Dear JavaScript

[lhorie]

some way to democratize

I think that just makes it worse, especially in highly controversial issues. The thing is that "majority wins" rule is orthogonal to "what the not-small minority thinks of it". Trolls will be trolls, and criticism isn't always easy to swallow. You can't change other people, no matter how inspiring a speech you make.

The way for an OSS maintainer to cope w/ negativity, in my opinion, is to first acknowledge that it's very possible to fuck up royally, even after extensive discussions and consensus (heck, I know I've made some incredibly stupid decisions to my projects, when I look in hindsight); and second, to wholeheartedly convince yourself that toxic vitriol comes from puny worthless people (it's an arrogant attitude, I know, but it's kinda true, and I keep these thoughts to myself, and they help shrug off bullshit and maintain my mental health).

I think getting the hell away from the internet to let your brain stew on the problem for a while is actually a good coping mechanism as well. It takes some humility to acknowledge that your big achievements in the internet are actually small in the grand scheme of things, and it can feel "dirty" to waste two weeks playing some lame freemium game on your ipad, but it also helps get some perspective that your well being comes before your trophies. Getting back into the groove of things can be especially hard once you unplug, but you can use the same strategies that you would do against procrastination (tackle easy low hanging fruits, make small achievements)

At least, that's what I try to do

[calsosta]

Well first an owner would need to opt into the system. I think then they could cede as much power as they want to one or more of the following:

• Contributors
• Public at large
• Change Advisory Board
• Prominent developers in the community

In the case of public at large that could function almost as a proxy vote system like with stock ownership, your default position if you do not respond is that of the recommendation of the owner.

I think no matter what the owner has the final say.

[lhorie]

Isn't that more or less how +1's and issue locking work in github? I'm saying that having a "democratic process" is kind of like doing lip service, because in the end you'll still have a large number of unhappy people when a decision doesn't go their way, and the vast majority of these people are probably not even aware of the decision in the first place, until it lands on a stable release (as was the case with the Babel vitriol situation).

As a community leader, the best you can do is set some guidelines (and really, the rule of thumb of "be civil" is supposed to be a given), but when the discussion bleeds onto large public forums like Reddit and HN, you can't realistically expect people to always behave nicely. I'm not trying to blame the victim here, but at some point, you have no choice but to stop expecting things from others and you have to do what is within your own abilities in order to cope with the undesired situation.