On Thu, 2019-06-13 at 15:26 -0400, Douglas Gilbert wrote: > On 2019-06-13 12:28 p.m., James Bottomley wrote: > > On Thu, 2019-06-13 at 12:07 -0400, Douglas Gilbert wrote: > > > On 2019-06-13 11:31 a.m., Bart Van Assche wrote: > > > > [...] > > > > Please explain what makes you think that part_nr_sects_read() > > > > must > > > > be protected > > > > by an RCU read lock. > > > > > > Dear reviewer, > > > Please rephrase the above sentence without the accusative tone. > > > Specifically, please do not use the phrase "what makes you think" > > > in this or any other code review. For example: "I believe > > > that..." is more accurate and less provocative. > > > > Imputing "tone" to email is something we try to avoid because it > > never ends well, particularly for non-native speakers. Some > > languages (Russian) have no articles and if you take any English > > phrase and strip out all the articles it sounds a lot more > > aggressive. > > Like you, I am not a native North American English speaker but I > have lived here long enough to realize that "what makes you think > ..." is not a pleasantry and it may be fishing for an emotive > reaction. It is not the type of expression that professionals would > use to make a point in a public forum. I'm not so sure of that, for instance what makes you think I don't do it in my own reviews? > I'm not talking about articles (e.g. "a" and "the"), I'm talking > about pronouns like "you" and "I". I'm not aware of any languages > without pronouns. IMO Bart uses expressions with "you" in them too > often when he is expressing _his_ opinion to the contrary. It's a grammatical tick not an insult and seeing it as such would help defuse the situation. I know this is difficult; my own pet grammatical foible is having to contain it when I see "avoid that" in a patch subject, but I've managed (so far). > > > Observation: as a Canadian citizen when crossing the US border I > > > believe contradicting a US border official with the phrase "what > > > makes you think ..." could lead to a rather bad outcome :-) > > > Please make review comments with that in mind. > > > > Different situation: we aren't profiling reviewers ... > > Would you have used that expression when addressing a teacher at > high school or university? I'm looking for a yardstick of where > a reviewer should "pitch" their responses. The way you address > someone who has the ability to make your life uncomfortable (e.g. > by refusing you entry into their country) may just be such a > yardstick. > > > > P.S. Do we have any Linux code-of-conduct for reviewers? > > > > It's the same one for all interactions: > > > > Documentation/process/code-of-conduct-interpretation.rst > > > > But I would remind everyone that diversity isn't just a > > gender/race/LGBT issue it also means being understanding of the > > potential difficulties non-native speakers have with email in > > English. > > To quote > https://www.contributor-covenant.org/version/1/4/code-of-conduct.h > tml > to which your above reference indirectly refers: > > It calls for a "harassment-free experience for everyone, > regardless of ... expression ..." OK, we picked a code of conduct which is Anglo biased and doesn't take into account the linguistic diversity of the community; the various problems with the current code of conduct are why we have to have the interpretation document. > So informing someone (not for the first time) that readers of the > language in which they are writing, may take offence at their > expression is: not showing an "understanding of the potential > difficulties non-native speakers have" and thus is harassment? > Balance that with the angle of a reviewer trying to intimidate > the person presenting the code. Could that also be harassment? > In this case I see little evidence of the "potential difficulties" > to which you refer. The problem, as I see it, is that you're assuming malice where I wouldn't, even if linguistic issues weren't a potential issue. > More generally: > IMO those who have power speak in a condescending fashion and act > unilaterally in the matter of reviewing and applying patches. A > select few are allowed to apply patches seemingly without any > review and ignore error reports or attempts at public review. > It certainly does not look like a system based on merit. Is there, perhaps, some other deeper underlying issue for which this is serving as a proxy? James
