User:DKinzler (WMF)/User Guide

A User Guide to Daniel Kinzler

Logistics

• Availability: 10am - 10pm CET. My day is roughly structured like this: code in the (late) morning, afternoon with the kids, meetings in the evening (to match US office hours).
• Location: Leipzig, Germany (CET/CEST)
• Preferred Name: Daniel (him/his)
• Preferred communication method: Slack, Meet (mail and IRC are for bots)
• Dietary: will eat almost anything except cucumbers. Pickles are fine.

Things I like:

• Finding elegant solutions to tricky problems
• Finding ways to explain complex things in a simple way
• Lay’s. Salt only.

How to talk to me:

• I don’t care much about politeness. I do care a lot about friendliness and honesty.
• I frown when I’m concentrating. That’s just my thinking face, I’m not mad at you. Promise.
• I hate “shit sandwiches”. If you have bad news, just tell me the bad news. If I was rude, tell me I was rude.
• I generally dislike praise. Just say thank you. I’ll feel appreciated when you ask for my opinion or collaboration next time you have a hard problem.
• I love to explain. Feel free to ask me anything. And ask again if I didn’t explain well enough. Understanding misunderstandings is my favorite kind of puzzle.
• I’m hard to convince. But it’s not impossible, and I won’t be mad at you for trying. Maybe we both learn something along the way.

Things I’m bad at:

• I have no poker face.
• I'm terribel at spelling and typong.
• Eye contact. If I'm staring at the ceiling, it means I'm very focussed.
• I’m terrible at remembering names. No, really, way worse than you think.
• I have a hard time focusing on one thing at a time, and see it through to the -- oh look, a squirrel!
• Initiating contact. I'm shy by nature. No, really!

Annoying things I do:

• I raise concerns about ideas and proposals I actually like and support, and forget that I never made my support explicit. I want to make sure the idea is really as good as it seems. But I forget that it can be disheartening to be at the receiving end of this.
• I talk a lot, I have opinions on everything. When I’m taking too much air time in meetings, tell me.
• I can be oblivious to how I come across. Sometimes I sound harsh. If I was rude or inconsiderate to you or someone else, tell me.
• I sometimes get angry when I’m frustrated. That’s unhelpful. I’m working on it.

Hot takes:

• Myers-Briggs is a scam
• Dune is overrated (EDIT: I like the new movie!)
• PHP has become a decent programming language