constructive negativity

Some have noted that the tone on planet.kde.org has been relatively negative lately. Some have said that this is actually a good thing, because it's about being honest with ourselves and that there are silver linings waiting for us at the end. That it needs defending at all is telling.

Personally, what I get out of it is a draining of motivation and hope. It's not because these posts are negative, though. It's because they tend to have few hard facts in them, almost never offer concrete solutions and rarely sound like the author wants to be part of the solution. Which means we get left with, well, negativity and not much else. That sucks. What's worse: I don't think that's at all what is intended.

The KDE community historically has had a tendency towards pessimism. We wrap it in terms like "realism", "pragmatism" and what not, but honestly .. our community is moderately conservative and really good at identifying what's lacking, often more so than our ability to identify opportunities and potential. It's a very typical engineering-and-maths type thing to do. It's also rather easy to fall into a "being the clever critic is cool" mode, and when that's all we have to go on, our efforts suffer.

So I'd like to propose a solution, one that I'm going to do my best to follow as well. (And please remind me if I don't. :) When planning to write a critical or negative piece, something we all do from time to time and often with good reason, let's try to:

• Check our facts: do some research and bounce our thoughts off the people involved directly first. It may turn out we don't have all the facts or know all the details at play. Then we can share an accurate viewpoint versus spread misconceptions.


• Lead with facts: start from a factual basis and follow on with our opinions on the matter. There's a demonstrated tendency to leave out the facts we do know or leave them as little better than footnotes.


• Include the positives: if there are positive points as well, let's note them. It helps preserve balance and can help others discern possible motivations for the decisions thus far.


• Propose plausible solutions: if we are going to spend the time cataloging challenges, let's also spend the time and effort to catalog solutions. This is part of being constructive.


• Be prepared to support those solutions: armchair coaches are a dime a dozen and very few of us have the necessary skill and background to play the role of a professional critic: someone who is deeply knowledgeable about but not a direct participant in the field. So if we talk about a problem and propose a solution, remember that we are driven by doing more than talking. If we can't strike out and breath life into the solution ourselves, be the first to support those who can. This moves us from being disruptive because of problems to supportive of solutions.

Personally, I feel that if some of the above had been applied to each of the recent "negative" entires, they'd feel a lot more motivational, constructive and accurate. As a result, I'd expect to see more people charging into the solutions. If we really want to see something improve we need to offer a realistic assessment, a possible starting point and some inspiration so others can find their legs.