How to deal with asocial people in communities
Each community, sooner or later, is confronted with the fact that individuals are introduced into it, badly influencing the general atmosphere. They may be incapable of cooperation, rude, self-confident or unpleasant. For example, a too intelligent person who suppresses those around him with his intellect. Often, he does not want anyone harm, just such a character with him. How to identify and expel such a person, so as not to violate the democratic principles of the community? This topic is devoted to one of the lectures Google Tech Talks.
In their lecture, Google programmers talk about the Open Source communities, but most of the rules they formulate are absolutely applicable to any other type of community. The fight against "poisonous" people is carried out in four stages.
Community understanding
Community focus and focus are the main resources in any Open Source project. Because of inadequate users, these values ​​can be lost. They can distract attention, and there is nothing worse than this. Such unpleasant phenomena as a decrease in the general level of politeness and mutual respect, or, for example, a striving for perfectionism, may appear in the community. Due to perfectionism, the entire project can be bogged down in discussions.
"The fourth law of Parkinson" states that the level of interest in a topic is inversely proportional to its complexity . People like to hang their own labels, and it's easier to do it on a simple topic than on a complex one. Accordingly, the simpler the topic of discussion, the easier it is to slip into a destructive discussion with the participation of asocial personalities.
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Community strengthening
A healthy community should be built on four principles: politeness, respect, trust and restraint. Most of the problems arise if a particular principle does not work effectively.
It is necessary to set a task, a mission in front of the community, set a direction for development, and set a certain framework for it.
Editors (moderators) do not have to constantly answer all questions. Instead, you need to collect all the answers in big messages and publish them periodically. This ensures sustainability, while “poisonous” people can answer each question separately, in order not to give a common opinion. They can reply to every email in a thread without missing a single one. Accordingly, it is very important to observe the etiquette of mailing lists in the groups where the discussion is taking place.
If necessary, you need to edit the rules of the community and set them out very clearly. The fewer votes, the healthier the community. Voting is the last resort, because after it there are always winners and losers .
Identification
Suspicious people can be identified by a variety of signs. For example, they pick up closed topics, use uppercase letters or an excessive number of punctuation marks, have strange email addresses or ridiculous nicknames. Those who behave aggressively, paranoidly or offensively deserve your attention.
Pay attention to people who are unable to understand the mission of the project, ask too many RTFM-questions or can not catch the mood of the community. Inappropriate jokes or destructive sentences (“we must rewrite everything from scratch!”) Are clear evidence of a “poisonous” personality.
No need to dwell on the number of community members, do not bend over and attract people at any cost. True, new participants need to pay special attention, even if they initially behave annoyingly.
Disinfection
The reaction must be proportionate to the attention that the harmful personality has been able to attract. Do not try too hard if everyone does not care about him.
When disinfecting, stick to facts, not emotions. For example, a person seems annoying. You cannot say this directly, but you can make a statistical analysis of the participant's letters to the conference and calculate the total amount of discussions initiated by these letters. These specific numbers can be used as a reason for the most polite expulsion of a person from the community.
Additionally:
Video recording on Google Video (55 minutes).
Information about the lecturers: Brian Fitzpatrick and Ben Collins-Sussman, Google programmers with many years of experience in Open Source projects.
via ballpark.ch
In their lecture, Google programmers talk about the Open Source communities, but most of the rules they formulate are absolutely applicable to any other type of community. The fight against "poisonous" people is carried out in four stages.
Community understanding
Community focus and focus are the main resources in any Open Source project. Because of inadequate users, these values ​​can be lost. They can distract attention, and there is nothing worse than this. Such unpleasant phenomena as a decrease in the general level of politeness and mutual respect, or, for example, a striving for perfectionism, may appear in the community. Due to perfectionism, the entire project can be bogged down in discussions.
"The fourth law of Parkinson" states that the level of interest in a topic is inversely proportional to its complexity . People like to hang their own labels, and it's easier to do it on a simple topic than on a complex one. Accordingly, the simpler the topic of discussion, the easier it is to slip into a destructive discussion with the participation of asocial personalities.
')
Community strengthening
A healthy community should be built on four principles: politeness, respect, trust and restraint. Most of the problems arise if a particular principle does not work effectively.
It is necessary to set a task, a mission in front of the community, set a direction for development, and set a certain framework for it.
Editors (moderators) do not have to constantly answer all questions. Instead, you need to collect all the answers in big messages and publish them periodically. This ensures sustainability, while “poisonous” people can answer each question separately, in order not to give a common opinion. They can reply to every email in a thread without missing a single one. Accordingly, it is very important to observe the etiquette of mailing lists in the groups where the discussion is taking place.
If necessary, you need to edit the rules of the community and set them out very clearly. The fewer votes, the healthier the community. Voting is the last resort, because after it there are always winners and losers .
Identification
Suspicious people can be identified by a variety of signs. For example, they pick up closed topics, use uppercase letters or an excessive number of punctuation marks, have strange email addresses or ridiculous nicknames. Those who behave aggressively, paranoidly or offensively deserve your attention.
Pay attention to people who are unable to understand the mission of the project, ask too many RTFM-questions or can not catch the mood of the community. Inappropriate jokes or destructive sentences (“we must rewrite everything from scratch!”) Are clear evidence of a “poisonous” personality.
No need to dwell on the number of community members, do not bend over and attract people at any cost. True, new participants need to pay special attention, even if they initially behave annoyingly.
Disinfection
The reaction must be proportionate to the attention that the harmful personality has been able to attract. Do not try too hard if everyone does not care about him.
When disinfecting, stick to facts, not emotions. For example, a person seems annoying. You cannot say this directly, but you can make a statistical analysis of the participant's letters to the conference and calculate the total amount of discussions initiated by these letters. These specific numbers can be used as a reason for the most polite expulsion of a person from the community.
Additionally:
Video recording on Google Video (55 minutes).
Information about the lecturers: Brian Fitzpatrick and Ben Collins-Sussman, Google programmers with many years of experience in Open Source projects.
via ballpark.ch
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/8398/
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