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So I was in the process of my first submission to CRAN and it's been removed (before due date for fixing) because I didn't apologize to prof. Ripley for not testing on Fedora 36 (?).
I didn't realize that the process was that personal. It's embarrassing. #rstats
@albersonomiranda ouch, sorry. Please don't give up. If it helps at all I never see BDR on https://stat.ethz.ch/pipermail/r-package-devel/ . There was a whole thread *about* a similar situation to which he never responded: https://stat.ethz.ch/pipermail/r-package-devel/2023q4/009997.html (note however that Martin Mächler had to spend time expurgating the thread ...)
@bbolker just spent some time reading that thread and I don't know if I feel better or worse for not being the only one
@albersonomiranda @bbolker there's even a word for that: you've been Ripleyed... (I swear I don't make that up, I've seen people using this in the bird site).
My first submission was similarly very complicated... I made a "mistake": I replied to his e-mail instead of picking up the cran address somewhere else and using it to reply to the whole cran submission teams (they've improved this since then, now I think a reply-to-all does the job): I got something like "WHY ARE YOU WRITING ME YOU'RE NOT ALLOWED TO WRITE TO ME"... (There was absolutely no way to know that, I'm pretty sure the CRAN wasn't in cc of his e-mail)
@HydrePrever @albersonomiranda @bbolker Per Os Keyes's 2015 blog post https://ironholds.org/dont-use-the-mailing-lists/ , this situation has been a problem within the R ecology since 2011 and probably earlier.
While checking this out I also noticed that https://contributor.r-project.org/rdevguide/ReportingBugs.html#disagreement-with-a-resolution-on-the-bug-tracker says nothing about what to do if someone seriously oversteps.
I see there is an open issue https://github.com/r-devel/rcwg/issues/34 (cc @HeathrTurnr) to create a Code of Conduct for R. Perhaps a productive avenue to formalize expectations for everyone.
@brainwane @HydrePrever @albersonomiranda @bbolker @HeathrTurnr
Just to speak to the "... and probably earlier" point, and the etymology of "ripleyed" discussed elsewhere in the thread:
```r
fortunes::fortune("ripleyed")
#>
#> And the fear of getting Ripleyed on the mailing list also makes me think, read,
#> and improve before submitting half baked questions to the list.
#> -- Eric Kort
#> R-help (January 2006)
```
Amazing. Thank you.
So, the influence of this one person's behavior has been skewing #rstats norms (and causing survivorship bias) for at least 18 years.
I'll be the first to admit that I am an outsider to R. I've never written any. But I wish @R_Contributors well in alleviating this problem, because this is the kind of norm that causes me to not only avoid an environment but warn others away as well.
@brainwane @yjunechoe @R_Contributors @HydrePrever @albersonomiranda @bbolker @HeathrTurnr Oh yeah, he is absolutely a missing stair. I’ve been using R for work since maybe 2011 and probably one of the first things I learned, passed down from someone else whisper-network style, was “avoid the mailing list.”
@emjonaitis @brainwane @yjunechoe @R_Contributors @HydrePrever @albersonomiranda @bbolker @HeathrTurnr
Having been "Ripleyed" many years ago, and learned that fortunes::fortune("Ripley") has many useful comments, it is worth checking that the person in question is responsible for a lot of positive features. In particular, R and packages compile on multiple architectures simply, with the same results. For comparison, try compiling RStudio.
Hi. Can I ask for more context on your reply?
We're talking about a desire to address discouraging behavior.
I read your reply as implying a belief that our norms for addressing that behavior should vary based on whether the person has also made useful contributions. And that we should have 2 standards for "basic manners" in an open source project, 1 for people who have made sufficient contributions to it, and 1 for those who haven't.
Please do tell me if I'm wrong!
(I'm quoting the "basic manners" line from the email quoted in https://fosstodon.org/@albersonomiranda/112892922378067813 by @albersonomiranda .)
I recognize that you might be making a different argument than the one I was inferring, and I do want to know if you are! For instance, maybe you thought I needed to be informed of the stature the person holds within R, because that will make it more difficult to persuade people that a norm needs changing.
@brainwane @albersonomiranda @emjonaitis
I was making a different point. Professor Ripley (https://www.stats.ox.ac.uk/~ripley/) was for many years the most prolific contributor to core R code. See http://romainfrancois.blog.free.fr/index.php?post/2009/10/09/celebrating-R-commit-50000 from 2009.
Paul, I recognize that he's been a major and prolific contributor to R for decades; that's not in dispute.
But I'm not clear on why you're bringing that up in response to Erin's and others' observations and experiences.
So, could you please be more specific? Do you think we should use the fact of his positive contributions when evaluating the behavior we've been discussing? If so, how? What standard ought we apply?
@brainwane @albersonomiranda @emjonaitis
I recognise that standards of behaviour in voluntary projects have changed over the years, with codes of conduct. Getting older (and major) contributors to abide by such standards in voluntary projects is not entirely simple. Recognising contributions is necessary as part of this process. I didn't read that in the thread.
Oh that is very helpful - thank you. Now I understand your reasoning. I was working under the assumption that everyone in the thread is already firmly aware of the magnitude of those prior contributions.
@brainwane @PaulBivand @albersonomiranda @emjonaitis
Given their contributions to R, I would see no reason for them to stop continuing to contribute code to R.
The issue is with their interactions to those who would like to also contribute to R, and the lack of respect for others time and efforts in those endeavors.
@rmflight @brainwane @PaulBivand @albersonomiranda @emjonaitis I think there’s no past or future contribution he could make that justifies the community accepting his rude and aggressive communications to folks who also want to contribute to R.
@benschneider @rmflight @brainwane @PaulBivand @albersonomiranda @emjonaitis if having to deal with newbies, human error, basic standards of politeness makes someone so irritable, maybe they need to take a well-deserved retirement
@PaulBivand @albersonomiranda @emjonaitis Thanks for this conversation, which I've now written about at further length:
https://harihareswara.net/posts/2024/double-standards-and-volunteer-behavior/