Agreement

It's nice if prominent people such as Joey Hess seem to agree with you... except if they don't

  • Regarding the Planet Debian CSS, what I actually meant to say is that I dislike the default stylesheet, as opposed to liking it more than the other two. Should've been more clear there.
  • Regarding the vote: Uhm. Joey, just for the record: you don't accidentally happen to be making fun of me, do you? ;-)
    Let's assume you don't. Well, yeah; that title wasn't a great example of objectivity either. In the interest of fair-play, it wouldn't be an incredibly bad or crazy idea to do it again, properly; however, I don't think I'd push such a motion forward, since in this particular case, no real damage seems to have happened (at least I didn't see anyone cry out that they misunderstood what was changed). I would support and/or second such a motion if someone else would suggest one, though.
    What's more important, I think, is to make sure things like this don't happen again in the future, perhaps by formulating a set of guidelines that define what a vote ballot should look like, and what it should definately not look like. One suggestion is to demand that subject lines refrain from making any comment on the subject of the vote (i.e., they should just say "changes too <document>", "statement about <issue of the day>", or "overruling of decision regarding <foo> by (the DPL|delegate <bar>)". Perhaps more is necessary?
  • At least we can agree on the gimp part :-)

Since I'm talking about agreeing with people, I might as wel go on...

I've been credited with having an infamous cool, and with having subtle points of view. That does in no way mean I don't have explicit thoughts about certain people or subjects; in fact, I have been known to lose it every once in a while. It is my firm believe, however, that cooperation and being positive towards eachother is crucial in a project such as Debian, even more so than leadership and similar things. My advice:

  • Above all, try to remember that we're all Debian developers, aiming for the common goal to further the availability, usefullness, and quality of Free Software. We may differ in opinion about what "free software" actually is, and about how to achieve that goal, but that's only a minor detail; what's important is that we have a common ground.
  • Considering the above, try to remain positive. Try to find out the motives why someone did something, assuming they did it to further the goal of getting Free Software to the masses, and don't assume they did it because of something you said or did. If you're not sure, ask.
  • Ignore flamebait. Reply with reasonable arguments to reasonable things, and snip out the offensive stuff. Replying to such things will generally make it worse; is a waste of your time (since it doesn't achieve anything constructive); will probably forgotten by everyone not directly involved; and puts you at risk of having people who are directly involved form a grudge against you.
  • Finally, don't even think about reading a flamewar when you're upset about something else :-)

Not that I expect anyone is waiting for the above, but what the heck.