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The Developer Formerly Known as FreeBSDGirl

blog.randi.io

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Re: The Developer Formerly Known as FreeBSDGirl

#131

Post by enraged_camel »

andallas wrote: post #118
enraged_camel wrote: post #105

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…

I understand how you were just trying to make a point, but it just doesn't make any sense. You say that "people who are assholes, aren't assholes". Well... are they or aren't they? Then you say that they may be suffering from Asperger's and that the commenter above is lumping them together. The issue with this argument is that the commenter above took problem with the other commenter about saying these perceived assh…

Read my response above. I'm not "picking on" anyone.

Re: The Developer Formerly Known as FreeBSDGirl

#132

Post by DanBC »

enraged_camel wrote: post #130
DanBC wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.…

All boobacks are red.

Are all red things boobacks?

You see assholes, and you say they are probably people with Asperger's, even though of the two statements:

"this person is an asshole" and

"this person is an asshole, and also has Asperger's"

the first is more likely.

It's nice that you give people the benefit of the doubt. It's not nice that you slur people with Asperger's by saying that assholes are likely to be people with Asperger's.

EDIT: Specifically, there are many people with Asperger's who are appalled by the hateful idiots in GamerGate or the worst bits of 4chan, and who really dislike being associated with them.

Re: The Developer Formerly Known as FreeBSDGirl

#133

Post by dogma1138 »

awesomerobot wrote: post #128
dogma1138 wrote: post #104

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…

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 s…

>Protected speech

That's an american definition, all forms of speech should be protected even hate speech, when hate is being pushed to the sidelines it only festers and becomes worse, let it be in the open and let it be ridiculed.

>Someone in an organized community was being harassed

Some one claimed to be harassed (there's a very thick and really not one sided story behind all this), considering the authors day to day activities allot of the things she does are also harassment or is calling out some one all the time for their beliefs is only harassment if those beliefs are currently socially progressive?

>The price being paid is that someone harassing a community member isn't part of the community anymore. That's a high price?

Well the price in this case was that she wasn't in the community any more, mostly because of her doing I would guess but I really don't want to get into that.

Communities tend to cast out the ones that cause the most disturbance and disturbance is often not a person who aggravates some one but a person who gets aggravated allot, usually by many people and about many issues.

Most communities are self managing (and do it quite well) if you find your self out of place all the time and being constantly cast out and "harassed" even if you are in the right it might be worth the time to take a deep look at one self and understand how you can adapt better and what different actions you might be able to take to avoid that because clearly; dichotomy and my way or the high way doesn't work and even in cases when it does it won't work for long and at the end will might be your own undoing because there always will be a more progressive agenda that will just as easily hijack the current one as yours did before it.

I really miss the days when progressiveness was about open dialog, accepting others and most importantly being open to your own ideas being challenged as much as you challenge the ideas of others, today progressiveness especially in online communities boils down to some unholy checklist which gets updated every so often with the latest social fab being mandatory for maintaining membership privileges.

Re: The Developer Formerly Known as FreeBSDGirl

#134

Post by unimpressive »

enraged_camel wrote: post #130
DanBC wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.…

As someone who has been diagnosed with aspergers syndrome before:

The problem with this line of thought is that it's quite possible for us to atomize and quantify the causes of assholery. That doesn't make the people involved any less jerky.

For any human flaw we can probably put the person in question under a microscope and diagnose the exact causes, but the behavior is still hurtful and offensive. I guess the point of your comment is that the people doing the hurting might be innocent in the mens rea sense, but I think that's a fairly high bar of charity towards people who use tactics like SWATing and obviously enjoy the pain of their victims.

Moreover if improvement is possible, you won't get it by not holding people accountable for the things they say and do.

Re: The Developer Formerly Known as FreeBSDGirl

#135

Post by freebsdgirl »

gravypod wrote: post #59
Tomte wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Additionally, what's wrong with FreeBSD? I'd like to hear their take on this. Because while I'm generally highly sceptic of this "everyone needs a CoC now!", the alleged reaction by Core goes much much further and is simply astonishing. Maybe someone needs to explain to them that freedom of association includes freedom not to associate. "His harassment was outside our mailing list" is not a good reason to decline any…

If there was a priest who was homosexual, and involved himself with gay-pride rallies on his own time, would you say it is acceptable for the church to excommunicate him since he had "freedom not to associate" with the group? If don't feel that disallowing personal thinking is good for society. I also feel that it is possible for people to agree on some topics while disagree on others. Guilt by association should not…

> the lack of sources provided

Sources are: emails between myself, core, and the FreeBSD Foundation. I'm not providing those. A phone call with the FreeBSD Foundation, which I did not record and will not provide.

I could mention the names of the people I spoke with in FreeBSD, but why? I could provide the tweets of the guy I spoke about, but to what end?

I'm not going to name names. People can find a way to dig it all up if they really want to, but I don't want this to turn into a "this person is terrible" type thing. It's not about him, and I don't want a mob going after him or any individuals inside FreeBSD. That wouldn't be right, and it would detract from the point in writing about this at all.

Instead, I hope people talk about the issues of harassment and legal shadiness regarding trademark claims.

Re: The Developer Formerly Known as FreeBSDGirl

#136

Post by enraged_camel »

DanBC wrote: post #132
enraged_camel wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.…

All boobacks are red. Are all red things boobacks? You see assholes, and you say they are probably people with Asperger's, even though of the two statements: "this person is an asshole" and "this person is an asshole, and also has Asperger's" the first is more likely. It's nice that you give people the benefit of the doubt. It's not nice that you slur people with Asperger's by saying that assholes are likely to be pe…

I'm not saying that assholes are "probably" people with Asperger's, or that assholes are "likely" to be people with Asperger's.

I'm just saying that, before we lash out at people we perceive as assholes, we should ask ourselves whether they are willfully being assholes, or simply can't help it.

edit: apparently this is a controversial statement. Consider this: our justice system distinguishes between criminals who commit crimes willfully, and those who do so due to a mental illness. The two are treated differently. I'm saying we need to do the same in our social interactions.

Re: The Developer Formerly Known as FreeBSDGirl

#137

Post by engi_nerd »

Here's what confuses me. What actually happened to her? Without any context, all this can really be is her word against someone else's. She says she forwarded on relevant harassment incidents, but without context, the actual truth of what happened to her is unknown.

>Don’t tell people to stay quiet about abuse. This removes them from their support network of friends and family.

Didn't they just tell her to stop talking about it in public, though? And really what mechanism does anyone have to force her to do this?

>If you’re a dude, don’t reach out to women leaving other open source projects saying “join us here!”

On the surface, that sounds like she wants men to...not be welcoming? This is, perhaps, poorly worded.

>You have no idea if women in the community have problems or not. Women will talk to other women about the quality of the community. But it’s also just really bad taste. Instead, find someone in your community that is also part of that minority group to reach out. They’ll know more about potential issues than you will.

Not sure how this follows from the previous sentence. How is it in bad taste to reach out to someone in a welcoming way? Does this mean that I, as a straight white male, should only communicate with other straight white males?

She probably doesn't mean it this way, but boy, am I confused.

>Publicly stand behind the women in your community, or eventually they will leave and write a post just like this.

I find it amusing that someone who has written a tool that allows you to filter out a specific block of individuals (as trollish as they may be) can write this post at all. The cynical side of me thinks the attitude shown here is, "Hear me, but here's a way you can systematically ignore people that I fundamentally disagree with".

I often feel like tolerance and progressivism has wrapped all the way around to discrimination. Am I wrong to feel that is part of what's happening here?

EDIT: I'd like to make it clear that I'm genuinely not trying to troll. If I'm being wrongheaded, then please show me how my thinking is wrong.

Re: The Developer Formerly Known as FreeBSDGirl

#138

Post by fche »

lillian-lemmer wrote: post #73
Tomte wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My problem with Codes of Conduct is mostly how to write them. The Swing dancing scene had a big scandal this year, and everywhere CoCs are popping up. But do you really need to write down that an adult (quite old, in that case) dance teacher is not allowed to sleep with just-teenage dance students? Or that racist remarks are not welcome? No, so you adopt very broad language. Usually something like "harassing", "makin…

So your answer is not to have enforceable routes for women to be safe and respected because nobody can write specifically enough? I run an organization (hypatia.software [Hypatia Software Organization]) where the Code of Conduct is enforced and it is effective .

Can you give some references to problems that existed in your organization before the CoC, and to what extent the CoC procedures have demonstrably helped?

Re: The Developer Formerly Known as FreeBSDGirl

#139

Post by kev009 »

freebsdgirl wrote: post #31
andallas wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with you, but I think they were talking about past events maybe? Their is a history between FreeBSDGirl and the roosh guy. (By history, I mean going back and forth online, not a personal history).

Citation needed. I've never talked to him (or, for that matter, the person that said they know all the parties involved).

s/all/most. I'm not notable and am much newer than you to the community.

Re: The Developer Formerly Known as FreeBSDGirl

#140

Post by bimble »

Pharaoh2 wrote: post #70
eeZi wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is this about making money?

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…

Well, here's the thing - while both groups are right if you take them at face value, there's no reason to take GamerGate at face value anymore. It's feminism vs. anti-feminism now.

The anti-GG crowd, as a whole, complains about GG and calls them misogynists. They can be annoying.

The GG crowd peppers anti-GG people with with threats, doxxes them, and sends SWAT teams to their homes and the homes of their relatives. They can be terrifying.

There may be opposing viewpoints, but when it comes to opposing behaviors, there's no contest. One side is a lot more embarrassing for the gaming community than the other.

GG has become a hive mind with an enemies list. As a group, it lashes out at anyone who criticizes it or disagrees with it.

This is why they come up in this particular mess - Randi got called out to the GG groups as a feminist or whatever. Once she got on the list, she became as much of a target as anyone else they don't like.

There are plenty of good people who want to address ethics in gaming journalism, but they aren't going to do it with GG. It's too far gone. They'd do better to form a new group that isn't driven by hate and doesn't make decisions in an echo chamber.

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