Assholes can negatively impact projects and communities in several ways. Their behavior causes targets to decrease effort, work less time, and drop in quality, and it can cause witnesses to quit as well. It also spreads as their behavior is discussed, amplifying the problem. Projects can see reduced innovation, cooperation, and ability to attract top talent as a result. While confrontation may seem necessary, it is usually better to establish clear expectations, provide a way for people to give feedback, and remove people from the community if needed to accomplish goals rather than trying to fix them. Preventing problems requires quantifying social impacts, setting high standards for behavior, and making the culture and values clear from the start.

1. Assholes are killing your project

2. Reputation Results Contributors The Community Circle

3. Your ability to get results depends on your community.

4. What makes a great community? The best Assholes Most of us

5. What isn't an asshole? Conflict is good You need to differentiate between personal attacks and technical criticisms.

6. What is an asshole? Two tests After talking to the asshole, does the target feel oppressed, humiliated, de-energized, or belittled?

7. Does the asshole target those less powerful?

8. What is an asshole? Look for patterns Everyone has a bad day sometimes. For assholes, every day is a bad day.

9. How many good interactions does it take to cancel out one bad one?

13. 5 good for 1 bad. Your team needs 5/6 positive people just to break even!

14. Fight Flickr: undergroundbastard Men tend to

15. Flight Flickr: noeluap Women tend toward By tolerating assholes, you alienate women

16. Problems assholes cause to targets 48% decreased their effort

17. 47% worked less time

18. 38% dropped their quality

19. 66% declined in performance

20. 80% lost time worrying

21. 63% lost time avoiding

22. 78% became less committed

23. 25% quit; 20% of witnesses quit!

24. Cascading effects amplify the problem Flickr: wsdot Cascading effects amplify the problem

25. Flickr: wsdot Word of mouth transforms one asshole into an avalanche

26. Problems assholes cause to projects Reduced innovation & creativity

27. Reduced cooperation & cohesion

28. Cost of targets' retribution toward project

29. Impaired cooperation from external projects & people

30. Impaired ability to attract the best & brightest

31. Recruiting more assholes

32. TCA: Total Cost of Asshole Team lead Developer relations team Project leadership Recruiting & training new developers Targets & witnesses __________________ Total Cost of Asshole + + + +

33. An asshole is incompetent Flickr: escapo Social and technical ability are orthogonal. One never balances out the other.

34. How do you fix it? Flickr: trp0

35. Flickr: kalandrakas Personal interactions— Have a conference

36. Flickr: hashir People need somewhere to complain and a sense that action will happen— rapid feedback

37. Flickr: shannonmary Are you here to fix people or accomplish your goals? At some point, it's time to cut off the detour.

38. How do you prevent it? Flickr: redefyne

39. Flickr: koenvereeken Be quantitative Show that social aspects have metrics, too. Developers believe numbers.

40. Flickr: soldiersmediacenter What are your standards? Is “good” really good enough? You are a SWAT team, you need great!

41. Flickr: mount_otz Provide expectations Nobody knows your culture when they start. Do you want them to learn it from an asshole? Provide a code of conduct.

42. Want to learn more? Read these

43. In the long run, dealing with assholes is never worth it.

44. Donnie Berkholz Gentoo Linux [email_address]