I am answering as if it would be addressed to me.

First of all, noone gets paid to write Drupal, views or whatever. Much less to write end user documentation. You are a pathetic loser to get something for free and then demand more.

On another note, views is one of the best documented module out there. Even if it would not be, the source is there, you are free to read and understand.

If Drupal is so very hard why are you using it at all? Noone holds a gun to your head. But, here I warn you: you will find that writing modules for other systems are no picnic either... there are some systems that the mere operating them is frightening. And how come no backwards compatibility is a surprise? The handbook has a Drupal is right for you? chapter and therein http://drupal.org/node/65922 you can find how the drop ever moves.

Surprise! Modules are only written by, as you say by random people when they have some need to fullfil and because they are nice, they also share their hard work with you. Of course, this is not enough for you, you DEMAND support -- what you have contributed to the community to DEMAND anything? Of course, those who have contributed stopped demanding...

If you think it's apathy to not give burn away my free time on losers (you want more polite? then suckers) then your dictionary needs an update.

Now, now, most posts on drupal.org these days gets answered. Even those who do not deserve it by far because they have not done minimal research which would have a) teached them something b) saved someone else time...

It amazes me that so many people think that the only difference between commercial software and Open Source software is that the second is free.

I would like to think this is an April Fools joke email. Very sad that it is "real" -- I will thank you for your great work on drupal

I am no expert coder but I have several sites up and running with 4.7.4 and a couple with 5.0 I upgrade frequently and find I can live with the "extra work" because I get something in return.

the culture of entitlement extends way beyond drupal and open source, and into our grandest social institutions. sure, it is a major annoyance for volunteers to be postered with these insults. i too have ranted at people.

but really these leeches are just like spammers and flamers and trolls and all the other pests we deal with online. we just do the best we can to ignore them, and move on.

our handbook has some terrific writing on some relevant topics.

• How to enact change in Drupal community
• Backwards compatibility and Drupal
• Support and professional services

in this case though, i'd prefer to refer him to the plone handbook or the joomla handbook. better yet, php-nuke.

I don't understand how anyone could evolve up to this point.

I know drupal for about a year, I wouldn't even have called myself a very "web-savvy" person a little while ago, but I can assure you that I am very impressed about drupal. The core was a little bit intimidating and at a very first glance limited (since I did not immediately see all of its possibilities), but once I discovered the power of its modules, I got blown away by its potential.

I'm just posting to show my appreciation. I recently discovered vieuws, and its implementation into panels. I am amazed. I love it and I hope I'll ever be able to contribute.

For me, documentation was a great start. As with any rapidly evolving OS project, it is rather normal that you need to spend a little bit of time playing around in a testing environment. Spending some more time experimenting around could sometimes be the best advice to a lot of people having 'ovious' questions. I am rather silent with questions on the drupal site, simply because I know that I can solve most problems by just spending a bit of my OWN time.

Just hoping you understand that this kind of reactions does not reflect the general vision on what people think about this system!

Hey merlinofchaos, I was just wondering if you could make my site for me? I've been pretty busy playing my new xbox 360 and hope you could do it instead.

*hopefulley you caught that as a joke.

Dude, that guy can eat a dick, it's his own fault for having a lack of intelligence. Don't be offended dude, I give you mad props, and for the one faggot asshole you didn't please you have probably made 1,000 others happy. Let the little baby run away to joomla or something and come crawling back in about 6 months when 5.0 is all the rave. I understand your pissed, I would be too, your kicking your ass to get the new version of views & panels done for the release of 5.0. Hopefulley you see there are other people reading your blog that understand and appreciate your work.

I think I am going to start the merlinofchaos fund, maybe everyone can chip in and we can hook you up with something nice on your wishlist.

My friend Ben who is one of the Fink maintainers had a great post on his blog over 3 years ago on the responsibilities of users. To summarize, though, the developer really has no responsibilities to the user. They do what they do because it's what they want to work on. However, the user has a responsibility to join the community, to give back. It's obvious that the person who wrote you has no wish to join the community.

Goddammit im shocked over these idiots - I must admit i had a kinda hard time getting in to this View stuff - but man when the basic concept first is understood it just kicks ass :) .. and lets get real how hard is it? -read the documentation, play with it and voila!
People who wont put in the effort to learn & use this asskicking module -well Fuck'em, nothing else to say.

I know for sure that ill have to find a couple of the best danish beers (..mmm maybe the open source freebeer.org) and take em with me to the states at the next drupalCon just to show a bit of gratitude for the hard work you have done .

mmm...and if the 1.2 version of views is going to include $limits & $offsets, then ill even mail em over .. The "beer for code" program ;)

You do great work and have even provided me support in the past. In addition you go one step further than most devs by posting tips for views on a regular basis. THese are great becuase they often get me think in a different way about what possible.

I agree... A beer for this guy and a kick in the ass for the dumbasses that expect you 2 give your life up for them documenting.

Thx for all that you do bro! Panels and Views have enhanced significantly what drupal is capable of...

First off, I really appreciate what you and all the other key contributors are doing. From reading these posts, I'm under the assumption that this sort of not-so-fancy-footwork is a fairly common occurrence?

Having said that, and not to defend any rude &$%#@ making demands, I can attest to the fact that there is a steep learning curve with not only technical elements, but also the dynamics of the community itself. As someone who spends a lot of time trying to grasp the concepts as well as the proper community etiquette, I often discover, after the fact, that I may have broken some rules. Have I inquired on the support boards about the some issue more that once? Have I emailed developers direct? Have I rambled on the boards or on someone else's blog (uhhh) about some big idea or concept that I don't really understand myself? Yep -- guilty, in varying degrees, of all of the above. And once again, I really try to figure things out before I ask a question - try my best to understand something before I post. Not to let any a-holes off the hook, but it does take a bit of work to understand the dynamics, and the rules of the road.

Speaking of long winded posts, this is somewhat related to the topic on hand. Not sure if it's a viable way to give back to the community, but it would great to get some feedback and/or other ideas.

Thanks again!

You'd be amazed at the stuff I've been asked to do once I announced my availability as a drupal consultant - people with hobby sites asking for full site conversions for $300 USD, for example, or that "I read on the web site that Drupal will do (some complex feature that might be implemented using three existing add-in modules), so it should be a snap, I don't understand why that should have any effect on the cost" (never mind that all these modules need configuring, testing, and sometimes - yes! bug fixing - in order to make them all work properly).

You are absolutely right about expectations - it seems that some people expect you to provide enormous amounts of time and creative thought for nothing or next to nothing.

This, in my opinion, is the biggest problem with working on open source products - sometimes (all too often, so it seems in Merlin's case) the user expectations are just completely out of line with reality. On the other hand, I think I understand why - they hear all these great things that can be done, and they assume that it requires no investment on their part - just add water!

I've invested the last 9 months of every spare moment working with Drupal -- I'm a software geek and love to dive into these kinds of things -- Drupal, even though drop-dead-simple to install and configure since 4.7's release, is *not* for everyone and everything, and certainly not for naive users, unless they are willing to invest the time and energy to become a non-naive user.

I think the main question is: how do we help communicate this to prospective users?

As a programmer for 15 years now I just recently made the move to PHP/MySql. I started out with Joomla! and made a module called LinkXchange for it(http://www.websitediscount.nl). It's a client\server system and of course there were some bugs in it. In the first week I answered all questions and made bugfixes within the hour. 9 out of 10 e-mails I got were OK, but the others ......
Some people realy think that programming is just like writing a blogpost or an e-mail. They don't know how time consuming it is, and how much effort you have to invest in learning the "language".
That said, I can tell you this: "Drupal is by far the best engineered piece of software I have seen since a long time!" And most modules are programmed very well. So don't be offended by guys like these! Just know that the good guys out there are never gonna call for support. They just look at the sourcecode if they wanna know what's going on under the hood. Just keep up the good work!

My company paid *lots of cash* for a commercial CMS, along with a yearly support fee, and we haven't received enough support to keep the system operational. Now we are moving to Drupal, because we get better support from unpaid volunteers who care about what they are doing and keep the system working "out of the box". And we accept the risks that that brings too. Frankly I don't understand the Views_bonus module either, but its damn useful, and if i can't fix my problem on the spot I keep plugging away at it till i work it out. Keep up the good work.

I very much sympathize with your frustration when some annoying user feels like they are entitled to your time. It's irritating, to say the least. And it can make one less willing to put out the effort. However...

I first learned this interpersonal dynamic many years ago when I published one of the first FAQs (tutorials) on the IBM PC Parallel Port. Yeah, back in the MSDOS and PC/AT days. It got widely republished, and a number of folks let me know they appreciated it, or send in helpful corrections, suggestions, or code snippets. I even got a comp copy of a book on the subject. But even more seemed to think that I was thereby a free consulting service. Students from literally all over the world wanted me to do their electronics homework for them. Some were rude, some were polite but out of line in their hopes and expectations. This was a time when the internet was just hitting mass usage, and lots of people had been sold on the idea that paying their ISP for some modem time meant the world's computer experts were at their beck and call for unlimited free help - without understanding that the internet's good reputation from which that impression came, derived from a more collaborative give and take community of fellow contributors.

Anyway, the deluge of emails went on for years, and the bad responses sometimes annoyed me more than the good ones buoyed me. But eventually I learned that it takes two to tango/tangle. I don't have to get annoyed; I don't have to response unless I want to. If I did respond, I tended to respond (by then) politely - because I was choosing to do so rather than feeling obligated, and because *I* went away feeling better. I found that it made no sense to put wear and tear on my psyche just because some of them did not yet understand how it works (some later would grow up, some would not). All they were doing was writing emails; I was stirring up my own emotions.

Nowadays, if I contribute something, I expect in advance that some of the responses will be rude or annoying, and I am (mostly) at peace with that. If you choose to remodel the basement, you know you will have to put up with dust and noise before you start, but judge that on the whole it will be worth it. Sturgeon's law is that 90% of any field is crap; but we can choose to wrap our neurons around that other 10% and give the crap a small share of our mindspace - and enjoy what we do more.

Really - creating and sharing good stuff IS fun - if you are selective in which responses you pay more attention to, because there is a great set of folks who DO get it. There's not much you can do about being ignored (nobody interesting ever responds), but there is a lot you can do if good folks do respond and you just have to filter out some misguided souls that aren't yet ready to play well. I'm not even cynical about all this (nowadays), more like reflective; and being less triggered myself, I'm even more compassionate to the annoying ones (being compassionate doesn't mean I feel obligated to fix their problem, just that I'm not hostile or hooked). I see that in one of your followups as well.

Anyway, I really don't want to sound like I'm lecturing; just sharing what has worked for me over the years. Your maya may vary. I appreciate what you do and hope you enjoy doing it. Kudos and sympathy!

xamox writes...

one faggot asshole

sure you're offended by one guy's remarks, but do you have to call people names? do you also have a problem with homophobia? C'mon now. this isn't the drupal way, that's for sure.

This sort of thing is exactly why module rating systems would be awful on drupal.org. For developers to have modules rated by people who have no idea what it does? This would be awful. It is usually only the frustrated people who vote on modules, and this would be completely unfair: if I looked at the Views module and saw it had an average vote of 3/10, I would likely not want to use it, without even trying it out, which would leave me in the dark, away from the awesomeness.

As for this particular email thread, there is nothing out of the ordinary for it. I tend to either mark similar emails as spam, or reply with at first polite, but increasingly blunt answers.

"Basic features wind up being created by random people
with no interest in supporting them beyond what's useful for themselves."

This is the worst, worst part of this email for me. If that is the impression people are getting from work on Drupal by you, of all people, I'm very, very sad.

It is really sad to read through that email. The title should have been "moron-emails".

I am newbie, as expected yes finding it tough to get started, picking modules, integrating etc, but I am truly amazed by the vast framework of drupal which makes everything else on the web - free and open source - an incomplete choice.