1. Assholes
are
killing
your
project

2. It's all about barriers to entry
Wikipedia: Smokefoot

3. Community is critical
Reputation
Contributors
Results

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

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

6. Ubuntu launches
Ohloh
Proto-assholes start
receiving complaints
Assholes removed

7. Ohloh
Drepper inactiveMove to Git

8. What isn't an asshole?
Conflict is good

9. What is an asshole? A simple test
After talking to the asshole, does the target feel
oppressed, humiliated, de-energized, or belittled?

10. What is an asshole?
Look for
patterns

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

12. Sutton

13. Sutton

14. Sutton

15. Sutton

16. Fight
Flickr: undergroundbastard
Men tend to
Pearson & Porath

17. Flight
Flickr: noeluap
Women tend toward
Pearson & Porath

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

19. Problems assholes cause to targets
● 48% decreased their effort
● 47% worked less time
● 38% dropped their quality
● 66% declined in performance
● 80% lost time worrying
● 63% lost time avoiding
● 78% became less committed
● 25% quit; 20% of witnesses quit!
Sutton

20. Cascading
effects
amplify
the problem
Flickr: wsdot

21. Problems assholes cause to projects
● Reduced innovation & creativity
● Reduced cooperation & cohesion
● Cost of targets' retribution toward project
● Impaired cooperation from external projects & people
● Impaired ability to attract
the best & brightest
● Recruiting more assholes
Sutton

22. An asshole is incompetent
Flickr: escapo

23. Dealing
with assholes
a.k.a.
How to steel
your spine
Flickr: AdmlCrunch

24. How do you fix it?
Flickr: trp0

25. Flickr: kalandrakas

26. Flickr: hashir

27. How do you prevent it?
Flickr: redefyne

28. Flickr: koenvereeken
Be quantitative

29. Flickr: mount_otz
Provide expectations

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

31. Want to learn more?
Read these

32. Donnie Berkholz
dberkholz@redmonk.com
Twitter/IRC: dberkholz