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0 pointsadnzzzzZ11y ago0 comments

I think there's another facet to the argument he made that he didn't make. When you're in a position of power and you have to deal with the work of other people you want to waste as little time as possible on people making stupid mistakes that shouldn't be made in the first place. You want to bring the quality of your contributors up.

One way of doing this is making people fear making mistakes. Society does this all the time: if you are a racist/homophobe/sexist people will ostracize you publicly in a number of ways. Essentially you get rid of racists/homophobes/sexists by making them fear voicing those opinions.

I personally don't think this is a particularly good way of dealing with problems, but it's what society does and it's how it works: based on mostly punishment. To then go on to say that what Linus does is somehow bad or any different seems kinda weird.

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ivraatiems11y ago

Fear, as you seem to realize, is a crappy motivator. It only work in limited circumstances and for limited periods of time. It doesn't really change behavior permanently. That "society" does it doesn't make it any better (and when was the last time a judge cussed out a defendant for receiving a guilty verdict?)

But I would argue that motivating through fear isn't even relevant to this situation. Is making death threats in order to convince somebody to stop doing something a valid way to motivate through fear? Is cursing somebody out on a mailing list really all that terrifying? If it is, is that the reason Linus, for instance, does it?

I think the answer to all of these is no.

Further, it may be appropriate to shame racists, homophobes or sexists into changing their ways (or, I would argue, just not espousing their views publicly). But is it really appropriate to do this, to this extent especially, to programmers who wrote bad code?

Programming relies on rational, careful cognitive consideration of problems. That's the opposite of what fear inspires. Fear-based "motivation" is lousy in general, and doubly lousy for open source software.

adnzzzzZOP11y ago

>Is making death threats in order to convince somebody to stop doing something a valid way to motivate through fear?

I don't remember Linus ever sending death threats to anyone. As for the people who did send it to the OP, I think most people agree that death threats are not OK under any circumstance and that whoever did do it is an outlier and not an example of how the community behaves.

>Is cursing somebody out on a mailing list really all that terrifying?

I think it is since public shaming tends to be effective in preventing whatever behavior was shamed, as per the racist/homophobe/sexist argument.

>If it is, is that the reason Linus, for instance, does it?

I can't speak for him but if I were in charge of an important and sizable project I can see myself doing it for that reason.

>But is it really appropriate to do this, to this extent especially, to programmers who wrote bad code? Programming relies on rational, careful cognitive consideration of problems. That's the opposite of what fear inspires. Fear-based "motivation" is lousy in general, and doubly lousy for open source software.

I don't follow why it's doubly lousy for software in general. Software has its fair share of opinionated debates that are more about differences of philosophy rather than careful cognitive consideration of problems. And as for it being the opposite of what fear inspires, I'm not sure I agree. The educational system world wide uses fear effectively and it seems to mostly work (despite whatever problems you may have with it), so I don't see what would make programming special in that regard.

ivraatiems11y ago

>I don't remember Linus ever sending death threats to anyone. As for the people who did send it to the OP, I think most people agree that death threats are not OK under any circumstance and that whoever did do it is an outlier and not an example of how the community behaves.

In this statement I was referring to the issue being discussed in this particular thread, not to Linus. Sorry, should have been clearer.

> I think it is since public shaming tends to be effective in preventing whatever behavior was shamed, as per the racist/homophobe/sexist argument.

But as I said - it doesn't change behavior, it only changes whether or not one publicly displays one's thoughts. And even then, it's a temporary effect at best.

> I don't follow why it's doubly lousy for software in general. Software has its fair share of opinionated debates that are more about differences of philosophy rather than careful cognitive consideration of problems. And as for it being the opposite of what fear inspires, I'm not sure I agree. The educational system world wide uses fear effectively and it seems to mostly work (despite whatever problems you may have with it), so I don't see what would make programming special in that regard.

It's lousy because it doesn't inspire real change. People don't change their opinions because they got chewed out, even if it was rightfully so. They just learn to resent the people doing the chewing out and oppose them more subtly.

You use our education system as an example - but I don't know that I'd say the education parts of the system (as opposed to the discipline parts, whose effectiveness I would frankly dispute) aren't fear-based. They're generally built to be merit-based (whether they succeed is outside the scope of this discussion).

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ivraatiems11y ago

I think the answer to all of these is no.

adnzzzzZOP11y ago

>Is making death threats in order to convince somebody to stop doing something a valid way to motivate through fear?

>Is cursing somebody out on a mailing list really all that terrifying?

I think it is since public shaming tends to be effective in preventing whatever behavior was shamed, as per the racist/homophobe/sexist argument.

>If it is, is that the reason Linus, for instance, does it?

I can't speak for him but if I were in charge of an important and sizable project I can see myself doing it for that reason.

ivraatiems11y ago

In this statement I was referring to the issue being discussed in this particular thread, not to Linus. Sorry, should have been clearer.

> I think it is since public shaming tends to be effective in preventing whatever behavior was shamed, as per the racist/homophobe/sexist argument.

But as I said - it doesn't change behavior, it only changes whether or not one publicly displays one's thoughts. And even then, it's a temporary effect at best.

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