The forked elephant in the room

[Dibyendu Majumdar]

On Thursday, 18 January 2024 at 18:43:42 UTC, Paul Backus wrote:
> When someone submits a contribution, and you make them wait for 
> weeks or months before you even acknowledge their work, the 
> message you are sending is that their work is not important and 
> their time is not valuable.
>
> When someone shares their ideas, and you dismiss them without 
> even attempting to reach a common understanding, the message 
> you are sending is that their ideas are not worth listening to.
>
> When you require others to follow rules and processes, but 
> exempt yourself from them, the message you are sending is that 
> you do not view those people as your equals.
>
> No matter how polite you are, if you treat people like their 
> work is not important, their time is not valuable, their ideas 
> are not worth listening to, and they are not your equals, then 
> you are not treating them with respect.

Hmm, my reactions are:

* You have to live in the real world. Even in paid work, your PR 
can languish for ages, and sometimes never get merged.
* It is not because people don't respect you - the more mundane 
reason is they haven't got the bandwidth, and you didn't make it 
easy.
* I dread looking at complex PRs myself.
* If I want my changes to go through it is up to me to make it as 
easy to consume as possible. This means I may need to break it up 
into palatable steps, document thoroughly, do in-person or zoom 
walk through of the changes; understand concerns, and address 
them.

This is how things work everywhere.

Secondly - of course you are not equal. The language has 
designated leads, you are not and cannot be equal to them; they 
have a final say.