When it comes "non-inclusive" language and even "toxic language", I try to keep somewhat high threshold before making any conclusions.

Sometimes a non-native speaker can do that by mistake because of less vocabulary and taking this into account is also one way of being "inclusive".

Usually when I get a response that feels just nasty the action I take is not to respond at all because when people get pissed trying to discuss about it just leads to non-constructive debate. Sometimes there's reason for that nasty response, e.g. a mistake that I've made or something I've ignored, but there are better and worse work weeks, and life outside the work affects the performance.

That is the reason why I think not responding at all to a "more toxic" response is the best action taken because also the person who responds might just have a bad week, and despite CoC and everything people sometimes cannot control their nerves - that's just human.

#linux #lkml #coc #codeofconduct

@jarkko it can be really difficult to find the right level to respond with sometimes.

I think the key thing is to try always to be as civil as possible, even if the person is being an arsehole. Sometimes you do need I think to push back and to be firm, but maintaining the civility not only keeps things professional and takes into account that we're all humans, but in addition allows you to row back reasonably from a mistake in case you were simply wrong/misunderstood (important to do that if you have too!)

I think in cases where somebody is doing something that would be harmful to the kernel it's important to be firm (and NAK as necessary), but again to remain civil.

But we are all human and all make mistakes in this arena. Of course a CoC codifies a baseline of acceptable conduct but I think you have to hold yourself to a higher standard as much as you can.

I think sometimes when you find you have a very emotional reaction the best thing to do is to sleep on it or take a walk and calm down before responding, or draft a response and re-read in the morning/etc.

The general thing I always try to maintain is - I would say anything I say online in text form to somebody in person face-to-face.

I think text is a shitty medium of communication and absolutely language and especially cultural differences (some cultures having a more 'direct' style vs. others for instance, or some being more abbreviated that in other cultures would be considered rude etc.) can play a role in misunderstanding.

I think it's unavoidable so just has to be managed as much as possible.

@ljs Yeah, and even if someone is an "arsehole" I like to think that maybe next day things will be different :-) Every patch is a new chance for a person to prove different, that's how I like to roll...

@jarkko yes it's important to reassess, you might always be wrong to think somebody is an a-hole, and also the person might also make amends.

Civility, forgiveness, all things that are sadly in rare supply in online discourse, but worth aspiring to.