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About stop energy

ervin | June 25, 2008 | 20:23

If anyone out there wonder why Aaron Seigo’s blog is down, the reason is pretty simple… Its author got burnt out because of some of the poisonous people in our project. The story started several weeks ago (probably even months ago) with constant
bashing of some of the decisions taken in the Plasma project (which is not a one person project by the way). It culminated last week with very rude and useless mail threads on kde-devel, and yesterday on the dot with personal attacks.

That’s why Aaron decided to retire from the public and do what he truely loves: code. No more blogs, minimal involvement on lists and IRC to ensure coordination with the other developers. That’s what we obtained after those weeks of angry poisonous mobs. You might think: “well you can ignore them”. Really? Could you? Such people can bring a lot of stop energy. Really a lot of it, and that worries me. It seems that the project I love is not a nice place to live in anymore.

When we are able to turn down one of our public face, someone very active and energetic, we really crossed a line. Of course, we could shake head, and think “tsss, those poisonous people, they’ve no idea what they’re doing”. That’s even probably what we did during those weeks of bashing… and still we let it happen. I think that’s the most frightening side of the issue: nobody stepped up, and no actions are taken to make KDE a better place again. Oh, and don’t worry, I have my share of guilt in this story… I didn’t step up either.

Worse than the stop energy carried by poisonous people, there’s the apathy of your peers. I don’t want that anymore! We have to end it!

Of course, I’d like to propose a way out, but I’ve not much to propose. Here are my attempts at bringing some improvements proposing some actions which could be taken (in no particular order):

  • Recruit more editors for the dot, as far as I know they’re overbooked and can hardly moderate it;
  • To help the dot editors, we have to improve it’s engine with a real moderation system (how come most news site I know have one but not the dot?);
  • Write a code of conduct (probably something for the e.V. membership), and publish it as soon as possible;
  • Enforce it, especially on mailing lists and on bugzilla, mediating as necessary, and banning people in the most extreme cases.

That’s definitely not much, but that’s a start… More ideas are welcome, but most of all: acts are needed. We must stop this kind of behavior.

PS: I’m not linking any thread, bugreport or mails on purpose. I don’t want to point finger. Aaron’s reaction is a symptom of something broken in our community (in the broad sense, all contributors and users included) it’s just an example (and not the first case). If you want specifics, do your homework and dig our archives it’s all public anyway.

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65 Responses to “About stop energy”

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  1. Justace Clutter says:
    June 25, 2008 at 20:48

    This is so unfortunate. I have not read or even seen the emails that were sent or directed to Aseigo… I look forward to every post from him. News about the development of the Plasma project and KDE4 in general is something that I look forward to everyday. The people who started these attacks should be ashamed of themselves. I hope that Aseigo will reopen his blog and continue to contribute to the planetkde.org in the future. I love the work that he along with the other KDE developers are doing. It is true that sometimes a decision is made and a direction is taken but if people have a problem with that they can just not run the software or write their own code. If you see this Aseigo, keep up the good work.

    Justace

  2. Anon says:
    June 25, 2008 at 20:50

    … and before someone brings it up (and I’m sure someone will choose to misinterpret it this way): this is not about “burying his head in the sand” or “being unable to deal with criticism” – this is about him not having to put up with people whose criticisms are a) useless, either because they are too vague to act upon; b) already known and being worked on i.e. “Are we they yet? WHY NOT? DRIVE FASTER, MR LAZYBONES!!1″; and c) couched in either outright vitriol and insults or those kind of underhanded, vague insinuations about apparent character flaws that we all know and (don’t) love.

  3. Med says:
    June 25, 2008 at 20:52

    I concur with what you say. I am mostly a user lurking on a few KDE mailing lists and occasional member of the bugsquad. I do not understand why a harsher stance was not taken as soon as insults started on the mailing list (and on some bug reports). Trolls do not have to be tolerated. They are highly detrimental for developpers and by extension for all the KDE community.

    I have some experience on Wikipedia with errr “contributors” being there only to push their personal ideas and make everyone lose time. My position was to just ban them if they refused to change their behaviour. Unfortunately i was in the minority and it made me just stop contributing as no action was ever seriously taken against them.

    I hope this sort of thing will not happen to KDE developpers too. Perhaps we are not vocal enough to express our support towards developpers. So to Aaron and all KDE developpers, we love you all!

  4. Gael Beaudoin says:
    June 25, 2008 at 20:57

    Honestly, I wouldn’t have endured half of what he endured. This is just sad. I was afraid of him running away from KDE. I just hope he knows those people are a minority, and that they are some who appreciate his work and patience.

    I hope he can just rest for a while and make this a bad memory.

  5. Thomas R. says:
    June 25, 2008 at 21:03

    Those trolls make me angry. I loved to read Aarons posts, he is very talented in writing and it’s always a pleasure. He’s also in a very difficult position within the KDE project, he’s the “head” of plasma development, the most visible part of KDE4.
    I don’t get every thing about plasma and I’m a KDE 4.0.5 user and i actually see all those glitches, but I just shut up and wait. Those trolls just boot up some kde4 live cd and complain on every place linked with KDE about how bad everything is instead of shutting up and don’t judging on beta software which is meant as technical preview.
    I just don’t get why everyone has to tell the world that he/she does not like something. It’s obvious that KDE 4.0 is not meant for the average user.
    I hope Aaron continues his very amusing and informing blog some time soon. Until then I hope he can relax.

  6. Thomas Zander says:
    June 25, 2008 at 21:05

    Good post, I love the followup. We see a problem and naturally aaron has my shoulder to lean on as well, but much more important is the question;
    What will *you* do to make sure this never happens again.

    Something like this would do; http://xkcd.com/438/ ;)

    Who volunteers to write the beginnings of a policy we can point people to that are not, ehm, helpful ;)

  7. James ots says:
    June 25, 2008 at 21:07

    That is a great shame, as Aaron’s blog was one of the few that I would regularly read, as it was nearly always well thought out, well written, and would impart something interesting and new.

  8. Dorian says:
    June 25, 2008 at 21:11

    Wow… it is not cool at all.
    I’m really sorry to hear Aaron that had to put up with this. I hope that he will reopen his blog, cause I really enjoyed reading his posts on KDE. The direction in which way Plasma is going is fantastic. Desktop innovation at its finest IMHO. And KDE 4 is a bold step into the future. Such a shame, that a few had ruin things for the rest of us.

  9. Janne says:
    June 25, 2008 at 21:20

    Looking at some of the comments directed at him and/or related to things he has done, I’m not one bit surprised at what happened. In fact I’m kinda relieved that it only resulted him in closing his blog (I don’t know if something else happened as well though). I was afraid that he quits the project in disgust or something like that.

    And while I’m relieved, I’m also sad. I read his blog regularly and I was always looking forward to seeing him in planetkde, because I was grown to expect great and interesting blog-posts from him. But I can understand why he did what he did.

  10. Jason 'vanRijn' Kasper says:
    June 25, 2008 at 21:22

    Awww, dangit, this stinks. Aaron, if you read this, dude, you are doing AWESOME. Please totally ignore stupidity like this. I totally agree with you in removing distractions and doing what you love though. And you’re really good at it. Be encouraged–there are a LOT more people who love you and your work than there are those who complain. Unfortunately, the complainers are most often the loudest and most difficult to ignore. =:( *hug*

  11. Francis says:
    June 25, 2008 at 21:27

    Would be nice if the blog was still online for reference, even if it’s read-only without allowing people to comment.

  12. oort says:
    June 25, 2008 at 21:32

    Aaron is doing great job and I hope this won’t impact Plasma development. Of course that it isn’t perfect, but hey, it’s software and there is no perfect software :) And when I’m reading about what Plasma will be in the future I can only think how great it will be to work with. So I’m sad that there will be no more Aaron’s posts — they were great to read and I really enjoyed them. Aaron — if You are reading this, I’d like to thank You for all the things You do for KDE.

  13. Linus Berglund says:
    June 25, 2008 at 21:38

    Good call. The thing that I really really hate about open source is all the whiners and trolls. Where do they all come from, these self-proclaimed computer experts with an ability to understand “the whole picture”/other people about as narrow as their own asscracks through which they see the world?

    I really REALLY get pissed off. Aron’s blog was one of the best on planetkde – and some whiners and trolls ruined it.

  14. shuss says:
    June 25, 2008 at 21:42

    Thanks for this info.
    For days, I was thinking that Aaron needed that all this stop. But as i’m not an member of the project, (and even if) I cannot find a solution to stop this.
    Some comment on his blog was very unfriendly, (hopefully, only some for now).
    I think that this is because our community become bigger with the help of user-friendly distro (ubuntu and co), and while growing the community is changing. Some realy don’t care about freedom (read ubuntu-forum, you’ll be scared) and aren’t aware of the basic rule of our community. Every free-software user should have read this before posting any where any thing….
    http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html

    I hope Aaron didn’t take all this too hard.
    your fellow,
    Sebastien

  15. Daniel L. says:
    June 25, 2008 at 21:53

    Wow, this is some shocking news. I’ve spent quite some time recently to (passively) keep up with the recent discussions and I can really understand Aaron’s decision. (Okay, to be honest I started to skip reading most of the Plasma bashing because it was just stupid, useless and repeating constantly.)

    Aaron’s blog was one of the first things that helped me to get into the “KDE world” and I remember checking it regularly even before I started reading PlanetKDE. He is just great in writing and talking (and coding, of course) and being the project leader of the most visible and innovative part of KDE certainly doesn’t help to escape (the bad type of) trolls.

    So Aaron, if you’re reading this, thanks for everything you have done. Please keep up the good work and focus on cool Plasma stuff instead of ignorant trolls. And maybe someday you’re ready to share your passion again with us. :)

  16. aristarcos says:
    June 25, 2008 at 22:25

    You can count me on the list of the KDE happy users.
    I still use 3.5 because a just need a rock stable desktop. I played with KDE 4.0, I saw the promise and I thought, that’s a great and an innovative work. I could not use it, because of some bugs, but I was well aware of that before trying it. I read Aaron’s blog and that was no surprise.
    I will miss the great blog from Aaron, I will miss his insights, his cheesy music and his screencasts. I hope he will return very soon to blog.
    Keep up the great job you’re doing, you just rock and make the world a better place to be.

  17. Nassos Kourentas says:
    June 25, 2008 at 22:29

    I am shocked, too! :-(

    Aaron’s blog was among those that have been more like “oxygen” to me! He’s so much gifted and talented both code-wise as well as blog-wise and I am surely going to miss the latter one! :-(
    Let’s hope, that all this negative energy that was exerted on him, won’t harm his passion and willingness to keep up the amazing work that he, along with the rest of the plasma and kde team does!

    Sometimes words can cause more harm than actions and I really feel both pitty and anger towards all those that caused this misfortunate event (and myself that ignored the overall heat by just pathetically reading through the last blog entries and not attempting to bash the trolls) :-(

    nassos

  18. bigolewannabe says:
    June 25, 2008 at 22:37

    I agree with what everybody has said so far. I got really excited about KDE 4 after hearing and reading what Aaron had to say. I got really irritated by the ignorance and vitriol people showed to Aaron and the rest of the KDE team. It would truly be a shame if Aaron reduced his role in the project. Here’s hoping we hear from him again soon.
    How quickly could a Code of Conduct be put together? We’ve got quite a few being used by different projects. Has anybody started work on that?

  19. werner riese says:
    June 25, 2008 at 22:42

    That are bad news for open source development. One could notice in the past how aaron got more and more mad at peoples comments. But there is no point in arguing with people who are up to no good. It speaks for aaron that he kept trying to be positive and explain himself over and over again. I hope he didn’t loose his faith now.
    Unfortunately these people get the satisfaction now that they discouraged one of the projects best contributors. And so they will continue to nag and stick needles into developers to see them give up.
    Well its not my business to tell aaron what he should do or not, but i think he should stand strong and not give up.
    The community needs you aaron, not only for coding but also for your inspiration that you gave to so many people.
    All the best to kde and its developers.

  20. Cogs can think. :: Aseigo :: June :: 2008 says:
    June 25, 2008 at 22:50

    [...] I want to say here is that this is a pretty darn sad state of [...]

  21. shamaz says:
    June 25, 2008 at 22:53

    Aaron, If you read this : I do appreciate your work. I don’t know the whole story, but I respect your choice. But please don’t give up on coding ! :)

  22. duSoo says:
    June 25, 2008 at 22:59

    i just wanted to say, that kde4 rocks, especially (but not only) because plasma and because people like aaron. i admire their work and attitude towards “future desktop” ;) . pls, don’t let the trolls ruin your vision.

  23. Pier-Olivier Thibault says:
    June 25, 2008 at 23:00

    Well, 99% of the problem is because of two things:

    1. Fear of changes. People don’t like change and often critic changes without even trying.

    2.People don’t mind their own business. Not because you have the freedom of speech that you can pollute the world with your critics.

  24. Daniël says:
    June 25, 2008 at 23:01

    :(

  25. re: stop energy « ChaniBlog says:
    June 25, 2008 at 23:04

    [...] {June 25, 2008}   re: stop energy so, ervin blogged about about “stop energy” and the poisonous people that we’ve been failing to deal [...]

  26. MasterMind says:
    June 25, 2008 at 23:09

    Damn! One good place to get some info about plasma is gone (I hope temporarily).

    I tried Plasma in KDE 4.0 Beta # just to have a look. It was raw, but promising (it’s totally normal because of the _Beta_ word). Now looking at those nice Plasma pictures I think it’s going to get awesome in KDE 4.1 and I can’t wait it hits final release.

    And of course I support Aarons decision of “semi-isolation” (meaning in having as much communication as it needs for coordinating the project). He needs some rest from cruel lil’ whiners ;) .

    And of course, I hope they didn’t took the joy of coding on Plasma! Keep up the great job.

  27. Nils says:
    June 25, 2008 at 23:16

    Aarons blog was one of my favorite lectures for the last couple of months, and it’s a shame that this great source of information vanishes. But I totally understand his decision.
    Anyway, I really hope he won’t be too distracted by this ugly stuff, and I believe in his vision of a better desktop, so please, Aaron, keep up your good (coding) work!

  28. Rsh says:
    June 25, 2008 at 23:16

    I always enjoyed Aaron blog entries and I think only once commented on them! Usually people stay quiet and the minority of trolls give the false impression of the community voice! Of course there was also legitimate criticism but please don’t judge the community by a bunch of LOUD bastards …. I wish you all the best Aaron, I hope you will reconsider your decision. A charismatic and informative leader going into the shadows is a bad thing for KDE … May I give one advice? Why not close your blog for comments and let people quarrel elsewhere? You’re the leader man!
    I hope there’s enough positive energy here to make Aaron happier. :-)
    Go go people.
    All the best to Aaron and KDE community,
    Rsh

  29. Luke Parry says:
    June 25, 2008 at 23:19

    It is really sad to here this, and fundamentally it’s become a problem from newer users, who are less competent, patient and understanding of developers needs and attires. I’ve got a feeling that planet.kde.org will become a substandard in comparison to planet.gnome.org, ooh there blogs are dull and boring. I just hope that aaron will still contribute screencasts to us fellow users. The great fun behind kde 4 is seeing how it’s developed which I never saw in kde 3.5, it was mature and I was immature to the Linux ecosystem at the time.

    Humm could someone get some guns out and shoot these trolls :P perhaps it’s news sharing websites that are causing a problem, but I always loved to read aaron’s blogs like everyone else.

  30. Diederik van der Boor says:
    June 25, 2008 at 23:19

    This is really unfortunate to read. I agree with the other people here too, aaron’s blog had the most appealing and inspiring posts when I started reading planetkde.

    I do fully understand this act of “giving up” had to be taken. Somehow not everyone can be convinced with arguments, even if they make perfect sense. I wish anyone involved good luck, and may the best happen to all of you!

  31. tobami says:
    June 25, 2008 at 23:24

    Good post Ervin, someone had to inform KDE fans of what has happened, and your words are appropriate.

    This is a sad day for KDE.
    Aaron was the most prominent among KDE developers not because he is the “president”, and only partly because he is the leading developer of plasma, the part of KDE4 every user sees first. The most important reason was that he is the KDE developer who blogs most by far, and thus communicates most to enthusiast users in what direction KDE is heading, and precisely because he was the developer who most discussed and engaged with blog comments.

    So it is really a sad irony that his willingness to discuss development with users is what partly “caused” (through being very public and open) being accused of not listening to the users. It is absurd. He could have just disabled comments on his blog. Or not have engaged in discussions with the trolls. But he kept on because he cares.

  32. tobami says:
    June 25, 2008 at 23:25

    Aaron please know this: KDE needs you as much as a coder as a communicator. Please reopen your blog and disable comments, or only authorize those invited like it seems to be now, or anything. But let the free software world keep hearing what you have to say.
    Thanks.

  33. hmm says:
    June 25, 2008 at 23:30

    I think this shows that KDE needs a good news outlet. Something for the zero-day news. Blogs aren’t good enough, the planet is flaky and too often just has someone’s vacation pics. The Dot rarely gets bleeding edge stuff and looks old. Then there could be an outlet where someone would write about stuff in the third person. And bashing wouldn’t be so directly connected to the author of the software. That’s my opinion at least. I want to know about networkmanager stuff for KDE4, I want to know about more inside stuff about Amarok, I want to know when K3B will have a KDE4 version. Stuff like that isn’t there or is extremely cluttered. Leaving it to the coders to spread news like that is unjust and just makes them more stressed than they would like to be.

  34. Nathan Bradshaw says:
    June 25, 2008 at 23:36

    I’m totally not surprised by this and I completely sympathize with Aaron’s stance.

    There obviously will always be homes for trolls, poisonous people or what ever other term we come up with for these human road bumps, but on the other hand there needs to be places where developers and other contributors can have grown up, sensible conversations without the continual hi-jacking perpetrated by this small subset of people. Clearly the dot and especially the mailing lists stand out as choices for such places.

    What I find incredible is the near to stalking some people have been practicing against Aaron. Anywhere he posts this little handful of people show up and just hound him. This type of behavior must be prevented or surely they’ll just latch onto another victim and repeat the same process.

    So, thanks TJ, thanks Mark A Taff, thanks James Richard Tyrer and all the rest. You’ve successfully made the world a slightly worse place. Kudos.

  35. Jo Øiongen says:
    June 25, 2008 at 23:37

    Gaaah! Why?!? Well, I understand Aaron. But why must peole try to ruin the best parts in life? My biggest fear for a long time have been Aaron running out of energy and leaving KDE. He is a true visionary, and any project should have one like him. I do not always understand, or agree on Aarons visons, but I see him as a leader for brave new ideas.

    I wish Aaron all the best, and hope him locking him self away from the outer world will give him the energy an joy he needs to continue to push KDE into a new world.

  36. fish says:
    June 25, 2008 at 23:55

    Well guys, I admire Aarons work, but here’s the other side of the story:

    http://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=154535

    “I don’t want this feature, so it won’t make it!”

    Not clever to dismiss a feature like that when dozens of users ask for it. And now don’t even tell me it’s a minority. I myself have shown KDE4 to like 8 friends so far and *all* of them hated the cashew without an exception. None of them voted for this bug though after having read the discussion…no surprise, really.

  37. Uwe Thiem says:
    June 25, 2008 at 23:59

    Though it’s a pity that Aaron’s blog as one of the best sources about plasma isn’t available any more (for the time being), I actually hope it has an impact on plasma development. With Aaron no longer being hammered by unreasonable people with their impolite, indecent, demanding, insulting and demotivating remarks, he might be able to concentrate more on plasma development and end up happier than before. Sure, I’ll miss his blog – but if not blogging makes him feel better, I am all for it.

    Just a couple one remark on the real issue:

    Despite what *some* people think, the old desktop paradigm doesn’t cut it anymore. It has served us well enough for around 30 years, but it’s time for it to be put to rest. “Desktop computing” has evolved so much beyond anything we could have thought about 10 years ago that the modern computer desktop has stopped to resemble a desktop. Sure, it still does in some areas – for instance office work. In other areas, it does not.

    What has video cutting to do with a desktop? Or composing music? Or playing music as a DJ at a function using a laptop? Or using our computers as knowledge centres (wikipedia)? Or reading books at Project Gutenberg? Or watching videos? Or listening to music? Or … or … or. None of these involves a “desktop” in any way.

    We need a new paradigm beyond desktop. Probably, we need a whole range of new paradigms. Plasma is a darn good start here. It seems flexible enough to cover *all* current and future ( at least, mid-term future) requirements of “desktop computing”. We simply need a new approach to keep up with how using a desktop computer has changed and will change.

    So: Plasma, well done! It isn’t there yet. Fine with me. It will take time, probably a lot. Still, it started the paradigm shift. Good!

    As for Aaron himself: Hugya! Here is a (virtual) Windhoek Lager or a Hansa Draught, whatever you prefer! Keep your blog down as long as you need it down. Come back online when you are recharged and able again to deal with unreasonable people!

    Wish you a good time!

    Uwe

  38. Martin says:
    June 26, 2008 at 00:05

    Really sad. I always liked to read Aaron’s blog and loved to see the developments Plasma is taking. So often I read about a new feature and immediately started to sync with svn and rebuild plasma. Perhaps I should have given positive feedback on his blog posts.

    I just hope Aaron will start to blog again. Perhaps with disabled comments.

  39. IAnjo says:
    June 26, 2008 at 00:06

    Damn… Just yesterday I was thinking exactly that Aaron’s latest entries on his blog were showing maybe too much stress, and it seems what I was thinking happened.

    Aaron, do take a time off, because you’re a very important member of the community, and we need you :)

    So, thanks for all the work so far — just installed openSUSE 11.0 today and it’s great (I’ve been using kde4 since january) — and hope you recover your mojo soon!

  40. tsb says:
    June 26, 2008 at 00:24

    Aw. I am looking so much forward to 4.1 it’s sick really. I have 140 feeds in akregator and planet-kde is the one I care most about (really, hehe).

    Plasma seems to be comming along nicely. I really enjoyed his blogs (when they weren’t about personal stuff which IMHO there were a few too many of, but I just skipped those) and videos, but if this makes him happier and more efficient then here’s to you! :)

  41. Vincent de Phily says:
    June 26, 2008 at 00:27

    I wont add to the obvious words of support to Aaron, or of the big loss for the comunity; I think previous comments are clear enough.

    I never read the mailing list, but sometimes read the bugtracker and regularly the dot and planet. And yes, I have felt the quality of comments go down slowly but surely, seemingly all the way to intentional trolling. And I am guilty of not doing anything against it, although in part because of the “dont feed the trolls” principle.

    So what’s an open-but-self-protective community to do ?
    * One could encourage the comunity to fend off “bad” comments, like it happens now for any “this week in svn is late again” comments. This’ll only work to an extent, but is a good tool to have.
    * Use moderation tools on the dot (can bugtracker comments be moderated too ? that would be usefull) is a tight rope to walk on, but could certainly be used for the worst offenders. I really dont want to see the dot become another slashdot, though. What about a “report trolling” button on every comment to help the moderators, the same way we have “report spam” in other places ?
    * Disabling or moderating comments on individual blogs is worth considering… individually :p
    * A “comment contribution” charter could help in all those cases, but I’m a bit sceptical. These things are hard to write and allways subject to interpretation. Since there’s going to be some interpretation / subjectivity anyway, I’d rather have a few persons officially designated (elected ?) to classify good and bad comments.

    I’m not sure how well these ideas will work, but they’re worth considering (hey, I copied most of them from this blog’s author :p ). Trying to completely cut on bad comments is futile, but maybe we can control the flow a bit. KDE is becoming more mainstream, and will mechanically attract more bad-commenting apples. Aaron is one of the most visible member of the community, and therefor got burnt. I hope that he heals soon, and that the community find the tools to tame the flames.

  42. SVG Crazy says:
    June 26, 2008 at 01:15

    Really sad … no more news of shiny plasma features …

    But I understand, I wouldn’t have had half the patience Aaron had… Even Hitler he was called… People that make this kind of things shouldn’t ever be considered… but We have blood on our veins and We get offended with some kind of words (mainly when those words do not have another intention than offend)…
    I hope he continues on the great work he is doing on KDE, I really do.

    Sorry for my English, learning…

  43. BartOtten says:
    June 26, 2008 at 01:30

    http://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=154535
    “I don’t want this feature, so it won’t make it!””>

    This is not the cause of flaming/discussion, it’s a consequence. I have been in the same (only smaller) situation as Aaron and did the same thing: go back to my main-task where I did not need to defend myself to the world. Sometimes your just fed up with discussing, explaining and defending and you make your point clear: This is how it goes and this is how you have to take it. No more, no less. Sometimes a vision is impossible to explain to others.

    The KDE-team does have a vision for the longer future and they are spammed with garbage about the near future. It takes too much time and Aaron, as head of the visible Plasma-team, was the main target to blame. If people only read all his blogs they would not have to ask so much about things that were already written. Plasma would be broken for 4.1, the desktop would not be a place for icons etc etc.

    Aaron: i loved your blogs (and what not :P ) and i regret i/we can’t read them anymore in the future. i think you gave us a fantastic preview of the feature and explained things the best (and most) you could. Text to screenshots, screenshots to video… i bet that if you had enough time you would have given live-demonstrations worldwide…guess some people just never dream to see the same vision you and the KDE-team have.

    thanks for all those blogs

  44. Jason S says:
    June 26, 2008 at 01:50

    OMG! I cant believe what I am reading….. and I cant believe what people are doing.. Shame!

    Reading Aarons blogs and post’s is like Christmas for me… I need it like I need my coffee and cigarette ..
    .
    People we need to do something about this, we cant sit and let this all happen…
    Aaron if you are reading… please dont do this to us, there are people that need you and much more of us are innocent than guilty, don’t let your self hang.. WHAT CAN I DO, GIVE ME A JOB, A MISSION… TELL ME WHAT I CAN DO TO PREVENT THIS.. I am Sirius..

  45. Riddle says:
    June 26, 2008 at 02:56

    I volunteer to moderate the Dot!

    It’s a shame that the “community” had to be so cruel. I’ll say cruel because it is: using personal attacks, calling people names, and generally being abnoxious when people are GIVING is cruel and mean and the type of things you would never say to a person’s face. If Aaron leaves KDE completely……………… just don’t make him leave completely.

  46. kwilliam says:
    June 26, 2008 at 03:18

    Ok. I’m sad. But I’m not going to just repeat what everybody else has said.

    I’m glad Aaron is taking a break from blogging. I’ve noticed for a while that he was being drained by whiners. Page long replies to idiots on the DOT, multiple blog entries – even a screencast – devoted to those who Didn’t Get It… I love you Aaron, but you’ve got to quit worrying about the FUDslingers. You’re the president and chief Plasma developer. Of course it hurts when people diss plasma because it’s you’re baby, and worse, all the public whining could eventually hurt KDE’s image. But please, appoint someone else, a group even, to handle the FUDslingers if you feel they must be fought. You’re writing code for yourself and KDE users, not for whiners.

    I’m glad Aaron is taking a break. I’m now free from the constant obsession of reading his posts. It’s like a Dominoes commercial – what will I do with my new free time? Mostly though, I’m happy Aaron has finally realized what’s important to him, and that defending KDE4 against whiners is not it. They don’t deserve his time.

    Now, what can we do? I agree, start with the Dot. Here’s my idea of a moderation system: Include a “Pipe this comment to /dev/null” link next to each post. If someone clicks it, they have to select why this comment deserves to be hidden. Options include:
    *) Yet another “KDE sucks” rant
    *) Pointless, poisonous, personal attack
    *) Yo, ever heard of bugs.kde.org?

    Requires users to be logged in to bury.. er.. pipe comments to /dev/null. If 3 users bury a comment, hide it and replace it with the reason why it is buried. I don’t really think we need a way to promote good comments, just bury poisonous ones.

  47. Janne says:
    June 26, 2008 at 07:09

    ““I don’t want this feature, so it won’t make it!”

    Not clever to dismiss a feature like that when dozens of users ask for it.”

    Well, this is free software, do it yourself. Like it or not, developers are not required to satisfy every whim the users might have. They obviously have a plan and a purpose for the cashew. And now they should (for all intents and purposes) kill that plan because “dozens” of users say so? And how many users are NOT asking for its removal?

    Besides, if distros want to remove it, they can do so.

  48. Borge W. Gush says:
    June 26, 2008 at 09:22

    I’ve noticed that once people have met face to face they will behave much better in their online communication. It is too easy to hit a man you haven’t met nor will probably never meet. People may really do that just because they have personal problems in their life, a bad day, etc. and there’s always dozens of such people online. Nobody should take half-anonymous online quarrels too seriously. If you think you’re right in, say, your blog, and someone disagrees, you may calmly explain your point once, but then forget the whole matter. No point letting aggressive fools ruin your time.

  49. Jonas says:
    June 26, 2008 at 11:06

    Well, the only surprising thing about Aaron doing that is: what took him so long? Had it been me, it would have been closed months ago and that’s only by reading the comments on the planet. Comments on the bugtracker and what not may even be worse.

    “some of the poisonous people in our project” – hm, not in my eyes. The people throwing venom around are whiners and trolls and not people that want KDE to be the best it can be.

    Does that mean I agree with everything Aaron and the other developers are doing and the direction KDE is going? No, of course not. There’s always something any individual would want implemented differently but that’s no reason for name calling. And name calling is the most effective way I can think of that will make sure the developers won’t listen.

    Finally, most of the venom I’ve seen directed towards Aaron and plasma amounts to “I don’t like it even though I haven’t even tried it myself yet. Fix it now you lazy bum or I’ll make sure you get a kernel panic”. Hardly constructive or anything but just venom for the sake it.

    I’ll miss getting the updates but hopefully it at least makes sure Aaron can concentrate on working on KDE instead of wasting energy on morons.

  50. Qball says:
    June 26, 2008 at 11:23

    Wish him luck from me. I know it sucks terrible getting crap like that.

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