[wp-docs] Extremelyu Poor Forum Support

[michael at followingedge.com]

--On Sunday, October 30, 2005 5:21 PM -0500 Scott Merrill 
<skippy at skippy.net> wrote:
> There's little more to be gained by continuing this conversation.
>
> Aaron needn't have reacted as hotly as he did to Moshu's comment.  It's
> unfortunate that he misunderstood Moshu's posting.  We don't need to rake
> him over the coals for that.
>
> The participants here needn't have been as hostile as they were to Aaron.
> It's a pity that Robert Deaton sent the email he did.  It's comments like
> that his "your say is not going to hold nearly as much merit" that really
> stifle new participation by creating an "old boy's club" attitude.

As much as I hate to continue a thread from which there is little more to 
be gained...

The input you're offering is exactly what I read from Aaron's initial post. 
I'm glad that you were able to state it more directly. It sounded to me 
like he was hurt and insulted at feeling slapped down when trying to make a 
contribution.

I am easily able to pick up on his disappointment as I've seen others shot 
down and have even felt ignored and shot down by yourself and others on the 
lists and forums. The negative and defensive responses I get and that I see 
others get may not be a personal attack, but they seem to say "you've 
offended us by not doing things the way you're supposed to", "you're in the 
wrong place and please don't bother us", and "you don't have enough 
experience here to make suggestions to those of us who have been here a 
long time".

I am sure that cronyism is not the WordPress community's intention, but I 
can't believe that you'll get more people involved with the aggressive and 
dismissive tone that I see used with new contributors. Of course, it's not 
just WordPress; Mozilla and other large open-source projects have pockets 
of the same issue. I hope it's possible to avoid, since I think WordPress 
is awesome and should have as much community support as it can get.

I am also hoping that the core contributors can read what Aaron had to say 
and, which the goal of encouraging new participation that you mention, 
avoid being defensive and ask themselves how things might have worked 
differently to help Aaron not only understand what had to be done 
differently about his 1.6 comment, but also to understand that his 
contribution is appreciated. My personal experience has made me feel much 
like Aaron: very adversarial and unmotivated to contribute. I really do 
hope that things seem more encouraging to new participants over time.

Thanks, Scott, for your response acknowledging the need.

-Michael