Newsgroups: php.internals
Path: news.php.net
Xref: news.php.net php.internals:70819
Mailing-List: contact internals-help@lists.php.net; run by ezmlm
Received-SPF: pass (pb1.pair.com: domain gmail.com designates 74.125.82.169 as permitted sender)
Message-ID: <52B61756.9090202@gmail.com>
Date: Sat, 21 Dec 2013 22:33:58 +0000
User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; WOW64; rv:24.0) Gecko/20100101 Thunderbird/24.2.0
MIME-Version: 1.0
To: internals@lists.php.net
References: <52B5522A.4040709@lsces.co.uk>
In-Reply-To: <52B5522A.4040709@lsces.co.uk>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8; format=flowed
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
Subject: Re: [PHP-DEV] Censorship in php
From: rowan.collins@gmail.com (Rowan Collins)

On 21/12/2013 08:32, Lester Caine wrote:
> I know I will get my head chewed off, but I'm going to speak out 
> anyway ... 

Hi Lester,

Rather than accepting a negative reaction as inevitable, perhaps you 
should think how you can improve your chances of a positive engagement. 
The PHP website links to a few "house rules" for these mailing lists 
[1], but beyond that a few things occur to me that would have improved 
your post (at least in my personal opinion):

- Don't use inflammatory language. "Censorship" is a very loaded term, 
and using it too readily may well put people on the defensive, or create 
unnecessary controversy. (perhaps see also Rule 2: "Do not post when you 
are angry.")
- Pick an accurate subject/title for your post. Your points were 
specifically about the new layout on the php.net website, but your 
subject line gives no clue to that.
- Be clear on what point you are trying to discuss, and don't try to 
discuss several things at once. Part of your message is about a problem 
with the new php.net layout, but part is about the process of reporting 
that problem; it's not at all clear which you are expecting to be discussed.
- Ask in the right place (see Rule 2: "Make sure you pick the right 
mailinglist for your posting."). There is a list of all the PHP mailing 
lists with descriptions [2] and you can click through to see the 
archives to get a feel for the topics discussed on each. If you're not 
sure of the right list, be honest and ready for someone to point you in 
the right direction.
- Don't jump to accuse others (see Rule 1: "Respect other people working 
on the project."). You accuse "all these little cliques" of "dump[ing] 
the results on us" because you haven't seen the discussion which went 
into the layout change, but you give no details of where you looked for 
that discussion or where you expected it to take place.
- Request improvements, don't demand them. Rather than saying that the 
current situation is "unacceptable", explain where you think the problem 
lies and the kind of things you would like to see to improve it.
- Look for solutions as well as stating problems. You might not know an 
exact solution, but you could say what you think a better solution might 
look like - beyond a broad statement that the old layout worked better 
for you.
- Be open to compromise. Others may have different opinions, or there 
may be technical impediments to what you would like to see. Compromise 
here might be in the form of multiple "themes", as you suggest, but that 
tends to have technical costs, so attempting to incorporate different 
ideas into one layout will always be preferable.

In short, as the Wikipedia guidelines put it "Assume Good Faith" - 
approach mailing lists, forums, etc with the assumption that people will 
want to understand your concerns, and work with you to solve them, and 
you are more likely to find that assumption come true.

[1] 
http://git.php.net/?p=php-src.git;a=blob_plain;f=README.MAILINGLIST_RULES;hb=HEAD
[2] http://www.php.net/mailing-lists.php

Regards,

-- 
Rowan Collins
[IMSoP]