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0 pointsmarquis12y ago0 comments

That's fantastic. I didn't see any information about this on your page so you might want to make this clearer (I assure you I read it first before commenting, then went back and saw the Fork on Github ribbon, the only indication).

By subscription I mean that I am happy to support an open source project with regular funding. Initial funds from Indiegogo are not sufficient to maintain a long-term service and we'd be hesitant to move our most important business infrastructure to something that may not be updated regularly as the security environment changes. If you were to look into making this a business with recurring revenue I believe you would find there is a lot of support.

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10 comments · 1 top-level

andrewcooke12y ago· 9 in thread

there's a big red line across the top right corner pointing to github (and licencing info there). there's another link to github near the end. apologies for a previous post that used strong language, but you really can't have looked very hard.

(you know, i just read chapter 2 of 'how to win friends and influence people' which tells me that criticising people never works because they simply work harder to justify themselves. it's the most depressing thing i have read in a long time, but it seems to be horribly, universally true. and it's so frustrating when the world seems to be populated by incompetent idiots. how do you convince someone 'nicely' that they complained about something without even reading it?)

marquisOP12y ago

I scanned the body copy for the words open source, GPL etc and missed the github ribbon at the top. It just may be beneficial to put this in text somewhere so it's more obvious, and not everyone searching for a private email server may be aware of the Fork on Github means.

There's another aspect to criticism: I posted because I care about this topic, and care deeply. If I didn't care I wouldn't upvote or post.

tspike12y ago

Regarding your addendum, if you really view the people as incompetent idiots, I'd argue you're not all that interested in winning them as friends.

In any case, just give the person the information they need without attacking them -- they won't feel defensive and they'll probably feel pretty stupid on their own.

For bonus points, try to empathize and think about something stupid you once did -- surely you've done some idiotic things in the past.

andrewcooke12y ago

i don't deny doing stupid things. look, here's an example from my recent posting history - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6121287 and the follow-up http://www.acooke.org/cute/HyperloopW0.html#Mon29Jul20132135...

what depresses me is that people don't admit it, learn, and move on. instead we get "well, i am showing how important it is to make this information more explicit because everyone else is as dumb as i am". no. we are not.

ps and no, i am not interested in winning you as a friend. what makes you think i would be? i am interested in influencing people. i want people to be smarter. it's frustrating that this can't be done by simply pointing out the correct answer. instead, people need to be molly-coddled into changing their minds without noticing. by pretending to be friends. an enormous amount of effort is needed to effect the smallest change.

i don't deny it. i think i need to read and learn from that depressing little book. but god i wish people would think a little more.

2 more replies

replax12y ago

Sorry for the off-topic

what i understood from reading the book making friends and influencing people, i thought that the "friends" he refers to are Customers/Business contacts.

which is often a lot off from our definition of friends (or at least mine...)

1 more reply

gonzo12y ago

> surely you've done some idiotic thigs in the past.

No, but give me 5 minutes, and I'm sure I will.

null_ptr12y ago

I missed it too. The red ribbon in the top right corner is very easy to miss on wide screens.

If I do Ctrl+F for "open source", the only result I get is that your designer enjoys contributing to open source projects.

You should consider explicitly mentioning open source somewhere in the main content, how about in the Self Hosted section? Congratulations on the awesome project by the way.

inopinatus12y ago

The problem might be you: are you trying to convince random unknown people on the Internet to change their minds? Absent knowledge of their true motivations, beliefs or biases? Don't bother with "nicely" but don't be critical either; just be factual - people always hear what they want to hear, and that's not actually your problem.

It is an order of magnitude more efficient to simply move on to the next person, because there are always more people.

javajosh12y ago

I also missed the fact that it was open source, and was about to post a comment about it, when I found this thread. "Open Source" or "Open" should be one of the big features in bold. I'd also like to know more about privacy and security features - for example, is PGP built in?

lancewiggs12y ago

If we accept, and we should, that there are no "incompetent idiots", then what's happening is poor communication.

Working to fix that results in better usability for a website and better readability for text - and that benefits everyone.

In my case, I saw the Github reference, and got the open source bit, but had no idea how to contribute. Where was the hulking big green "contribute now" button that allowed me to enter a credit card number and hit go? Going back I see that this was through a black button on the top of the page. But for me it's now too late as the site has made me feel stupid and I, and I suspect others, am significantly less likely to play.

Perhaps that's a timely reminder to re-read Krug's "Don't make me Think".

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