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hrm... (Score:1)
> To call him out, in public and on list. It might be tilting at windmills, but when someone's being a jackass somebody's got to call them on it.
Schwern, you're being a jackass.
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I am hoping that was being sarcastic.
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No. He's over-interpreting and escalating a blunt but straight forward answer.
And he's exhibiting exactly the traits he doesn't like.
Similarly, I'm a jackass as well.
No feedback, no correction. (Score:2)
Jackassery has to be called out, without feedback no corrective action can happen.
There is a vast difference between saying "Hey, you're being a jerk!" and being a jerk. Now, it might have been more tactful to do it in private, but doing it in public puts everyone else on notice: this behavior will not be tolerated!
It all worked out in the end. He apologized and clarified that he meant "it's been done already". I thanked him and said I'm sorry we got off on the wrong foot. He gave a little, I gave a little. Now that's done and we're talking about productive things.
The alternative was I walk away in a huff, nothing gets done, the project silently loses a contributor and that guy does it to the next person offering help.
This is not a simple case of a "blunt but straight forward answer". That I'm used to. That would have omitted the "yawn". Without that "yawn" I would have just chalked it up to simple miscommunication. The thing about textual communication is that it is very deliberate. You can't accidentally type "yawn", you do it because you want to convey how bored you are to the reader.
You are also responsible for considering how your audience will receive your message, this goes triple for new users who don't have any previous experience with which to interpret your response. Consider how you'd interact, face-to-face, with a new person at a user meeting vs how you interact with old timers. You're nice. Nicer than you would be with people you know. Why? Because sarcasm and friendly put-downs are so easy to misinterpret.
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Passive/aggressive FTW!!1!
Seriously though, what you did was fine. In public if you want to make a point you have to match the response to the tone of the argument, as long as the tone isn't too far gone.
In real life I don't tend to pick up or display body
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...but it wasn't passive/aggressive. Passive/aggressive would have been to not respond to him and just go post about it on my blog and be angry and feel justified and never find out if it was just a case of poor wording. Passive/aggressive avoids conflict (and thus resolution). Passive/aggressive is quicker, easier, more seductive. The dark side it is.