I agree with Jason. I do want Nick to learn the kernel (anyone who wants to learn should be able to and we're always looking for new developers) but most of us don't have the time or training to be able to help him. Learning via email seems to be a very bad medium for him to get a kernel education. Emails already take away the human element from communicating (tone of voice, facial expressions, etc), and on top of that he has this disorder. I really believe that if he finds someone to act as a middle man between him and the kernel making sure that he understands our emails (to the best of his ability), will help tremendously. I'm sure he's smart enough and earnest, but his Asperger's is making this very difficult for everyone. Hopefully once a system that works for him is set in place, he can tell us what is working for him and the kernel could learn how to better interact with people with communication disorders and others with Autism. Lidza On Wed, Aug 20, 2014 at 12:33 PM, Mandeep Sandhu <mandeepsandhu.chd@gmail.com> wrote:
Agree with Jason here.
If you don't find his questions palatable, just _ignore_ them instead of sending rants and sarcastic emails which just wastes more of your own time. That way the SNR of this list will improve! :)
On Wed, Aug 20, 2014 at 8:46 AM, Jason Conklin <jason.conklin@gmail.com> wrote:
Guys, stop it. Nick has told us he has Asperger syndrome; as such, he is not likely to understand facetious or flippant remarks for what they are. The time you've spent responding to Nick's emails would be much better used reading a little about autism spectrum disorders [1,2] and the kinds of difficulty and confusion they cause in more normal ("neurotypical") contexts, for both AS people and the people they interact with. Otherwise, just move on.
I am not a psychologist or an expert on autism spectrum disorders, but I know enough to recognize that his behavior on this and other lists is consistent with several aspects of those disorders. The sad thing is that he's getting treated as a malicious troll or a fool, when it's pretty clear (to me, anyway) that he's fascinated by the kernel and just trying to learn as well as he knows how.
Without going into autism spectrum intricacies or speculating on Nick's particular traits, I'll note that Aspergers is "characterized by significant difficulties in social interaction and nonverbal communication" (from Wikipedia) -- which we have seen repeatedly in Nick's frequently inappropriate and unresearched questions and misunderstanding/misuse of the good advice he has received.
The resulting frustration is understandable. I acknowledge that the format of this and especially the working kernel lists is simply not equipped to handle Nick's sort of engagement. The best practice, if you're frustrated by Nick's emails, is probably to follow the protocol for feeding trolls -- ie, don't -- even though his motivations are different from what I'd consider a "real" troll's. You simply cannot expect him to respond (neuro)typically to your input.
I don't intend to discuss this here anymore, but I really hope the above can provide a little context to help the community make more fruitful decisions in response to Nick's questions, or at least temper your frustrations.
Jason Conklin
[1] http://bit.ly/1odpfrd (Wikipedia: Autism spectrum)
[2] http://bit.ly/1rmgrHg (Wikipedia: Asperger syndrome)
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