Re: Criticisms of my "tone" (was Re: A "cosmetic changes" commit that removes security fixes)

[Leo Famulari]

On Wed, Apr 28, 2021 at 12:43:53PM -0400, Mark H Weaver wrote:
> I'm sorry if this comes off as obtuse, but having now re-read all of my
> messages in this thread, I honestly do not see what I did wrong here.
> I will need some help to understand.

It's common advice that managers and leaders should "praise in public
and criticize in private".

Assuming that the goal of the criticism is to improve somebody's work,
and it must be done in public, then criticism must be carefully
calibrated to avoid making them feel defensive, humiliated, and angry.
It was correct to point out these mistakes in public but, based on the
result, I conclude that your message was not calibrated well.

The beginning of this email discussion began by naming a perpretrator
and pointing out that it was part of a pattern of mistakes, rather than
focusing on the mistake.

The next part said, "Behold [...]". As a native USA English speaker, I
claim that we only use "Behold" ironically and sarcastically.

The message ended by casting aspersions on Raghav's status in Guix.

At no point did you concretely describe the problem, or try to teach
Raghav what the solution was, or try to explain the correct workflow
regarding security updates.

You should have sent a message that explained the problem and tried to
teach the solution. I've seen you do it many times before; I don't know
why you sent that sarcastic and mean message instead.