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The Developer Formerly Known as FreeBSDGirl

blog.randi.io

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Re: The Developer Formerly Known as FreeBSDGirl

#121
post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For all the hate in GG, it's a anonymous/pseudo anonymous mob on the internet. It seems hate is the default language of the louder minority. Somehow, not surprising really, the loudest people are also the worst. On the pro-GG side, look at the supposedly pro-gg websites that have sprung up that sell things or review things basically do everything that they are saying the current status quo is doing wrongly or unethic…

Thank you for responding. > If you look at it from an outside perspective, both sides are right. That's kinda how it feels to me. In most of the conflicts I've read about, one side is right (look at this - if what she writes is true - and there's no reason for me to believe otherwise, how would you reasonably argue against that?, but then I read about "safe spaces" at universities and can only think how dumb of an id…

Well, you are right.

Most arguments are I support A, and the opposition is I oppose A. Somehow GG is different, it's I support A, and the other side is fuck your A, I support B ,when they don't actually have any problem with A. The first side then responds with, no fuck your B, A all the way. It's mind boggling, it can just as easily be we support A & B.

And that bring us to this post, it has nothing to do with GG. Its simple harassment and the core community handled it poorly. It looks like a good case of lack of precedent on how to handle it.

Earlier harassment used to of the "your mother is fat type" or "shut up you fukin brit" because people didn't have much to go on. Now as diversity increases people have more difference that can be attacked and those differences are very personal and hence affects a person on a deeper level. It's a classical case of school bullying, just that no one here is in school anymore, some people just don't grow up.

Once self regulating communities (those without HR departments) figure out how to handle these cases the right way, which I believe they will, these events should have a quick end.

Re: The Developer Formerly Known as FreeBSDGirl

#122

Thanks for the vicious attach. I consider myself as 'GamerGate' and like MOST of that community haven't participated in any such 'toxic' non-sense. I get it, you hate some bad people who try to cling to a name for recognition, but just broadly labeling the whole group as such, when literally your only evidence is of a few notable individuals is a bit unsettling. In reality, the waters are a bit dirty on both sides. T…

[deleted]

Re: The Developer Formerly Known as FreeBSDGirl

#123
post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You see behaviour you dislike and don't understand and you can say either "they are unpleasant people" or "they are unpleasant people and they have a mental illness". Probability tells us the first is more probable. This is the conjunction fallacy, and you need to address it because stigmatising people with mental illness causes those people harm, and doesn't help address the actual problem (which is that some people…

>>which is that some people are arseholes A lot of people who are assholes aren't actually assholes, but suffer from a mental disorder such as asperger's syndrome. By lumping all of them under the offensive label "asshole" I'd posit that you are the one stigmatizing them. Regardless, I think the question we need to ask ourselves is this: what is it about the gamer community, and specifically the "GamerGate" sub-commu…

> A lot of people who are assholes aren't actually assholes, but suffer from a mental disorder such as asperger's syndrome.

You have nothing to support your claim that many assholes have asperger's; nor the converse that many people with asperger's are assholes.

Re: The Developer Formerly Known as FreeBSDGirl

#124
post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thank you for responding. > If you look at it from an outside perspective, both sides are right. That's kinda how it feels to me. In most of the conflicts I've read about, one side is right (look at this - if what she writes is true - and there's no reason for me to believe otherwise, how would you reasonably argue against that?, but then I read about "safe spaces" at universities and can only think how dumb of an id…

Please trust me when I say safe spaces are crucial, especially to trans survival. I wish you knew how... devastatingly lonely it can be as an outcast in society. How everyone treats you. Solidarity is really important. Can you also imagine who you are constantly being criticized? Your problems constantly being made out to be false? That you have the burden of proof with everyone because nobody knows your struggle? I…

Hmm. I see your point. I've first heard about safe spaces by reading about the "Halloween incident" at Yale which left me with the impression that they're a bad idea since it appeared to me that they not only discourage harassment and violence (and seriously, how can one disagree with this?), but also critical discourse, which I believe is very important to our society.

But I also see how "safe spaces" would be useful and how critical discourse could be used for bullying. I've not read enough about this to make up my mind on this. Was the Yale thing an unexpected outcome?

Re: The Developer Formerly Known as FreeBSDGirl

#125
post #119

Thanks for the vicious attach. I consider myself as 'GamerGate' and like MOST of that community haven't participated in any such 'toxic' non-sense. I get it, you hate some bad people who try to cling to a name for recognition, but just broadly labeling the whole group as such, when literally your only evidence is of a few notable individuals is a bit unsettling. In reality, the waters are a bit dirty on both sides. T…

> Thanks for the vicious attack Please don't. Also, it seems to me that you're taking this thread off-topic and violating the HN guideline that asks you to avoid classic flamewar topics unless you have something genuinely new to say about them. (Even if you did, this is probably a bad place for it.) https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1…

you should never have accepted this topic in the first place. It can only lead to flamewars.

Re: The Developer Formerly Known as FreeBSDGirl

#126
post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thank you for responding. > If you look at it from an outside perspective, both sides are right. That's kinda how it feels to me. In most of the conflicts I've read about, one side is right (look at this - if what she writes is true - and there's no reason for me to believe otherwise, how would you reasonably argue against that?, but then I read about "safe spaces" at universities and can only think how dumb of an id…

Please trust me when I say safe spaces are crucial, especially to trans survival. I wish you knew how... devastatingly lonely it can be as an outcast in society. How everyone treats you. Solidarity is really important. Can you also imagine who you are constantly being criticized? Your problems constantly being made out to be false? That you have the burden of proof with everyone because nobody knows your struggle? I…

This may be unpopular opinion, but the fact is that there is just a perspective that you cannot understand through anecdotes or research.

The experience of being trans, queer, female, etc., today is not summed up by text. It is the adrenaline and vomit from death threats, it's falling behind at work because of harassment, I could go on and on.

Safe places are a way to ensure that everyone at least can truly empathize with each others' experiences, and as such, a place where they don't have to worry about that.

It's a counter, a reaction to all spaces practically being for (white) men. Who's voices are heard? Who's narratives are enforced? Safe places are the only places we have.

I could go on, but...

Re: The Developer Formerly Known as FreeBSDGirl

#127
post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"this shitty thing shouldn't happen to anyone" you are not going to abolish "harassment" (I intentionally used quotation marks I don't some one who uses slur or thinks you shouldn't exist as harassment just another idiot with an opinion...) from human cloture it's included in the price you pay for living in a free society where free speech is an actuality and not a slogan. You won't cure the world of idiots, troll, o…

I'm not entirely sure that it's to the advantage of an operating system development project to have free speech as an ideal. At the very least, there's the empirical argument that the major operating systems are overwhelmingly developed by private corporations, and you can be sure that if a developer said "hey, this new hire is getting his white supremacist followers on Twitter to attack me," the new hire wouldn't be…

What this has to do with software development? A COC has nothing to do with software development it's not enforcing anything related to actually committing code and collaborating.

A COC forces you to be compliant to it every where on social media, on regular media, in person, on private forums... everywhere - this is thought police.

A COC forces you to "hide" your personal beliefs, ideas, who you vote for who you donate money to etc. on the off chance they might be considered offensive to some one.

We already had a CEO who had to resign due to a political donation, COC's will have the same effect you post something offensive on facebook? you're out, you go to a political rally that some one finds offensive? well though luck.

If COC's only covered official project channels no one would care about them, and the people that want them would not push with such vigor because they could not be used for thought policing.

On a side note I find it ironic that people who had to hide who they are for most of history and maybe for most of their lives want to force the same thing on other people just because of their personal beliefs.

And on another side note the wworse of the humanity tends to fester in dark rooms when things are out in the open you know here everyone stands and you can ridicule them for that if you want.

Re: The Developer Formerly Known as FreeBSDGirl

#128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems weird to say "this shitty thing happens to me too" and instead of commiserating and saying "this shitty thing shouldn't happen to anyone" you essentially say "stop complaining."

"this shitty thing shouldn't happen to anyone" you are not going to abolish "harassment" (I intentionally used quotation marks I don't some one who uses slur or thinks you shouldn't exist as harassment just another idiot with an opinion...) from human cloture it's included in the price you pay for living in a free society where free speech is an actuality and not a slogan. You won't cure the world of idiots, troll, o…

If someone mourns for a death do you just say "well everyone dies, suck it up?" — no, because that's ridiculous. So when someone is being harassed why say "it happens to everyone so get over it"? Why go out of your way to invalidate how someone feels about something?

where free speech is an actuality and not a slogan.

Harassment isn't protected speech, and that's beyond the point because this isn't an issue of free speech at all.

the price you'll pay in trying is way too high for my taste

Someone in an organized community was being harassed, and they're upset that leadership of that community didn't seem to think it was a problem. The price being paid is that someone harassing a community member isn't part of the community anymore. That's a high price?

Re: The Developer Formerly Known as FreeBSDGirl

#129
post #125
post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Thanks for the vicious attack Please don't. Also, it seems to me that you're taking this thread off-topic and violating the HN guideline that asks you to avoid classic flamewar topics unless you have something genuinely new to say about them. (Even if you did, this is probably a bad place for it.) https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1…

you should never have accepted this topic in the first place. It can only lead to flamewars.

Or people can have a reasonable conversation about harassment and shady legal maneuvers by open source projects. Even if you're not concerned with harassment as a subject, seeing an open source project fib to attempt to illegaly enforce trademark issues is something we should all care about.

Re: The Developer Formerly Known as FreeBSDGirl

#130
post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>which is that some people are arseholes A lot of people who are assholes aren't actually assholes, but suffer from a mental disorder such as asperger's syndrome. By lumping all of them under the offensive label "asshole" I'd posit that you are the one stigmatizing them. Regardless, I think the question we need to ask ourselves is this: what is it about the gamer community, and specifically the "GamerGate" sub-commu…

> A lot of people who are assholes aren't actually assholes, but suffer from a mental disorder such as asperger's syndrome. You have nothing to support your claim that many assholes have asperger's; nor the converse that many people with asperger's are assholes.

I used to volunteer for an organization that helped people with mental disabilities. One of the primary symptoms of Asperger's Syndrome is a demonstrated lack of empathy for other people, which makes social interactions very difficult.

This is one common reason why someone with Asperger's can come across as an asshole: they are literally incapable of understanding how their behavior will hurt other people's feelings. For example, 15-year-old suffering from Asperger's can come to you and say, "that shirt makes you look really fat" and in their mind they're just making an innocent, normal statement that they think is helpful (i.e. you should wear something else tomorrow), but from your perspective they're being a total dick.

So when you come across an asshole, you should ask yourself: are they willingly hurting other people's feelings (i.e. intentional disregard) or are they totally unaware? After having worked with people with mental disorders, I tend to give everyone the benefit of the doubt until proven otherwise.

I don't have any hard evidence that the GamerGate community has a disproportional number of people with Asperger's (or similar disorders) compared to the rest of the population, but it does seem to have a disproportionate number of people who come across as total assholes. That's how I connected the dots.

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