
Announcing the GNU Kind Communication Guidelines - stargrave
http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/info-gnu/2018-10/msg00001.html
======
brobdingnagians
> The way we do this, rather than ordering people to be kind or else, is try
> to help people learn to make their communication more kind.

This is excellent; using love and persuasion to help someone improve is so
much better than by force, compulsion, and fear. How many children rebel
against restrictive and domineering parents? but a child who is loved and
taught, but allowed to make choices and pursue independence usually ends up
much healthier and happier.

>I disagree with making "diversity" a goal. If the developers in a specific
free software project do not include demographic D, I don't think that the
lack of them as a problem that requires action; there is no need to scramble
desperately to recruit some Ds. >Rather, the problem is that if we make
demographic D feel unwelcome, we lose out on possible contributors. And very
likely also others that are not in demographic D.

This dovetails in so nicely as well. You get more bees with honey than
vinegar, and it is better to make a project open, kind, mentor-friendly, and
productive-- which furthers the industriousness and quality of a product. Let
all come who desire to come and treat them in the spirit of kindness and co-
operation, but giving no preference or overt recruitment campaigns, which in
themselves could end up sidelining or diverting attention from the true aims
of the project.

I don't always agree with Stallman, but I think this is a magnificent and
well-thought out plan and response.

~~~
ubernostrum
So, here's the thing. Statements like this?

 _Rather, the problem is that if we make demographic D feel unwelcome, we lose
out on possible contributors. And very likely also others that are not in
demographic D._

This is not a new statement. This is what people pushing diversity have been
saying for years and years. The only ways for this to be a new and refreshing
thing to you are:

1\. You were not paying attention, or

2\. You were getting all your information from people who were doing their
best to misinform you.

~~~
levythe
It's everything surrounding this statement that is refreshing. Hearing,
"Diversity is not our goal; creating an environment that welcomes diversity
is," runs counter to the incessant assumptions that going out of our way to
collect diversity tokens is the end all and be all to facilitating diversity.

------
ekianjo
> Please assume other participants are posting in good faith, even if you
> disagree with what they say. When people present code or text as their own
> work, please accept it as their work. Please do not criticize people for
> wrongs that you only speculate they may have done; stick to what they
> actually say and actually do.

That's a breath of fresh air. There's always someone who tries to read between
the lines and strawman people for what they did not say/express. Keeping the
benefit of the doubt is always a more charitable (and peaceful) way for
conversations to take place.

~~~
noch
> There's always someone who tries to read between the lines and strawman
> people for what they did not say/express.

The claim that there is always someone creating strawmen is itself the
creation of a strawman. If you assume good faith of participants then it might
be useful to assume good faith of those who criticise even if they
misunderstand or misread or assume unwarranted implications.

~~~
gweinberg
Well, in the case of volunteer software projects, I think people who make
significant contributions should be cut a great deal of slack, whereas those
who criticize contributors without contributing themselves aren't entitled to
any slack at all.

~~~
ljm
I think there's a huge difference between cutting slack and assuming positive
intent, in the same way that there's a huge difference between criticism and
constructive feedback.

Cutting slack is essentially turning the other cheek to otherwise unwelcome
behaviour, for whatever reason that might be.

I don't believe it's healthy at all to cut slack for some people and not
others. On the contrary, it's incredibly healthy to give everyone the exact
same assumption of positive intent up until it's proven otherwise.

Those making significant contributions should be doing their best to set the
example, to show what the high standard is, and if you let them off the hook
you're not holding them to account. You're putting them above the guidelines
and essentially enabling them.

This doesn't mean that everyone should be criticised equally, but nobody
should be above receiving constructive feedback on their communication just
because they've contributed a lot of work.

And on that level, it also stands to reason that feedback has to be delivered
compassionately and appropriately, and it works a lot better if that's done in
the context of a trusting relationship or through people who are skilled in
engaging in such conversations.

A newcomer to the community who criticises everybody else is not communicating
kindly or compassionately. The assumption of positive intent may suggest that
they're not familiar with the guidelines, so the constructive feedback would
be to present those guidelines and point out where the newcomer may have
fallen short.

Hard work, but communities are hard work.

------
Millennium
This is interesting, but I have to say I'm skeptical that it'll do any better
than the Linux kernel community's attempt to apply Wheaton's Law back in 2015.

The geek community was largely formed by people who had been unfairly targeted
by those who enforce social norms: picking inappropriate targets, taking
things to inappropriate extremes, and the like. Our response was to create a
community that didn't enforce social norms at all -Geek Social Fallacy #1,
essentially- and a lot of beautiful things came from that. We changed the
world for the better in a lot of ways, precisely because we refused to reject
people just because they acted in ways that went against the social norm.

But there was a problem: some behaviors really shouldn't be accepted, and some
people really won't change without the application of force. Unlike the people
who first formed the geek communities -people we should all aspire to be like-
this second group was fairly ostracized: appropriate targets, appropriate
measures. They came to our community, not precisely for support, but for
enablers; having been rejected from everywhere else, they fled to a group that
refused to reject anybody. And that's exactly what we did, if not always
enthusiastically. It's hard to find a geek circle without at least one of
Those Geeks: the kind who drag things down and ruin things for everyone, but
people feel a duty to put up with their crap because that's what it means to
be a geek. They continue to abuse us and play us, for exactly this reason. And
they aren't going to change unless they are forced to. Some of them won't
change even then, but you do what you have to do.

And that's the problem with the kernel's old code of conduct, and with these
"Kind Communication Guidelines". They're a step in the right direction,
because they spell out unacceptable behaviors. But because they don't spell
out clear and consistent consequences for those behaviors, creepers gonna
creep. You might catch a few mild cases, and that's not insignificant, but the
mild cases aren't at the core of the problem, so the needle isn't going to
move much.

I know only too well how hard it is to lay down the law against someone who is
abusing your goodwill, especially when they're valued for other reasons, and
most of all when it feels so much like they're "just a little more extreme"
than most. It's a horribly painful thing to have to do -if you haven't had to
do it before, it hurts just as much as you might imagine, if not even worse-
and I can't blame people for being reluctant to do that. But this is how you
induce change in the hardcore. Guidelines like this can serve as decent
warning that real change is coming, but they don't bring about that change
themselves.

Still, this is a step in the right direction. It's at least an acknowledgment
that there are norms, and they are to be observed. But it's not going to be
the magic pill. There simply is none.

~~~
mcguire
I agree almost completely with your comment, with the exception of the second
paragraph.

We created a community with a different set of social norms, norms that are
enforced as aggressively and often as inappropriately as any others.

~~~
Millennium
It's not hard to argue that this is basically what happened in practice.
Certainly it feels the same for those targeted. But I'd argue that the
mechanism is different in ways that affect how it needs to be treated.

If there were norms that were actually being enforced, then existing
enforcement could be brought to bear against the creepers. The problem is that
there _is_ no enforcement in the usual sense, allowing the creepers free rein
to enforce, not any norms actually relating to the wider society, but their
own emotional whims. In essence, rather than being proper enforcement of
social norms, it is nothing but common bullying perpetrated by a vocal
minority, which they get away with because there is no mechanism to bring any
force to bear against the bullies. Their presence continues to be tolerated in
the same way that any abusive person in a friend group is tolerated: it keeps
the peace. Meanwhile, the targets leave because that's the closest thing they
have to recourse.

The creeps don't mind Wheaton's Law or "Kind Communication Guidelines" much,
because they know that no one with any clout will come after them for breaking
the rules. Same goes for SQLite's adoption of the Rule of Saint Benedict,
which they have already stated cannot be enforced for "minor" transactions.
Only when the rules come with enforcement mechanisms do they actually
complain, because that's the point when their targets gain a way to fight back
against the bullying.

------
civodul
As co-maintainer of GNU Guix, I want to point out that the views expressed in
Richard Stallman's message are his and not those of the Guix maintainers.

In particular, by writing that codes of conduct are "punitive spirit", RMS
shows a misunderstanding of how these texts came into existence.

More importantly, by writing that he disagrees with "making diversity a goal",
RMS seems to deny the role we free software people play in the demographics of
our communities.

Many of us in Guix (and I think I can speak for my fellow Guix co-maintainer
here) believe that free software should empower everyone. As such, correcting
the biases, conscious or not, that have led to the poor diversity of our
communities, must be part of our mission.

~~~
lawnchair_larry
Stallman’s guidelines fully support correcting biases. Making diversity a goal
is identity politics, which is a very different thing than correcting biases.

~~~
xoa
> _Making diversity a goal is identity politics_

I think you may be being too absolutist here? This would only be true if
literally every demographic thought identically about every aspect of a
project or product and brought the same point of view. Then everyone would be
interchangeable beyond pure technical competence. However I don't think that's
always true, and when it's not that means that diversity can have some value
purely in and of itself since it will bring a better reflection of global
usage goals and UX considerations.

I want to emphasize that this doesn't mean it's a _more_ important value then
anything else, which might be where some of the reflexive opposition comes
from. It shouldn't be a zero-sum game, where gaining diversity means
necessarily losing on other important values. But neither is diversity never
of any inherent positive value, it can be, and that in turn is worth some
positive effort to pursue isn't it? Not merely correcting biases, but actively
seeking a wider array of PoVs from intelligent people could help avoid mental
boxes and unpleasant surprises when something goes out into the general world.

So maybe a better version of what you said would be "making diversity the only
goal" or even "the goal above all else" or "diversity a goal but never taking
into account whether any cost/benefit tradeoffs to existing culture makes for
a net win" or something along those lines?

~~~
dx87
What you're saying makes sense, and I don't think anybody would disagree that
having a diverse PoV on a project would be beneficial. In practice though,
organizations saying that they strive for diversity normally don't bother to
look any deeper than skin color and gender. That's one of the common
criticisms of big tech companies; they claim to value diversity, but they
still mainly hire people from a handful of top schools, creating a largely
homogenous culture that share a similar PoV, but they say that they're diverse
just because a lot of their employees have different skin colors.

As an example, I'm a white male without college experience, raised in a single
parent, lower income household. Most people hiring for "diversity" would
overlook me just because I'm a white male, but would welcome my wife's
vietnamese friend, even though she comes from a wealthy background and went to
a prominent school that makes her much less diverse culturally than their
existing employees.

~~~
lawnchair_larry
To add to this, the benefits of “diversity” are vastly overstated and
unproven. I believe that the benefits could plausibly exist in certain narrow
cases, mainly things like UX design, marketing, etc. I don’t believe these
benefits generally exist in any meaningful way for things like low level code
or backend services.

I very much want to weed out bad experiences from turning otherwise interested
contributors away, and strongly support that. But when it crosses a line to
superficial tokenism, we all lose, including those who are underrepresented.

------
TotempaaltJ
> Rather than trying to have the last word, look for the times when there is
> no need to reply, perhaps because you already made the relevant point clear
> enough. If you know something about the game of Go, this analogy might
> clarify that: when the opponent's move is not strong enough to require a
> direct response, it is advantageous to give it none and instead move
> elsewhere.

I love this analogy of why not responding might be your best option.

~~~
whiddershins
I was very influenced when I read Paul Graham’s assertion that comment quality
tends to be inversely proportional to reply depth.

I can’t find the reference but I really took that to heart, and try as hard as
I can to avoid replying to a reply to one of my comments, here and elsewhere.
The exception would be if I was very unclear originally, or if someone asks
something specific that only I can answer.

What’s interesting is how effective this seems to be. If my original statement
is worth defending usually someone else will chime in.

Otherwise it’s a great mental exercise to just let the criticism stand, and
try to think how to be more airtight in the future.

~~~
hueving
That's a good pointer maybe for debate threads but it's not a good way to have
a real conversation.

------
marijn
While it sounds very reasonable, friendly, and non-authoritarian, a big
problem with an approach like this, without real teeth or rigidity, is that it
is very easy to harass people out of a community while staying within its
constraints, and provides very little recourse for those being harassed (who
often are not in a position of power) to put on pressure for getting something
done about it.

The approach taken largely ignores the discussion that's been going on about
this topic, and sounds pretty naive, if not willfully passive.

~~~
ajross
The current push for codes of conduct in software projects isn't about
harassment per se. Realistically anyone can be harassed out of a community
regardless of rules. The point of the rules is to change the norms such that
behavior that would otherwise have been exclusionary or just off-putting is
specifically called out and recognized as "wrong".

"This code is fucking garbage and you should be ashamed" may or may not be
"harassement" according to the intent of the writer or interpretation of the
reader. But it's still wrong and we don't want that.

~~~
bitL
What if the code was indeed garbage, and it cost a lot of time (super precious
asset) and brain power (a precious asset) to evaluate and reject? Such a
reaction would be understandable even if hurtful. No wonder people leaning
towards the Asperger/autistic spectrum of brutal honesty would state that;
such is their nature.

What would you propose for addressing it? Ghosting? Silent blacklisting?
English-style "there is a minor hiccup with the code"? A compiled list of what
is wrong with the code (taking another few hours to prepare)? Any realistic
ideas?

~~~
flomble
> No wonder people leaning towards the Asperger/autistic spectrum of brutal
> honesty would state that; such is their nature.

Actually, it is not "their nature". The nature of people on the spectrum is to
have difficulty understanding social conventions. Having a system whereby
social conventions are explicitly spelled out in detail is likely to help
people on the spectrum adhere to them, because they no longer have to be
inferred.

People on the spectrum deserve understanding (like everyone else) when they
break social norms or say hurtful things due to not understanding that they're
doing anything wrong. When they _know_ that what they're doing is not
acceptable, they are as responsible as anyone else who knowingly acts like a
jerk.

I'm also highly skeptical of the idea anyone outside of a tiny minority would
be unaware that "garbage" is an intentionally insulting term, especially given
that it is a metaphor. Even "completely fails to meet standards" is vastly
better and more descriptive (outside of the emotional content of "garbage").

~~~
prepend
“Actually, it is not "their nature". The nature of people on the spectrum is
to have difficulty understanding social conventions.”

Holy moly, please don’t tell me what I do and don’t have difficulty
understanding. Even if you were a clinical psychologist, it’s a spectrum and
throwing out what entire populations do or do not understand is so weird, I’m
not sure what point it serves.

Even if I was the elected spokesperson of this population in the world, I’m
not sure I’d have the authority to issue such a nebulous statement.

~~~
flomble
I apologise for the generalisation. That was too broadly and absolutely
worded. But I would stand by the idea that "people on the spectrum are more
likely to have difficulty intuitively learning social conventions".

Is that still a nebulous statement?

------
binaryapparatus
Being politically correct vs getting the job done, I'll always choose getting
the job done. There is plenty or role playing projects where your feeling
matter more than your skills. In last couple of jobs I am always asking about
company policy, if they start piling about diversity and getting everybody
heard and how everybody's feelings are most important thing, I don't want to
work there.

Earn your place with your quality and your skills, not with the help of
inventing newer and newer rules until nobody can say how crappy, sub average
and difficult to work with you are.

(Talking to a random programmer with no skills but huge area of possible butt-
hurt).

Edit: btw can't agree more with Stallman if that's not clear from my post.
Love that guy.

~~~
SolaceQuantum
> Being politically correct vs getting the job done, I'll always choose
> getting the job done.

I am absolutely baffled at the idea that there is ever a situation where
getting the job done requires a choice to be politically incorrect as implied
here. Do you have an example of the phenomenon you're discussing?

~~~
binaryapparatus
Yeah, like mirko said, being pressured by project leader to merge absolute
crap (I was in charge of merging), "because it works and we don't want to
suppress less skilled colleagues". "Try to explain nicely how to do it better"
while that other guy a) doesn't want to learn and b) has feelings that are
more important that making better software / learning.

Edit: to clarify, that other guy couldn't understand the project or how to do
proper code so all the PC dance afterwards is the perfect shield and role
playing. I just walked away after few weeks.

~~~
jl6
Hey, I don’t know your situation so this may be nonsense, but what you
describe doesn’t sound so PC.

The guy’s code worked? Doesn’t sound unreasonable that the project leader
would want it merged. Put the technical debt on the backlog, get on with
writing other code that works.

The project leader presumably had a team to manage. Seems perfectly
understandable that they would want all their team contributing, even if some
team members were vastly more productive than others. The alternative is over-
reliance on key personnel, or back to the recruitment treadmill (both of these
are risks and uncertainties - which it’s the PM’s job to manage down).

The project leader should want his less skilled employees to grow their skills
so that he may one day have a greater breadth and depth of talent at his
disposal. It might even be reasonable for the leader to want his most talented
developers to do nothing _but_ coach junior colleagues - particularly on a
typical project that isn’t rocket science, where 5 average developers will be
more useful than one rockstar.

Like I said, I don’t know your situation. My point is that the behaviour you
describe seems like it could be quite normal and rational and not motivated by
PCness at all.

~~~
kragen
A low-quality codebase slows down everybody on the team and causes tasks that
ought to be routine to hit unexpected roadblocks. Every software team has some
set of practices for maintaining and improving the quality of their codebase;
a few teams, like ØMQ, merge any old crap and then fix the crap (_but not in
the backlog_, dear God! _Right away_, before it costs somebody else debugging
time) while most teams require that patches meet some kind of quality
standards in order to be merged.

By far the fastest I've leveled up my programming skills has been when better
programmers looked at my code and told me what was bad about it and what could
be improved. You're commenting on the story of someone who offered such
commentary and had it rejected.

~~~
binaryapparatus
Word by word this is exactly my experience. Code I was forced to merge was
working only on that day in a very limited set of tests. That's not 'working'
in my definition. First next feature we needed to add and code would break all
over the place. First I was politely telling it can't work because of this and
that, then I was fixing the code silently so we don't all hit the roadblock
the next day, then I was trying to discuss that we can't really work that way,
then I walked away. All in a span of 30 days.

------
wpietri
On the one hand, I'm glad that he's at least acknowledging that this is a
problem. It's disappointing to me that he talks about the problem as if people
first noticed it in August, when I've heard it discussed for a decade or more.
But still, baby steps.

There's also a crashing lack of self-awareness here. This bit sounds great:
"The only political positions that the GNU Project endorses are (1) that users
should have control of their own computing (for instance, through free
software) and (2) supporting basic human rights in computing."

But a) that's a very political position, b) many people in the diversity and
inclusion world see it as a direct consequence of basic human rights, and c) I
don't think it's consistent with Stallman's behavior. E.g., it was only in May
he declared it important to keep a stale joke about American politics in the
code:
[https://www.theregister.co.uk/2018/05/09/gnu_glic_abort_stal...](https://www.theregister.co.uk/2018/05/09/gnu_glic_abort_stallman/)

~~~
defgeneric
This is not an argument.

You've merely listed things you don't like, punctuated by little insults
("crashing lack of self-awareness", "baby steps").

~~~
wpietri
Yes, you have correctly detected that I wasn't making an argument. Into the
"add comment" box, I put my comment.

I think that's fine given that I'm in the target audience for his post. I'm
somebody who has been making occasional open-source contributions since the
early 90s but who has mainly stayed out of it given that it tolerates a high
level of jackassery up to and including outright abuse. This is a good step
forward, but a small step done at a point I'd call very late in the game.

Is there some specific thing I'm supposed to have an argument on? As far as I
can tell, Stallman has had a very "it's my bat and ball" attitude and has for
decades, so even if I had some sort of argument, I don't have any impression
he'd listen to it. I'm content to let him continue being very Stallmanesque
until he retires. I'm much more interested what the younger generation is up
to, as I think they're much more plausibly the future of open source than he
is.

------
hprotagonist
This is a remarkably sane and cogent approach.

His point about CoCs failing to encourage behavior “above and beyond” the
rules is well made, and i hadn’t thought about that side of Goodheart’s Law in
this setting before.

~~~
carlmr
>Goodheart’s Law

Didn't know this one yet. Thank you for pointing it out. I'll bring it up on
my next discussion on targeting 100% code coverage vs seeing it just as an
indicator of insufficient tests.

------
DannyB2
What seems to be lacking is a viral clause so that when you 'be excellent to
each other' the others are also required to abide by the same code of conduct.

~~~
wwarner
_That_ is an excellent observation! In a sense, copyleft is the most inclusive
code of conduct ever devised.

------
VictorSCushman
> The idea of the GNU Kind Communication Guidelines is to start guiding people
> towards kinder communication at a point well before one would even think of
> saying, "You are breaking the rules."

I really like this. I think it'll help the community become a more welcoming
place overall without needing to view politeness as a rule set. I see this as
an overall benefit to the GNU project, as well as to OSS as a whole.

------
JulianMorrison
When people are arguing for "diversity" what they are meaning, generally, is
"there is already an enormous thumb on the scales, this can be shown
empirically by outcomes". So to the extent Stallman's intent is to take the
thumb _off_ the scales and make everyone welcome, it is very reasonable.

That said, I think he's wrong to devalue quota type approaches, because in
some circumstances, particularly institutional ones in business and
government, those are a very effective way to force a noncompliant culture to
take its thumb off the scales.

~~~
indigochill
>those are a very effective way to force a noncompliant culture to take its
thumb off the scales.

I think some would argue that quota approaches aren't quite this, but rather
that they're a thumb on the other end of the scale. The first thumb is still
there because non-compliant cultures that aren't fundamentally converted to
becoming compliant at the cultural level will generally continue to be non-
compliant cultures and only comply insofar as the quotas require (to take a
rather contrived example, you can hire 50% women, but what about when 30% of
them are harassed, feel unwelcome, and leave?).

I'm personally of the mind that the only way to really take the first thumb
off the scales is to persuade the non-compliant culture that complying is in
their best interest. Which seems to be the gist of these guidelines: "We all
agree contributors are a good thing. Let's be welcoming to all demographics so
we optimize the number of contributors."

~~~
electrograv
Well said! Moreover, the popular “thumb on the opposite side of the scale”
approach risks accidentally encouraging a “thumb war” of sorts: I think
people’s attention is naturally drawn to the thumb on the _opposite_ end of
the scale, and thinking this to be unfair, will respond in kind with more
thumb pressure on their end. This could escalate more and more, until you
eventually end up with extreme unfairness vs extreme fairness.

The “thumb on scale” approach does work in some cases, I think, but it’s
important that there be a “de-escalation” (or “de-thumbing”?) endgame
strategy. What you don’t want is a situation where there are thumbs on each
side of the scale, and each side is telling the other to remove pressure but
neither side wants to because it’ll benefit the other.

------
avar
Side note: This is the first E-Mail I've seen from Stallman in over 4 years
that hasn't started with his usual boilerplate:

    
    
        [[[ To any NSA and FBI agents reading my email: please consider    ]]]
        [[[ whether defending the US Constitution against all enemies,     ]]]
        [[[ foreign or domestic, requires you to follow Snowden's example. ]]]
    

See e.g. [https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/emacs-
devel/2018-10/msg00...](https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/emacs-
devel/2018-10/msg00293.html) (just picked his latest on emacs-devel) for an
example.

~~~
okket
Stallman without boilerplate, Linus without rants, what has the world become?
Maybe, when everybody is loud and screaming in rage, the escapist role is the
quiet, humble and introspect one.

------
x220
I think this is a good approach, since these guidelines seem to arise out of
compassion and wanting to make both the disrespectful contributors and the
people they disrespect better communicators, and make the community better as
a whole. In contrast I get the sense that most CoCs I read are motivated by a
desire to punish people who make you feel bad.

------
joshuamorton
So, I read through the list of guidelines, and while I have some minor
quibbles with them, overall they seem fine and reasonable.

But what happens if someone refuses to be kind? What happens if that person is
a major contributor? What would happen if, in some strange alternate reality,
Linux was a GNU project, and Linus-of-2012 said he'd really rather not care
about all this politeness nonsense, and would prefer to continue on the way he
was?

The problem I see with your bees/honey comment is that there is no commitment
here from the maintainers and leaders of the project. This is just a more
verbose "Be kind to each other", but without any commitment from the
leadership of the project to actually maintain a kind, welcoming environment.

A non-committal claim to be kind may be honey, but its on a flytrap, and many
people recognize this.

~~~
whatshisface
How much damage have Linus's snippy emails really caused, in light of how they
have benefited us? I and many other people like reading them because they are
fun, so you have to take that in to account. Different people like different
things, and that principle extends to writing styles and personalities.
Indeed, if you really want to have diversity you should have some emails that
I like to read in addition to having emails that you like to read, which by
necessity implies that every email thread needs at least a few glib comments.
I have heard that Matz and by extension the Ruby community is nice, maybe that
project needs to recruit a Linus to fill out their personality lineup.

~~~
kadendogthing
>How much damage have Linus's snippy emails really caused

Don't downplay how he acted by using words like "snippy." There are
contributors who have either left the project or actively avoid directly
talking with him. There is a reason why Linus admitted he had a problem. It
wasn't productive or useful.

[https://plus.google.com/+LennartPoetteringTheOneAndOnly/post...](https://plus.google.com/+LennartPoetteringTheOneAndOnly/posts/J2TZrTvu7vd)

>But more importantly, I'd actually put some blame on a certain circle of
folks that play a major role in kernel development, and first and foremost
Linus Torvalds himself. By many he is a considered a role model, but he is
quite a bad one. If he posts words like "[specific folks] ...should be
retroactively aborted. Who the f*ck does idiotic things like that? How did
they not die as babies, considering that they were likely too stupid to find a
tit to suck on?" (google for it), than that's certainly bad. But what I find
particularly appalling is the fact that he regularly defends this, and
advertises this as an efficient way to run a community. (But it is not just
Linus, it's a certain group of people around him who use the exact same style,
some of which semi-publically even phantasize about the best ways to, ...
well, kill me).

~~~
yarrel
systemd is not a good advertisement for prioritizing social pacification over
software quality.

~~~
kadendogthing
>for prioritizing social pacification over software quality.

Well quite literally it's doing the opposite. Social derisiveness does nothing
for the community. That's just one example of many. And of course you had to
nitpick about systemd instead of understanding what's being discussed. Missing
The Point (TM) 2018. Linux itself isn't really a good example of sane kernel
development and architecture. It's popular and it works.

------
davidkellis
This seems to be a verbose restatement of the Golden Rule -
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_Rule](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_Rule)
\- that one is taught as a child.

~~~
blt
But then people use excuses like "I have thick skin, I wouldn't be offended if
someone else said the same thing to me, I prefer honesty over decorum", etc.
Most often these people come from a privileged background where negative
feedback rolls off more easily because they know that, at the end of the day,
they'll always have a comfortable life without any serious hardship.

------
brickmort
This is much. much more reasonable than the "Post-Meritocracy" Code of
Conduct.

------
microtherion
Clearly RMS believes in having software licenses with teeth, which is why he
so strongly advocates the GPL over the BSD and MIT licenses. When he disagreed
with Apple's stance on IP litigation, he didn't just exhort them to be
excellent — he boycotted them for several years. So it's not that RMS is
strongly opposed to coercive enforcement; he just doesn't value people as
highly as he does code.

~~~
letstrynvm
There are no punitive 'teeth' in GNU licences. If you don't like the terms,
don't use the thing under that license.

Stallman is his own man and can boycott what he likes and explain why to
others.

"Punitive" "teeth" as found in proprietary EULAs and various unreasonable
copyright laws looks like jailtime and financial ruin.

~~~
microtherion
The same copyright law can be used to enforce the terms of the GPL.

And if you don't like a code of conduct, you can equally just stop
participating in a community. Unlike rejecting a license, you can even reject
a code of conduct and continue to use the software produced by that community.

~~~
letstrynvm
Nope...

[https://www.softwarefreedom.org/resources/2008/compliance-
gu...](https://www.softwarefreedom.org/resources/2008/compliance-guide.html)

That's the basis of eg Kernel enforcement, the most-distributed project out
there by far.

~~~
microtherion
This describes, as far as I can tell, the de facto enforcement practices of
ONE GPL copyright holder. I don't see where it places any binding limits on
even the enforcement the SFLC would take, and of course it has no power to
enforce any limits whatsoever on other GPL copyright holders.

In the particular case of Kernel development, contributors are NOT required to
assign their copyrights to any shared institution, are perfectly within their
rights to take any enforcement action against violators that they wish, and
sometimes do exercise that right: [https://www.zdnet.com/article/linux-beats-
internal-legal-thr...](https://www.zdnet.com/article/linux-beats-internal-
legal-threat/)

------
a-dub
I like it. It captures the best spirit of the CoC stuff while also explicitly
calling out and avoiding the parts of existing attempts at this stuff that
some perceive to be aggressive.

Can basically be summed up as: 1) Everyone is welcome, 2) Don't scare people
away by being shitty and 3) Keep it on-topic

But it seems that the discussion here misses the absolute best part. In true
GNU fashion, Stallman refuses to accept grammatically incorrect use of
pronouns and instead offers a brand spanking new extension built on a
homegrown abstraction.

Here comes _GNU_ENGLISH!

------
allannienhuis
> Please don't argue unceasingly for your preferred course of action when a
> decision for some other course has already been made. That tends to block
> the activity's progress.

I've seen this so many times in non-oss work too. Why do some people have such
a hard time letting go? Even more so for Open Source projects - If you care
_that_ much about your ideas - fork and move on; otherwise spend you and your
co-contributors time advancing the project in other ways.

~~~
dec0dedab0de
I have a hard time letting go when I feel like my input was dismissed out of
hand, or not understood.

~~~
letstrynvm
It helps me to remember in a public forum, whether my point is acknowledged by
the OP or not, is only a small fraction of the number of people who may read
and accept it. If the OP unreasonably denies or refutes it, in fact they may
be silently judged accordingly.

No need to make your good point a hostage in your own mind to whether the OP
will publicly accept it.

------
Waterluvian
I've been experimenting with the idea that good code/design/whatever technical
is RARELY more important than good work environment and professional
relationships. My intuition tells me that you'll end up with a worse off
product being developed more slowly if you focus on good code at all costs.
That's not to say you should become a team that focuses on feelings.

I had a manager once entirely shut down code reviews because he felt it was
hurting people's feelings. There's a right balance to strike and I really
don't think that was it.

My thought is that when you're somewhere near that balance and aren't sure,
lean towards good relationships, over good code. This generally happens at the
moment when I have to decide just how nitpicky I should be about something,
often minor.

The problem is that I'm no industry veteran. I don't have a lot of experience
or hard facts to back this idea. But I just "feel" that it might be true.

------
jancsika
Linus: I'm taking time off and getting help from people who are (probably)
trained to understand people's emotions.

RMS: Armed only with email archives, I generated a novel solution from inside
my own head and tested it against feedback arriving back to my own head from a
smattering of individuals.

What every happened to, "Gee, I don't know the answer to that question.
Perhaps I should ask an expert for help."

~~~
51lver
What's so wrong with engineering a novel solution to a difficult problem? Are
you suggesting that hackers cannot hack behavior and must rely on the medical
community?

~~~
jancsika
> What's so wrong with engineering a novel solution to a difficult problem?

If there are outstanding effective approaches in fields outside of one's area
of expertise, everything.

At least one should seek the guidance of people who study these problems for a
living. I don't see any evidence that RMS did that-- his only footnote refers
to his own article wrt pronouns.

The hacker ethic is great. But if it is seen not as a supplement to prior art
but as an _alternative_ to it-- as you seem to imply-- that's a real problem.

------
bitcynth
I do agree with this trend, while there are some comments like "we just want
to get the work done and not worry about being nice" I do think they are
forgetting about a certain part. I as a developer might not contribute to
certain open source projects due to the fear of being called things against my
gender identity (I am transgender) or being yelled at. And the thing is that I
am not getting paid or anything to do it, so instead I am just not going to
contribute because I don't want to try to help and instead be yelled at. I
think that the free and open source software community is moving in the right
direction by making code of conducts or other similar things.

------
mark_l_watson
Well said. I think Richard Stallman got this just right.

I know he is specifically talking about making everyone feel welcome in FSF
development communities, and, I think what he says also applies to the
business of writing software, starting companies, forming community groups,
etc. Our industry has some problems of un-kind and sometime illegal behavior.
By encouraging people to use kind communication and be inclusive, then all
reasonable people win.

If someone in your environment is disrespectful of someone it seems lighter
and more likely to succeed to point out that they are being un-kind rather
than breaking a rule.

------
methehack
A question for the folks who would like to do more than just communicate in a
way that welcomed all demographics -- how would so-called "demographic quotas"
work in practice?

It may well be my lack of imagination, but I'm having trouble imagining an
outcome based approach that still allowed progress on projects to continue.

Also, if such an approach could be articulated, would it be incompatible with
this code of conduct?

------
guardian5x
I'm very glad that there seems to be change in the community, and also that
Linus is doing some self-reflection. He is a role model for many in his
position, and some people in discussions started to take his behavior as an
excuse to have bad manners themselves and that it is ok to be rude to others.

------
yosefzeev
To me, the answer has more to do with discerning the spirit of the
conversation rather than adopting any particular protocol. There will always
be some joker somewhere that will violate the rules that one adopts in such a
way that debate is created that causes a system to self-destruct.

------
usrusr
> Please avoid statements about the presumed typical desires, capabilities or
> actions of some demographic group. They can offend people in that group

You can tell a programmer's writing by how closely that rule dodges recursing
upon itself.

------
LiterallyDoge
Is it really this complicated to treat other people with respect?

~~~
Nickersf
Respect is earned not given. Treating others with common decency is expected
in a professional environment, and that's a two way street where both parties
need to have a common understanding of what decency is. Finding that
commonality becomes harder the more "diverse" the community involved is.
People's cultural, religious and political beliefs clash and have for
thousands of years, and no we're not going to be the generation to solve those
issues. There are fundamental differences in how women socialize versus men.
This stuff isn't as easy as "be kind to each other". Your "kindness" might be
rude to me, and my "kindness" might be rude to you. Therefore I argue that the
moment you start enforcing social justice you've kicked productivity in the
nuts and stifle productivity for everyone involved. Instead you're going to
spend your time checking off boxes about people's immutable physical traits
and filling quotas of identity groups within an organization and everyone
loses. The employee, the consumer, even the bystander.

Maybe 10% of women in software is just fine. Maybe women aren't being shooed
away, and are just choosing other things to spend their time on. Maybe forcing
women to go into STEM and SE is wrong. Maybe leaving people to make their own
professional choices and not punishing people for some ideological virtue is
the good thing to do.

Respect implies holding someone in high regard, as special. Or to refrain from
interfering with. It's fair that in this context it's the latter that's
primarily being referred to. That means respect comes with hard work that can
be shown and proven. A strong track record. Being the best, having what it
takes to rise out from the others. No everyone deserves respect because,
frankly most people aren't special or rock star material. I'm not. If I was
you'd know.

Kindly, your local reactionary.

~~~
palimpsests
Why is respect earned, not given? The way you've stated that sounds like an
axiom.

It called me to contemplate, and realize that I hold the opposite axiom – that
all beings, including humans, deserve respect fundamentally. Some people might
behave in ways that call this into question and modify the degree to which I
feel I can truly hold respect for them, but that only happens with more
information about how they are organized or disorganized.

------
phoe-krk
_A code of conduct states rules, with punishments for anyone that violates
them. It is the heavy-handed way of teaching people to behave differently, and
since it only comes into action when people do something against the rules, it
doesn 't try to teach people to do better than what the rules require. To be
sure, the appointed maintainer(s) of a GNU package can, if necessary, tell a
contributor to go away; but we do not want to need to have recourse to that._

That is the paragraph that captures the essence of the CoC issues for me. A
CoC seems to be used as a weapon for killing those that do not abide by its
rules, not as a tool for teaching each other to be awesome to each other.

Edit: I also love how each paragraph in the guidelines starts with "please".
It's such a different approach than the one taken in CoC: "please do this or
that for everyone's benefit" rather than "do this and that or you'll be judged
by the appropriate judging organ".

We lack this kind of gentleness in the world of raging wars between pro-CoC
people and anti-CoC people.

~~~
KirinDave
> That is the paragraph that captures the essence of the CoC issues for me. A
> CoC seems to be used as a weapon for killing those that do not abide by its
> rules, not as a tool for teaching each other to be awesome to each other.

Can I ask an honest question? Do you really think that men advocating for
molestation of women, or open racists, are just... you know... undereducated
and waiting for you as a thought-savior to come and explain to them what's
objectionable about their thinking? Do you think that Ts'o just needed you to
step in and explain how domestic sexual abuse is rape and that he's just being
insufficiently awesome[0]?

I'm all for assuming positive intent, but at some point this game becomes
patronizing, even infantilizing. It seems bizarre to propose Linux's CoC or
GNU's is the place to go educating people that rape apology is bad.

I don't think it's bad that Stallman decided to go this route (even if I
disagree with some of the logic he expressed). To be honest, I don't think the
GNU org actually has that much sway or control over individual projects, so
guidelines for successful contribution are probably an appropriate measure for
them.

But Projects can and in my opinion _should_ quantify what constitutes
acceptable behavior from their contributors. This is not an unfair or
unreasonable thing for a project to do. It's bizarre to me that people here
constantly suggest that it's somehow unfair to bar a developer from
participating. This is about the most anti-free-speech, anti-individual-
autonomy stance one can propose in the world of software. It's a statement
that says the production of value (often not for the community, but at the
behest of corporate funding) outweighs the individual's rights to free
association. It suggests that reprehensible people with reprehensible views
can simply use economic value or unique education to force themselves on
communities, and those communities should _not_ be able to choose for
themselves because the value of these things should be self-evident. It's
completely nonsensical.

[0]:
[http://www.codon.org.uk/~mjg59/ted_mail/0037.html](http://www.codon.org.uk/~mjg59/ted_mail/0037.html)

~~~
atq2119
In fairness, the context of the Ts'o email seems to be conference
organization, and it points out that large fractions of the rape statistics
are made out of domestic abuse and drunk undergrads.

Neither of those seem particularly relevant for conference organization, so it
should be possible to point out those simple facts without being immediately
tarred as a rape apologist.

I do believe most of the people in favor of CoCs mean well, but the first
paragraph of your comment basically reads like an unsubstantiated attempt at
character assassination of and by a random person on the internet, and I guess
lots of people are (probably unjustifiedly, but whatever) afraid that CoCs
will provide cover for engaging in precisely this kind of poisonous behavior.

~~~
KirinDave
> In fairness, the context of the Ts'o email seems to be conference
> organization, and it points out that large fractions of the rape statistics
> are made out of domestic abuse and drunk undergrads.

Which seems fairly relevant to a technical conference's audience, don't you...

> Neither of those seem particularly relevant for conference organization, so
> it should be possible to point out those simple facts without being
> immediately tarred as a rape apologist.

Oh. So you think pointing out that many rapes are crimes of opportunity isn't
relevant to tech conferences because... why exactly? It seems like exactly the
sort of environment where such opportunities arise.

> but the first paragraph of your comment basically reads like an
> unsubstantiated attempt at character assassination

Ts'o said these things. He stands by them. He wants to try an draw a line
between one type of rape and another to change the way people discuss
statistics, specifically to affect how scaled social events are organized.
It's amazing to me that folks are passionately defending such a textbook
example of at-scale apologism. We would not even imagine suffering this
argument if we substituted "rape" for "wallet theft." But Ts'o does level it
for rape precisely because he believes it's appropriate to tactically blame
victims and subdivide statistics.

~~~
atq2119
I don't know what kind of conferences you attend, but I've never attended one
where people got black-out drunk, nor have I attended any with my partner.

On the other hand, I _have_ attended conferences where we were specifically
warned by the organizers about pick-pockets and not to go into certain parts
of the (rather large, South American) city.

So yeah, if we substitute "rape" for "wallet theft", people are in fact
"suffering" through arguments that people throw a fit over when it comes to
rape.

(Two caveats, since that kind of thing is necessary with topics that are prone
to cause people to go ballistic:

1\. I do think there are good reasons for why people throw fits over victim
blaming etc. when it comes to rape, but especially since you brought up the
comparison, I _also_ think it's good to remember that people are perfectly
fine with victim blaming when it comes to wallet theft. There should be a
possibility for nuance here.

2\. I get what you're trying to say about "crimes of opportunity", but that
doesn't mean you can transfer statistics about incident rates of domestic
abuse to incidence rates of rape at conferences. After all, both the whole
setting and the relationships between participants are totally different. And
it should be possible to question the connection without being made a target
for the kind of accusation you're making.)

~~~
KirinDave
> I don't know what kind of conferences you attend, but I've never attended
> one where people got black-out drunk, nor have I attended any with my
> partner.

I've certainly seen numerous examples of this behavior around technical
conferences. There are often runs to local bars or other establishments where
its socially normal to drink. In fact, that's a common complaint about tech!

> On the other hand, I have attended conferences where we were specifically
> warned by the organizers about pick-pockets and not to go into certain parts
> of the (rather large, South American) city.

And did anyone write a long, statistics-citing rant about how unnecessary it
is to warn people about this? I suspect the answer is no, and in fact no one
did.

> I also think it's good to remember that people are perfectly fine with
> victim blaming when it comes to wallet theft. There should be a possibility
> for nuance here.

... What? Did you genuinely just suggest there should be nuance for rape
victim blaming by proxy?

> After all, both the whole setting and the relationships between participants
> are totally different. And it should be possible to question the connection
> without being made a target for the kind of accusation you're making.)

Except that many people travel to conferences with their colleagues, and
that's precisely the kind of crime of opportunity the statistics (when you
exclude statutory crimes) warn about...

~~~
atq2119
> And did anyone write a long, statistics-citing rant about how unnecessary it
> is to warn people about this? I suspect the answer is no, and in fact no one
> did.

You're getting the sides of the issues confused here.

The conference organizers' statement about pick pockets was essentially victim
blaming. They were telling people how to behave in order not to become victims
of a crime. The equivalent statement within the rape context would be
something like telling women not to wear "provocative" clothing in order to
avoid being raped.

My point was that there tends to be outrage about this kind of victim blaming
when it comes to rape, but not when it comes to other crimes. SJWs (for lack
of a better term) don't feel the need to gang up on people who give advice to
tourists to avoid getting mugged; they don't feel the need to call the
conference organizers from my example "mugging apologists". Why is that?

And for what it's worth, the analogy to the statistics-citing rant would be
somebody who reacts to conference organizers putting out statements about how
_attendees_ should not steal each others' wallets as if that was a common
problem at conferences.

Obviously conference organizers never make such statements in reality because
it would be kind of ridiculous, given that the incidence rate of pick
pocketing among conference attendees is completely incomparable to the
incidence rate of pick pocketing in society at large, but well, that kind of
brings us back to the original point about incident rates of rape :)

(And just to reiterate: There's broader context in the rape case which gives
me some sympathy for the double standard demonstrated by "SJWs", but I think
it should still be possible to acknowledge that the double standard exists.)

~~~
KirinDave
I can cite statistics to create absurd conclusions and minimize points I don't
like to. It's called, "being disingenuous." It is not a laudable thing simply
to cite them. Statistics do not lend truth, they illustrate relationships and
convey points.

> My point was that there tends to be outrage about this kind of victim
> blaming when it comes to rape, but not when it comes to other crimes. SJWs
> (for lack of a better term) don't feel the need to gang up on people who
> give advice to tourists to avoid getting mugged; they don't feel the need to
> call the conference organizers from my example "mugging apologists". Why is
> that?

Because rape is a heinous crime violating fundamental human rights, and yet
here you are suggesting it's no more consequential than being pickpocketed.

------
s73v3r_
"Rather, the problem is that if we make demographic D feel unwelcome, we lose
out on possible contributors. And very likely also others that are not in
demographic D."

I think that hits the nail on the head as to why a lot of these initiatives
are a good thing: If you make things more welcoming overall, more people of
all walks of life feel more likely to contribute.

------
funkythings
> In August, a discussion started among GNU package maintainers about the
> problem that GNU development often pushes women away

I'm not trying to offend people or anything, but where is the evidence for
this in GNU specifically?

~~~
jordigh
I was there to witness the private mailing list that culminated in this, and
there was a very clear example of that happening there.

A certain GNU contributor, let's call her Sal, was voicing concerns with
current practices. Someone else replied to her with "Sally," condescendingly
talking down to her. To this she said, "I did not invite you to call me by a
nickname. Call me Sal."

A sub-discussion then erupted about the etymology of "Sally" and whether or
not it was technically correct to someone who preferred "Sal" to be called
"Sally" instead. Instead of, you know, just calling people what they want to
be called and be done with it. And not be condescending about it.

~~~
repolfx
That sounds utterly trivial - why was Sal/Sally so upset by an attempt to be
polite by _not_ using a short form/pet name. That must happen to her all the
time in formal settings.

As for "voicing concerns with current practices", what were those concerns and
practices? Technical?

~~~
yarrel
It wasn't an attempt to be polite. They didn't use the long form of their name
(which would be irritating but I can see that being an attempt to be polite),
they used a rather infantilising diminutive. The effect was condescending and
"Sal" was well within their rights to object.

In the general case, telling someone that actually you are the person who has
the last word on what they are called is bullying.

~~~
repolfx
Sure, if someone says "call me this" and you don't, I agree, that's annoying.
But it should be a polite request, not the start of a fight.

And what _is_ the long form then? The only female name I can think of that
shortens to Sal is Sally. This whole story seems suspect.

~~~
794CD01
Sally is traditionally short for Sarah, though if someone with a longer name
like Salvadora/Salvatoria were living in an anglophone society, I could also
see them going by Sally.

------
fossdev
Diversity as a _goal_ is fundamentally flawed. It is what leads to policies
like "affirmative action" which are in themselves simply a form of reverse
discrimination.

~~~
dang
Please don't take HN threads on generic flamewar tangents. They are all the
same and resolve nothing.

We detached this subthread from
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18275156](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18275156).

~~~
fossdev
How does detaching my comment from the person I was replying to and removing
all context of the conversation help?

There was nothing generic about my comment nor was it a tangent from the topic
at hand. It was a direct reply to an individual in favor of "diversity as a
goal" policies as a means for correcting biases.

~~~
dang
It helps by allowing the generic flamewar topic to sink to the bottom of the
thread, where it is less likely to burn everything else to a crisp.

The link back to the original parent is there to provide context for anyone
who wants it.

It may be true that you didn't introduce the generic topic; flamewars arise by
degrees, so the choice of where to snip them is often a little arbitrary.
Usually we snip it where the discussion becomes unmoored from the topic, which
might not be where the bait first appeared.

------
M_Bakhtiari
> For instance, call them by the names they use, and honor their preferences
> about their gender identity

That's a backhanded way of cementing the validity of the concept of "gender
expression" throughout the GNU project.

I would have been perfectly on board with a guideline that simply said not to
police people's gender expressions, the question being rather off-topic and
disruptive in the given context. That would do the job regardless of what your
political opinions on the gender question are.

~~~
pseudalopex
The question is how to talk to and about other members of the community.

Calling other people by their preferred names is a basic norm that goes beyond
gender.

Gender expression is rarely relevant in the context of software development,
but gendered language is common enough in English to make the issue of gender
identity unavoidable. You can require speakers to respect others' preferences,
mandate gender-neutral language, or allow speakers to refer to others however
they like.

~~~
M_Bakhtiari
Is it not possible to refer to someone by the name and pronouns they refer to
themselves by not because you believe in the validity of transgenderism, but
because that has simply always been the social convention? Gender identity
needs to play no part in it, even if gendered language is being used. The
outcome in the software should be the same whether the developer who claims to
be a woman is really a man or vice versa.

Someone who isn't satisfied with that but rather requires full intellectual
submission to their ideology is just as disruptive on a software mailing list
as those who go out their way to "root out the trannies".

------
Nickersf
Well the social justice team wins again. We're not talking about writing code,
instead we're talking about identity politics. These people need to hear more
"NO!"

------
ajpikul
Fantastic!

------
jaydestro
this reads childish and stupid. what a terrible way to say you don't agree
with change.

~~~
SolaceQuantum
Could you clarify what in the article reads as immature and why? I don't feel
I fully understand your position here.

------
interfixus
A CoC in any other name is still a CoC.

A very thin end of a wedge is stil the end of a wedge.

~~~
crooked-v
A wedge towards... what? Polite and professional behavior isn't a bad thing.

~~~
letstrynvm
"professional behavior" would make sense if both sides are getting paid.

If only the user is getting paid, and he wants support or something else from
the FOSS author, why should the FOSS author be held to this "professional
behavior" standard?

------
dijit
1) I hate this trend

2) I like that he acknowledges the criticisms against the trend and attempts
to get to the root of the issue rather than "agreeing" with one of the
polarised sides. (Anti-CoC/Pro-CoC people).

It's nice to have guidelines, they're less aggressive than whips. Hopefully
this is enough to appease both sides.

EDIT: please criticise my points. If you have something to say, don't hide
behind the downvote button.

------
lgleason
Long term I expect to see the quality of GNU and Linux software falter over
efforts like this. This is not because I don't advocate for treating other
people well, on the contrary I do. It is because in practice these are
politically motivated trojan horses meant to tear down things like a
meritocracy, the very thing that created this great software.

I've personally watched the activists pushing these target women and other
under-represented minorities using these documents for the crime of
disagreeing with the narrative.

IE: [https://medium.com/@marlene.jaeckel/the-empress-has-no-
cloth...](https://medium.com/@marlene.jaeckel/the-empress-has-no-clothes-the-
dark-underbelly-of-women-who-code-and-google-women-techmakers-723be27a45df)

I fully expect to see purges happen of talented individuals based on
politically motivated targeting etc. with secret tribunals where the accused
are guilty until proven innocent etc.. It's happened to people like Larry
Garfield of Drupal, the Opalgate crew tried to do it to a guy who dared to
express his conservative views on Twitter in a personal capacity etc..

~~~
rotw
> It is because in practice these are politically motivated trojan horses
> meant to tear down things like a meritocracy, the very thing that created
> this great software.

1\. Why is respecting gender identity a "trojan horse" \- in what way is it
deceptive?

2\. How is a project a meritocracy if it scares away potentially better
contributors with an antagonistic discussion climate?

> tried to do it to a guy who dared to express his conservative views on
> Twitter in a personal capacity etc..

I feel like you and the Medium post are missing out crucial information here.
What were these views? How did they relate to the workplace? The Medium post
mentions she is friends with James Damore - who was clearly fired because his
manifesto by implication, but unmistakebly deemed women developers less
competent than men, thereby creating a hostile work environment, which the
author completely glosses over. This leads me to suspect that the "disagreeing
with the narrative" is a euphemism for anti-women, anti-minority views and
policies.

~~~
lgleason
For #1 and #2, there is a thing called emotional resilience that we have lost
today. More importantly, the conversations do not get any less antagonistic in
communities with this policies. If anything I have seen them get more vicious
towards those in the "out group". In times past it was very rare when people
were banned from groups. Today it is a regular occurrence, often made with
threats of bringing in the police, ruining ones career etc..

Her post actually does a pretty good job at that. But to summarize, as a women
in tech she does not feel that women should be given preferential treatment
and she is outspoken against lowering the bar and etc. to increase diversity
numbers.

For example with one group they held a hackathon. In most hackathons they
focus on tech and participants are encouraged to talk about it. One Women in
Tech group however held one for women only and actively encouraged the
participants to not talk about tech and focused on identity politics,
marketing and celebrity endorsements (I was a volunteer and observed this
first hand and actively ignored, went against the organizers wishes with the
groups I worked with by encouraging them to explore, talk and learn about the
tech). Their mentors, with encouragement from the organizers, even went so far
as to discourage participants from talking about the tech because it is
"boring". The medium post author spoke up about this and ended up with a big
target on her back for daring to suggest that the women should be held to the
same standard, encouraged to talk about the tech and level up if they are not
their yet.

> Damore - who was clearly fired because his manifesto by implication, but
> unmistakebly deemed women developers less competent than men, thereby
> creating a hostile work environment, which the author completely glosses
> over.

Marlene, the author of the medium post and a women in tech who wants to be
recognized for her skill when she's at a job or conference etc. and feels that
many of the initiatives that lower the standards etc. work against that goal.
She, along with many other women and prominent scientists came to a very
different conclusion after reading this. Yet this intelligent, independent
thinking woman is ostracized for daring to not go along with the narrative.
One of the organizers of these women in tech groups suggested that her husband
needed to control her, you can't make this up, and another female organizer
who, unlike Marlene, literally had no real tech experience, said that Marlene,
an experienced women in tech is being banned from a woman in tech group
because her views that are "harmful to women and under represented people".

She is pro-women etc, but if we are being honest, it's because she is not a
progressive and is not afraid to speak the truth.

