Re: [Gimp-developer] Alexandre Prokoudine attacks on GIMP critics around the Web



On Thu, Nov 15, 2018 at 3:46 PM Niccolo Brogi <nkkollaw gmail com> wrote:

OK. If you're bad at talking to people (since people come with
misconceptions although you could easily change that), as someone who
doesn't only speak for himself, you should just not talk to people.

It's also not just me,  many people have the same problem with you. I
guess it's you against the world.

Let's see if the rest of the team is aware of your behavior, and --in case
they have the courage to approve my message or at least reply--if they
approve of it (BTW, why don't you CC them, if you are so sure your behavior
is OK?).


I don't need to CC people who are already subscribed to the mailing lists
you posted to. This is how mailing lists essentially work: people get
emails sent to those list.


I have thick skin (mind you, some people that have messeged me don't as
much, and are still upset about your attacks and were in tears),


Oh yes, about that. The allegations. Since there have been only two other
problematic cases with users in the past week, I'm confident I can pinpoint
the relevant threads.

Exhibit A:

A day or two ago I dared criticize GIMP [...] and that alexlg guy came
off the ropes so hard I was literally in tears over it. Just wanted to tell
you how validating it was to see you jousting over the exact same ground
with him just a few days earlier.

This is this very thread:

https://www.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/9vneh8/gimp_2108_released/e9ex8sl/

There was a quite justified complaint that text layers are hard to use in
GIMP, which I readily agreed with. Nevertheless, this user came to say that
lack of maturity of that feature is present because of GIMP team's "mindset
of "you don't need it" and "we don't like it"". The harshest thing I said
in response was point out evidence of the contrary, then saying "Facts...
Always such an inconvenient thing, isn't it? :)".

I'd love to see here the cause of alleged tears or coming hard off the
ropes.

And Exhibit B:

[...] He even went so far as to mention me by name in another thread
entirely, basically calling me a whiny baby, once enough people had
dogpiled that he was forced to slightly change his stance on something.
Even if you win, you lose...

This is this very thread:
https://www.reddit.com/r/GIMP/comments/9wrgwp/whats_new_in_gimp_2108_by_davis_media_design_this/

Essentially, someone got steamed up because of having to spend shocking 3
minutes on "wading through a sea of jargon, buzzwords, mansplaining, and
patting yourselves on the back" which is how this person characterized the
official 2.10.8 announcement.

"mention me by name in another thread entirely" is actually about the very
same thread --
https://www.reddit.com/r/GIMP/comments/9wrgwp/whats_new_in_gimp_2108_by_davis_media_design_this/e9oe05x/
-- about the very same topic: providing a shorter list of changes between
versions.

And here is the "basically calling me a whiny baby" quote:

"I don't see any way in Gitlab to view all files at the time of tagging a
release, but I'm not sure if having to scroll through changes for the next
version first [in an updated NEWS file] would give anyone a heart attack,
save for our friend /u/Unchayned <https://www.reddit.com/u/Unchayned> here."

There are facts, and then there are interpretations. I don't think our
interpretations will ever match, but I'd be happy to be proven wrong.

Alex


and I don't care what you say and do if you take responsibility for your
actions-- which you have to do since you not only speak for yourself only,
but for other people as well.

On Thu, Nov 15, 2018, 13:22 Alexandre Prokoudine <
alexandre prokoudine gmail com> wrote:

Hi Niccolo,

There is a certain thing I'm rather horrible at - trying to a have a
conversation with people who come with preconceptions about something they
are not qualified to make judgments of and unwilling to learn before
drawing conclusions.

When stumbling upon your message that by not setting dates to releases we
tell users to "f*** off" (which you later edited away), I should have kept
my mouth shut. Nor should I have replied to your continuos verbal abuse
containing expletives.

I am truly and genuinely sorry about that.

Alexandre

чт, 15 нояб. 2018 г., 14:48 Niccolo Brogi <nkkollaw gmail com>:

Hello.

TLDR:
Alexandre attacks GIMP critics around the internet implying that he's a
developer of GIMP and represents GIMP, using language and doing things that
are completely inappropriate for his (self-proclaimed?) role, which makes
the whole GIMP team look like crap for no reason.

FULL:

A little bit of a backstory (which you can skip if in a hurry): I've had
a couple of unpleasant exchanges with Alexandre. Our latest exchange is
https://www.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/9vneh8/gimp_2108_released/e9doqjq
from the Reddit thread at
https://www.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/9vneh8/gimp_2108_released/.
While it started innocently enough, it quickly turned nasty. What triggered
Alexandre was my opinion that scheduled releases are better than random
ones, because people like IT administrators might have to upgrade hundreds
of computers, and being able to plan for that is nice. I think he
understood I claimed the GIMP development team could and should refactor
GIMP to GTK3 and release in 6 months (which I never said). Regardless,
instead of saying "ah, no GIMP is better with rolling release because, bla
bla bla..." he started attacking me personally--basically saying that I had
no right to say that because I'm not a GIMP developer (but neither is he
more on that later). A missed opportunity to learn something: just because
of his tone, the discussion deviated from that and got uncivil, which is
what I observed always happens with him when he exchanges ideas with people
that have unapproved opinions.

I tend to be blunt and ignore political correctness. Add that to perhaps
getting passionate or even emotional about stuff, and to be honest
sometimes I do get harsh replies and have to rephrase things I didn't say
nicely enough. However, exchanges with Alexandre are a totally different
beast.

Why? A while after posting the comments I talked about above I started
getting PMs of "solidarity" from other users that Alexandre attacked around
Reddit. For instance, I was given permission to include:

A day or two ago I dared criticize GIMP [...] and that alexlg guy
came off the ropes so hard I was literally in tears over it. Just wanted to
tell you how validating it was to see you jousting over the exact same
ground with him just a few days earlier.

Another message:
[...] He even went so far as to mention me by name in another thread
entirely, basically calling me a whiny baby, once enough people had
dogpiled that he was forced to slightly change his stance on something.
Even if you win, you lose...

Because he implies that he's a GIMP developer--by saying stuff like "oh,
you don't develop GIMP, you can't say anything bad about it", or using "we"
in connection with the GIMP dev team (with the word "dev" being important
here)--he seems to get some sympathy from fellow users, because what kind
of piece of shit attacks volunteers that create awesome free stuff for
people (which I agree with). It really upset me when I found out that he's
not at developer at all, but contributes in non-technical ways. This is bad
not only because I can excuse his attitude from a developer but not from
someone that writes articles on Facebook while pretending to be a developer
to please his ego, but because he doesn't get banned from communities just
because he implies that he's in the dev team.

I think that if Alexandre's job is to "market" GIMP, not only he's doing
a horrible job, but he's being detrimental to the project. It's easy to
relate to people that agree with you, they're already passionate GIMP
users! Those that have some kind of issues are the ones to really talk to,
because you can explain things to them and since GIMP is an awesome project
you can change their mind or make them more informed, and turn a critic
into a passionate GIMP user (or even evangelist). In addition, pretending
to be in the dev team is good for his ego, but really bad for the dev team,
since it just gives the impression that GIMP devs are entitiled assholes.

I'm aware that this email might not only fail to help stop Alexandre
from attacking people, but also cause more attacks towards me since I would
assume you sympathize with him, but so be it. Maybe (just maybe) you guys
are not aware of what's going on and don't actually agree with this
behavior, and (just maybe) you can get Alexandre to change his attitude
into one that is more productive and appropriate for someone who either
does or claims to represent the GIMP team.


Niccolo.
--
Niccolo.

--
Niccolo.



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