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The Developer Formerly Known as FreeBSDGirl

blog.randi.io

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Re: The Developer Formerly Known as FreeBSDGirl

#191

Post by engi_nerd »

tptacek wrote: post #182
makomk wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Her blocking tool is more than just idiotic, it was a toxic, polarising firebomb tossed into an already vicious war, one that forced everyone involved to pick a side and stop even listening to what the other side was actually saying and doing by blocking them from seeing one side unless they did. It forced everyone to base their views of the other side on the most vitrolic descriptions their own site could come up wi…

You people sure take Twitter block lists seriously. There are people I like who I have blocked on Twitter, just to keep me from getting engaged in vituperative bullshit in the middle of my workdays. I should apologize to them for poisoning them with fire (is I think the metaphor you're using, right?).

But you curate your block list. What you do with your blocking is your own business. That is a little different than using blocking software that you do not create/maintain.

Her software, according to the readme [0]:

> Good Game Auto Blocker compares the follower lists for a given set of Twitter accounts. If anyone is found to be following more than one of these accounts, they are added to a list and blocked.

Most discussions of ggautoblocker are referencing the GamerGate-specific block list. The GamerGate block list filters the majority of Twitter interactions by GamerGate supporters. This list is maintained and shared by the author, Randi Harper, as well as a number of volunteers.

Are you curious about this whole (debacle? flamewar? never-ending argumet?) and want to follow notable people on both sides of the argument? Well, her software just blocked you. Gamergate is perceived by some people to be a hate group [1]. So now, by association, this software has categorized a potentially innocent use of twitter as being representative of membership in a potential hate group.

There is an appeals process [2] for being removed from the list, I should note. I would love to hear from anyone who has experience with the appeals process.

How would you (not just you, tptacek, but the general you) feel if you were on the blocked list? I wouldn't want to be associated with this whole mess at all.

As always, if I'm misunderstanding how this software works, please let me know.

[0]: https://github.com/freebsdgirl/ggautoblocker

[1]: http://jezebel.com/gamergate-trolls-arent-ethics-crusaders-t...

[2]: https://docs.google.com/document/d/14iu4XVTKw2tSAlv3x8ktxQfz...

Re: The Developer Formerly Known as FreeBSDGirl

#192

Post by geofft »

bbradley406 wrote: post #189
geofft wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you do any analysis of use and abuse of flags? It certainly seems like there's a phenomenon of stories pointing out issues in open-source communities being flagged off the front page very quickly. Given that the subject seems on-topic for HN and there's good discussion (and bad discussion, too, but you've been on top of it), it seems some consideration should be given to whether the flags are abusive. (In particul…

It's not a phenomenon; users are not out to oppress or censor anyone. These types of stories are terrible in terms of quality of discussion, and provide almost nothing to satisfy one's intellectual curiosity. This whole thread is he said / she said feces-flinging, and many people would rather have interesting articles on the front page. It's essentially tabloid gossip, and has been discussed to death on reddit / twit…

Yeah, I do agree that HN could handle the discussion more productively. But preemptively flagging stories as categorically unacceptable for HN seems like a way to make that never happen.

There is a good discussion to be had about, say, whether an open-source project should welcome someone whose views make existing members uncomfortable, how much voice an inactive member should still have, how to handle trademarks in a spirit of community while still making names meaningful, what authority a core team should have and when they should feel comfortable removing active contributors, etc. Discussing them in the context of this incident would inform those two discussions you suggested; otherwise we have people constructing codes of conduct from intuition and first principles, which seems most likely to be counterproductive.

It is somewhat unfortunate that we don't have a response from core or the Foundation about how they saw things from their end and what their pressures were. But admittedly it's a fairly large cultural shift to be willing to talk about these things openly.

Re: The Developer Formerly Known as FreeBSDGirl

#193

Post by engi_nerd »

engi_nerd wrote: post #152
5F36B5F62640 wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Her blocking tool is idiotic. It blocks people whose only offense it to follow more than one account on Twitter from a small list of accounts that she considers to be GG leaders. It ends up blocking many anti-GG people who are following those accounts because they want to know what their opponents are up to.

https://www.reddit.com/r/KotakuInAction/comments/2no4me/im_a... There's no good mechanism for this case, either.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/14iu4XVTKw2tSAlv3x8ktxQfz...

There is an appeals process, it turns out.

Re: The Developer Formerly Known as FreeBSDGirl

#194

Post by tptacek »

engi_nerd wrote: post #191
tptacek wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You people sure take Twitter block lists seriously. There are people I like who I have blocked on Twitter, just to keep me from getting engaged in vituperative bullshit in the middle of my workdays. I should apologize to them for poisoning them with fire (is I think the metaphor you're using, right?).

But you curate your block list. What you do with your blocking is your own business. That is a little different than using blocking software that you do not create/maintain. Her software, according to the readme [0]: > Good Game Auto Blocker compares the follower lists for a given set of Twitter accounts. If anyone is found to be following more than one of these accounts, they are added to a list and blocked. Most di…

If it's important to you to hear all sides of a debate as tedious as GamerGate, don't use the blocklist software. Despite the length of your response, I'm not seeing the complexity of this situation.

Re: The Developer Formerly Known as FreeBSDGirl

#195

Post by bbradley406 »

geofft wrote: post #192
bbradley406 wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not a phenomenon; users are not out to oppress or censor anyone. These types of stories are terrible in terms of quality of discussion, and provide almost nothing to satisfy one's intellectual curiosity. This whole thread is he said / she said feces-flinging, and many people would rather have interesting articles on the front page. It's essentially tabloid gossip, and has been discussed to death on reddit / twit…

Yeah, I do agree that HN could handle the discussion more productively. But preemptively flagging stories as categorically unacceptable for HN seems like a way to make that never happen. There is a good discussion to be had about, say, whether an open-source project should welcome someone whose views make existing members uncomfortable, how much voice an inactive member should still have, how to handle trademarks in…

Agreed! I think part of the problem could be that the first, say 10-20, comments on a controversial story won't be very good. This makes people flag it before (hopefully) a lot of genuine thought and effort goes into the comments. I'm not familiar with how flags affect a post's rank on the front page. Thinking out loud, a system where the first user flag has minimal impact and the impact grows very slowly with each additional flag could work.

Even though I find it uninteresting, it's arguably necessary in the same way people post here when they can't reach someone at a large company they're having issues with in the hopes that an employee will come to their aid.

Re: The Developer Formerly Known as FreeBSDGirl

#196

Post by [deleted] »

tptacek wrote: post #194
engi_nerd wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But you curate your block list. What you do with your blocking is your own business. That is a little different than using blocking software that you do not create/maintain. Her software, according to the readme [0]: > Good Game Auto Blocker compares the follower lists for a given set of Twitter accounts. If anyone is found to be following more than one of these accounts, they are added to a list and blocked. Most di…

If it's important to you to hear all sides of a debate as tedious as GamerGate, don't use the blocklist software. Despite the length of your response, I'm not seeing the complexity of this situation.

[deleted]

Re: The Developer Formerly Known as FreeBSDGirl

#197

Post by engi_nerd »

tptacek wrote: post #194
engi_nerd wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But you curate your block list. What you do with your blocking is your own business. That is a little different than using blocking software that you do not create/maintain. Her software, according to the readme [0]: > Good Game Auto Blocker compares the follower lists for a given set of Twitter accounts. If anyone is found to be following more than one of these accounts, they are added to a list and blocked. Most di…

If it's important to you to hear all sides of a debate as tedious as GamerGate, don't use the blocklist software. Despite the length of your response, I'm not seeing the complexity of this situation.

...I don't believe it's very complex, either.

Not using the blocklist software is fine, but that doesn't really address the other concerns I raised. I wouldn't want to be inadvertently identified as a member of a hate group.

Re: The Developer Formerly Known as FreeBSDGirl

#198

Post by tptacek »

engi_nerd wrote: post #197
tptacek wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it's important to you to hear all sides of a debate as tedious as GamerGate, don't use the blocklist software. Despite the length of your response, I'm not seeing the complexity of this situation.

...I don't believe it's very complex, either. Not using the blocklist software is fine, but that doesn't really address the other concerns I raised. I wouldn't want to be inadvertently identified as a member of a hate group.

It sounds like you're saying what I do with my block list is my own business as long as I don't use that block list to mirror someone else's block list.

Re: The Developer Formerly Known as FreeBSDGirl

#199

Post by engi_nerd »

tptacek wrote: post #198
engi_nerd wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

...I don't believe it's very complex, either. Not using the blocklist software is fine, but that doesn't really address the other concerns I raised. I wouldn't want to be inadvertently identified as a member of a hate group.

It sounds like you're saying what I do with my block list is my own business as long as I don't use that block list to mirror someone else's block list.

I'm afraid I don't understand.

Re: The Developer Formerly Known as FreeBSDGirl

#200

Post by joeemison »

Globrazu wrote: post #168

If you look at the actual facts of the matter you will see a vastly differing view of who was "harassed" and who was the "harasser" than this Blog post tries to paint, here's where most of this started: https://twitter.com/xmjEE/status/613083223086768128 https://archive.is/9KGyX And here's a "discussion" on the matter between Randi, Colin and Johannes on /r/FreeBSD: https://archive.is/wH4Rg

I just spent far too long reading both of those links, and I don't see anything there that contradicts anything Randi said in her post.

If someone is regularly and routinely attacked (and all the bullshit about "Randi can't code" / "Randi hasn't contributed" is just obnoxious), it's reasonable for them to be pissed off and get angry. That doesn't somehow negate the fact that they were badly mistreated.

In hindsight, it's telling that people making the above comments are posting links to longreads and not citing anything specific--just seems like more of the misogynistic campaign.

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