their messages 2-3 times. Or use rude words when trying to explain their environment. For example: https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/User_talk:Verdy_p#weeklyOSM Ziltoidium asked if Verdi is mad and thankfully Verdi didn’t react to this in his reply.

It may be really demanding and time consuming to explain ourself in English. Regardless of our intentions.

You are repetedly wrong in your statements that I’m “always rude”, “never ever polite from the start” and so on. Please stop it. I try to be nice when I have free time to type more:

I also showed that I use neutral tone/no polite words to save time:

I can continue this list, there many instances where I’m not rude since the first message. Why I have to present this list to anyone?

Harry, you are always talk about instances at my user page and always overstate situation. You can think of them as my responds in a crisis situation. 1. I’m not always rude since the first message 2. There instances that despite verbal aggressiveness and misunderstanding we could reach common understanding and consensus 3. There instances there not only I’m never rude but also my opponent get needed information for him

I’m sorry for what happened with some people when they did interact with me. But could you please stop pointing only to the worst parts?

I could restrict myself from answering using rude messages or ignore repeatedly frustrating/time-consuming request to me, but would it help who were requesting feedback in time? Is it better to get silence as feedback or impolite reply?

Personally I would prefer rude answer in time, but not silence and useless polite answer when nobody need it anymore.

It is not all black and white as you want to simplify and pose it, is it more clear now? And for the third time in this message I’m sorry.

Discussion

Comment from ika-chan! UK-USA on 24 September 2015 at 19:27

A “Draft” does not necessarily mean it is optional to follow them: for example, when a website is very young the webmaster has to come up with some good practice rules, then over time they need to revise it to take into account the changes and evolutions in the community.

Comment from d1g on 24 September 2015 at 20:24

@Amaroussi, from my perspective, we should always re-evaluate our current needs and not to suppress anyone who disagrees or who abstains any change.

From my experience we shouldn’t suppress any unpopular ideas, otherwise we will have only N major communities who dictate anyone else.

Some practices will slow us down more than we really need.

For example, it hard to decide what is polite or what is impolite within different communities, languages and cultures. You simply cannot be polite to every single person on earth if you speak sufficiently long enough. While performing the same actions, requirements and expectations from you will differ significantly.

Comment from Stereo on 27 September 2015 at 11:50

Should I explicitly say sorry to anyone who had unpleasant time with me? I don’t want to belittle the issue, but I want to add slightly different perspective on this. It is very common for non-native English speakers to edit their messages 2-3 times. Or use rude words when trying to explain their environment.

Yes, you should at least try to be a pleasant person to map with. I’m not a native English speaker either, and manage to communicate with other mappers without insulting them.

Comment from woodpeck on 3 October 2015 at 22:53

No matter what you say now or what your intentions were, d1g, you have managed to offend so many people and distract them from more useful things, that I fully support keeping you off the Wiki for eternity. It is quite possible that all these cases were somehow misunderstandings and that you’re a totally nice guy in person, but it is obvious that if you are allowed to edit the Wiki, trouble ensues - and this is not a Harry Wood against you issue, but Harry has been asked by many, many people to act. You may be a nice, intelligent, knowledgeable person and I’m sure there will be communities that value your input; our community has tried but we’re just not a good match and for the good of everyone including you, I think you should simply do something else.

Comment from d1g on 4 October 2015 at 06:48

@woodpeck, my respond will look as personal attack. But please, in the end it is always one person responsible to something. I cannot point to actions without pointing to concrete people/statements/quotes.

Problem with Harry is that HE was perfectly capable to mitigate ANY of questionable edits/misunderstandings but decided to bermaban me despite all of my efforts to remind of MANY ALTERNATIVES.

Unfortunately Harry was repeatedly suppressing any of alternative given to him as admin, repeatedly: “preventing any change to wiki” “Maybe the admins can consider your technical suggestions if you leave them time. I am neither admin and as a programmer neither php nor mediawiki fan and can not help there.”

Is this what dedicated/capable admin would do?

I think you should simply do something else

You fail to realize that I won’t.

If it is not your priority to teach people their tools, that’s not my fault.

It is not my fault you are not able to teach them efficiently instead of creating FAQ pages.

I’m fine with your attitude “that I fully support keeping you off the Wiki for eternity”, there many people like you who do nothing to improve situation but endlessly rant about temporal inconvinience and without discussing real alternatives.

My permaban at wiki.openstreetmap.org means that there SOME incompetent admins who decided to ban me, nothing else.

What I’m doing right now

Right now I’m slowly updating JOSM wiki (josm.openstreetmap.de/wiki) with beginner materials.

I don’t care how many people my edits will “offend” again. How adding/restructuring wiki can offend anyone??? If some content was requested for years, someone have to resolve it.

if Harry fails to respond to admin requests/fill-full 2-year old requests from the community that’s not my fault. It doesn’t matter if it was intentional or not.

More personal responds/more context here: 1 2

Comment from d1g on 4 October 2015 at 11:43

@woodpeck, I consider your statements as offensive and unproductive:

  • you are not discussing topic (how to improve wiki; concrete edits) but constantly attack my person / my social status / popularity of some views
  • you are not assuming good faith in my edits “but it is obvious that if you are allowed to edit the Wiki, trouble ensues”

Read https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Etiquette again please.

Unlike you, other people find my edits actually useful: “Your edits were indeed useful and welcome (for the most part)” (yes there things we could improve on; both in content and our interaction: namely nobody publicly said “thank you” for my edits)

But I more humble about it and not complain about it at every step for some reason. Maybe some people are not able to comment my user page; maybe some people not aware about good manners; maybe some people don’t have time for this.

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