
Node.js leadership is a toxic mess - signa11
https://medium.com/@bgourlie/nodejs-leadership-is-a-toxic-mess-34e2b8faa003
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foob
It's a shame that this was flagged instantaneously just because it was
perceived as being in opposition to diversity programs. The quote that really
stood out to me wasn't about the diversity programs at all, but instead about
vilifying the node community on reddit.

> _reminder to reddit manbabies that they are kinda pathetic, irrelevant,
> boring, creepy nerds who’ll never amount to anything. The only thing they
> seem to know how to do is complain, masturbate about upvotes and karma, and
> be creepy stalkers when women are involved. Like holy shit, do these weirdos
> even realize what they’re doing? Y’all are literally the sketchy, sweaty
> nerds that make us wanna vomit. But keep doing what you’re doing, because
> I’d rather that y’all vomit-inducing rapey gross dweebs actually keep being
> open about who you are_

That seems like an incredibly unprofessional thing for an employee to say,
even if that's how they feel. It sounds more like childish name-calling than
any real effort towards promoting diversity. I'm supportive of efforts to
increase diversity within the tech community, but this sort of rhetoric just
comes off as divisive rather than productive.

~~~
BillinghamJ
The post itself isn't currently flagged/dead. Yours currently is.

~~~
daxorid
That was a very strange thing to see, in realtime. foob's comment was marked
[dead] but not flagged, as one often sees with shadowbans. Then suddenly not.

~~~
plorkyeran
Given the contents of the quote I wouldn't be surprised if his comment was
auto-killed until a moderator reviewed it.

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mcintyre1994
I have a similar thing: There's this Javascript community called WeAllJS,
which according to their website: "We’re committed to being supportive,
attentive, and inclusive." I know about this because one of their admins (per
their Twitter profile) posted an obviously offensive Tweet about men, and has
"professional mantagonizer" in their Twitter bio, alongside "Admin for
@wealljs". They also work at NPM.

Most interestingly, their Code of Conduct has: 'Any attempt to present
“reverse-ism” versions of the above as violations. Examples of reverse-isms
are “reverse racism”, “reverse sexism”, “heterophobia”, and “cisphobia”. I
_think_ this means that heterophobia and cisphobia are not only explicitly not
against the rules, but it's in fact a violation to claim that they are against
the rules. Fascinating stuff.

Okay, I didn't read the post in full first. The person I'm referring to is the
one who made the "reddit manbabies" comment quoted.

Also, the wealljs code of conduct has the exact same "regardless of age..."
line from the NPM code of conduct, in a slightly different order (but every
element is identical). I wonder how much overlap there is between the
leadership of each.

~~~
13years
I keep seeing this trend among supporters of diversity, which is a description
of inclusivity goals which then follows with a set of exclusivity rules. The
irony seems to always be lost.

The trending method of improving diversity and inclusivity is through
exclusivity. This will not work. People and groups who don't talk to each
other grow further apart and trust each other less.

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_Marak_
If anyone is interested, please look into Isaac Schlueter's twitter account at
twitter.com/izs ( he is the current CEO of NPM )

In the past few weeks his Twitter feed has gotten progressively more
incendiary. He now has blocked over 200k people on Twitter and basically
declared a personal vendetta against the 30k subscribers to reddit's Node.js
subreddit.

This is a person who has over 10 million dollars in VC funding . I don't
believe they are acting in the best interest of their investors, or the
Node.js community as a whole.

~~~
taurath
I don't really see where he's being incendiary. Political sure, but just seems
like an account for personal views . I couldn't find any reference to him
blocking 200k people, or declaring a personal vendetta on a whole subreddit.

~~~
_Marak_
Here is one of the statements he made about 30k members of /r/node not being
part of the Node community:
[https://twitter.com/izs/status/911732466758516736](https://twitter.com/izs/status/911732466758516736).
Be warned, it devolves into a long thread and rant.

He's actually blocking 170,839 users at the moment. He often brags about it.

see:

[https://blocktogether.org/show-blocks/c8XK_YKEO-
bTsJBLIcSnJZ...](https://blocktogether.org/show-blocks/c8XK_YKEO-
bTsJBLIcSnJZdNKL7CTPRQfLVrHip6)

[https://imgur.com/a/TKykh](https://imgur.com/a/TKykh)

~~~
city41
How does one block that many people? Does twitter offer bulk blocking
capabilities?

~~~
kiyanwang
At the height of the GamerGate debacle someone created an auto blocker that
automatically blocked ppl on a list, it also blocked anyone who followed those
ppl. So if, like me, you didn’t necessarily agree with the views of ppl on
that list but followed them to get a sense of who they are and what
perspective is, you got blocked right along with them. (
[http://fogknife.com/2015-07-27-why-i-support-the-use-of-
twit...](http://fogknife.com/2015-07-27-why-i-support-the-use-of-twitter-
autoblockers.html) )

~~~
gsich
Blocking opinions you don't like is a stupid idea in general.

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cisanti
Can Americans working in SV explain me how or why the white dudes let that
kind of crap happen? Do they walk their heads down when the little fascists
talk about "diversity"? They say Europe is liberal, but that kind of shot
wouldn't get far in any country over here.

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BillinghamJ
Important to remember that npm is not Node JS, though sadly they are very
tightly intertwined.

~~~
michaelmrose
Why should we make this distinction? People looking at whether they want to
participate in the community seem unlikely to.

~~~
BillinghamJ
I agree that it's atrocious no matter which party is responsible, but the
steps in addressing this are very different between a private company and an
open source project with significant governance. The author doesn't seem to
make much distinction in relation to this.

~~~
michaelmrose
Its usually impossible from the perspective of any individual to fix anything
like this. The correct thing to do is to identify something as toxic so that
other like minded individuals can avoid engaging. The resulting fix is that
the toxic thing progressively shrinks to irrelevance.

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jhh
I like diversity, but "Fck white dudes lol" likely isn't helping anyone.

Promoting diversity using affirmative language only should be possible. And
white guys's feelings are important, too.

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fictionfuture
Every leadership group will devolve into something like this if it's members
aren't moderated and if there is no clear hierarchy.

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curtis
I feel like there's something important going on here, but it's damned
difficult to understand what exactly it is.

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gsich
Of course it's toxic. Remember the kik disaster in which NPM valued it's users
like crap.

