No more rock stars: how to stop abuse in tech communities
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Re: No more rock stars: how to stop abuse in tech communities
#2Overreact much? One guy did some shit. Maybe a bunch of people did some shit. GTFO with your moral policing and let the real police handle any crimes.
Re: No more rock stars: how to stop abuse in tech communities
#3Even if it hadn't resulted in a rash of sexual assaults in the security/privacy community, much of the advice in this post about avoiding rock star dynamics would be well taken. Rockstarism is a scourge in software security. It's probably bad everywhere it crops up, including the music industry.
Re: No more rock stars: how to stop abuse in tech communities
#4Overreact much? One guy did some shit. Maybe a bunch of people did some shit. GTFO with your moral policing and let the real police handle any crimes.
Overreact much?
Re: No more rock stars: how to stop abuse in tech communities
#5Even if it hadn't resulted in a rash of sexual assaults in the security/privacy community, much of the advice in this post about avoiding rock star dynamics would be well taken. Rockstarism is a scourge in software security. It's probably bad everywhere it crops up, including the music industry.
It certainly did nothing good for the video-game industry. cough Daikatana cough
I think you're right, and the "rock star" pattern looks similar wherever it crops up, with similar fallout. It's only the tolerance for it which varies.
Re: No more rock stars: how to stop abuse in tech communities
#6There should be no abuse - sexual or otherwise - in tech communities. Please call it out whenever you see it, in a polite but firm manner, and don't be afraid or intimidated by it. The vast majority of people will support you, and it's important to do so not only for your own protection but for others that might not be so willing or able to do the same.
That said, something about the tone of this blog post is utterly repellent to me and I'm struggling to put my finger on the reason why.
Re: No more rock stars: how to stop abuse in tech communities
#7"Watch for smaller signs of boundary pushing and react strongly"
But we'd have to fire all the first-level problem report handlers of most of the open source projects I've dealt with.
Re: No more rock stars: how to stop abuse in tech communities
#8> One of the authors of this post believed every first-person allegation of abuse and assault by Jacob Appelbaum – including the anonymous ones – immediately. Why? Among many other signs, she saw him break different, smaller rules in a way that showed his complete and total disregard for other people’s time, work, and feelings – and everyone supported him doing so. For example, she once attended a series of five minute lightning talks at the Noisebridge hackerspace, where speakers sign up in advance. Jacob arrived unannounced and jumped in after the first couple of talks with a forty-five minute long boring rambling slideshow about a recent trip he took. The person running the talks – someone with considerable power and influence in the same community – rolled his eyes but let Jacob talk for nine times the length of other speakers. The message was clear: rules don’t apply to Jacob, and even powerful people were afraid to cross him.
This is a really dangerous line of thinking. Just because someone is a "jerk" does not mean that they're a criminal and the burden of proof for accusations goes out the window. This whole post, and the site it links to reeks of vigilantism. If he really did do the things he's accused of (I've never heard of Jacob before so can't comment), he should be dealt with by the proper authorities. It's not up to employers to act as judge, jury and executioners.
I would also add that people who engage in these types of public witch hunts and calls for codes of conduct, new rules... are very much showing signs of the narcissism they claim to be against.
Re: No more rock stars: how to stop abuse in tech communities
#9'Start with the assumption that harassment reports are true and investigate them thoroughly'
Sorry, what? We have this whole ideal of "innocent until proven guilty" in America (and many other places) so you can kindly take this nonsense elsewhere.
Re: No more rock stars: how to stop abuse in tech communities
#10Even if it hadn't resulted in a rash of sexual assaults in the security/privacy community, much of the advice in this post about avoiding rock star dynamics would be well taken. Rockstarism is a scourge in software security. It's probably bad everywhere it crops up, including the music industry.
It certainly did nothing good for the video-game industry. cough Daikatana cough I think you're right, and the "rock star" pattern looks similar wherever it crops up, with similar fallout. It's only the tolerance for it which varies.
John Romero was a rockstar, but his attitude only affected Ion Storm/Daikatana, not other people. And that was more than a decade ago.