Comment by tremon
7 years ago
Then again, why should you wait for the original submitter for those modifications? The original contributor published his code, and has not given any indication he's interested in the rest of the process. Why can't anyone else who wants that feature pick up the slack? Maybe you can make that explicit, marking such feature requests as NEEDS_WORK or something?
This is where the behavior of the maintainer is key.
On one hand, if the maintainer asks the contributor to fix up their code, the maintainer can be seen us ungrateful, demanding, dictatorial, and/or pedantic.
On the other hand, if the maintainer makes the changes herself, they can seem impatient, uncooperative, overpowering, and/or power-hungry.
Regardless where on the above spectrum the maintainers behavior falls, they can come across as friendly, neutral, pessimistic, or toxic. That depends on how they communicate. It also depends on the social norms that the maintainer and contributor are used to.
A maintainer must be extremely vigilant and aware of the tone they use and the image they want to portray. The contributor should also be aware of these things. If either side wavers, opportunities for an unhealthy brew arise.
This is compounded by the fact that most people, maintainers and contributors, are doing the work on a volunteer basis. Often there is an unspoken expectations that others should be grateful for the work that they are doing. When these expectations are not met, sour feelings arise.
Yes.
Given how difficult this is, it's no surprise to me that potential contributors might not want to stick their neck out, as expressed in TFA.
Yes, I find it helps to say "here is what is needed, anyone should feel free to take it from here." In my first response, so it's clear I don't expect anything more.
Quite a few PRs were improved and merged this way, and I think the feeling of community is enhanced when a PR goes through multiple revisions by multiple contributors.