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Antisocial Coding: My Year at GitHub

where.coraline.codes

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Re: Antisocial Coding: My Year at GitHub

#111

Post by ivraatiems »

fenwick67 wrote: post #106
ivraatiems wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you think this person is unusual in her communication style? She posted the complete text of the "problem" comment. If you got that message from a colleague, would you consider it unacceptable? Why or why not? If yes, what could she have said that would have made it OK? How would you answer her core question of whether or not the comment she made is appropriate?

Re-structure the question and switch gender out for cake flavors. "What flavor of cake do you prefer? Chocolate, vanilla, or sheetcake?" the feedback coming back as... "'Sheetcake' is not a flavor. Sheetcake may be vanilla, chocolate, red velvet, lemon-poppyseed... If you want to know if a survey respondent likes sheetcake, you need to explicitly ask that question." ... it does seem kinda grating but not overtly so.…

I completely agree. I know and have worked with many people who communicate that way. I'd probably prefer it if they didn't, but I also don't generally have a problem when they do. I would feel that the explanation was unnecessarily pedantic and perhaps the slightest bit disrespectful in its assumption that I didn't know what I was talking about, but I would assume that was unintentional. It's interesting that the reaction from this data scientist individual came back so extremely negative.

Re: Antisocial Coding: My Year at GitHub

#112

Post by georgespencer »

roywiggins wrote: post #66
Dirlewanger wrote: post #13

While GitHub seemingly handled her employment poorly, this person sounds horrible to work with: >Was politely calling out a data scientist on a problematic and transphobic survey answer a demonstration of lack of empathy? How presumptuous. Ever thought that maybe the person putting it together didn't know any better? What does framing oneself as the victim accomplish here? In addition, this is hilariously ironic give…

> I was very disappointed at this 101 mistake, and sadly opened an issue referencing the question. The body of my issue read: > "'Transgender' is not a gender. Transgender people may be male, female, gender queer, non-binary... If you want to know if a survey respondent is transgender, you need to explicitly ask that question." She was disappointed. She explained her problem with the survey in a non-judgmental way- "…

As someone who has a naturally terse communication style and who does not react emotionally to people who send emails like e.g. "Send it" instead of "Send it to me, thanks.", I have had to train myself to realise that any form of text communication conveys tone with huge imprecision. If you didn't see someone smiling at you in the corridor and then you send an email to them saying "Yep" the entire tone of the email changes vs. if you saw the person, grinned, said hi and then sent the exact same email.

It's not fair, and bright people very often feel like morons adding exclamation points and smiley faces made out of punctuation to their written comms. but trust me when I say that it can TOTALLY obviate a whole bunch of grief and is, I think, incumbent on you the communicator to improve just as much as it's incumbent on the recipient to not react emotionally.

Re: Antisocial Coding: My Year at GitHub

#113

Post by royka118 »

oblio wrote: post #24
puranjay wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know it sounds like a joke, but I've taken to using a lot of exclamation marks in my communication lately for this very reason. It feels dumb to me but I know for a fact that some people who are quick to take offense ease when they see it.

I just use smileys. I know that some people see them as childish/immature/unprofessional, but especially in a multi-cultural environment I prefer to be safe. Irony, sarcasm and humor don't scale well.

Me too! Just to keep it good humored. If you put a smiley in an issue or a slack message it helps keep the recipient happy

Re: Antisocial Coding: My Year at GitHub

#114

Post by specialist »

opportune wrote: post #49

The main thing I've taken away from the whole github situation is that, as a tech company, you should just entirely stay away from public involvement in the social justice sphere. That doesn't mean exclusively hiring white men and sending out Kalanick-style emails; it means keeping your work environment as professional and politically neutral as possible unless absolutely necessary. My employer does a good job of thi…

Naw. Starbucks has done a good job with their corporate responsiblity efforts, bumpy road and all. So it's possible to do well.

Any nail that sticks up will get pounded down, someone somewhere will be offended no matter what. So just do your thing and ignore the haters.

Edit: To the skeptics, Starbucks was among the first to extend health insurance to domestic partners, and I'm a big fan of their CARE programs. That said, it was still the worst job I've ever had.

Re: Antisocial Coding: My Year at GitHub

#116

Post by eropple »

MichaelBurge wrote: post #73

> "'Transgender' is not a gender. Transgender people may be male, female, gender queer, non-binary... If you want to know if a survey respondent is transgender, you need to explicitly ask that question." I Imagine this read to the survey writer like: "Hello, I'd like to complain about your use of the term Linux on the corporate intranet. A page provides instructions for running the data parsing scripts "on Linux". Si…

Perhaps you should reflect on that we are talking about people, not computer programs, and that the contextual impact of misrepresenting people has a much more marked impact than the contextual impact of misrepresenting computer programs.

Re: Antisocial Coding: My Year at GitHub

#117

Post by fenwick67 »

dcole2929 wrote: post #100
Dirlewanger wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm disgusted at her reflection that the question was transphobic, not that she commented on the difference. Whether the data scientist overreacted or not is irrelevant.

Calling a comment transphobic in no way implies that the speaker of that comment is transhpobic. It is a description of what's been said. The same way if someone was to say something that could possibly be construed as racist. If someone points that out and says hey that statement is racist, that's not calling that person racist. They might be. They might not, but that statement in and of itself implies no assertion…

Intent is the difference between being transphobic and being ignorant. The survey question was ignorant.

Re: Antisocial Coding: My Year at GitHub

#118

Post by btym »

faizmokhtar wrote: post #41
ivraatiems wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's most interesting is that "empathetic communication" is generally not prioritized in software development environments, in favor of exactly the kind of polite-but-direct communication the author employs. (In fact, many feel that even politeness is unnecessary or harmful. For instance, Linus Torvalds' and other OSS developers are known and regularly praised for their bluntness.) I've spoken out often on HN about…

How is it sexism when the one who reported her and the manager herself is a female employee?

Good question. It's called "internalized sexism". Not too uncommon in male-dominated workplaces.

Re: Antisocial Coding: My Year at GitHub

#119

Post by ivraatiems »

avenoir wrote: post #94

> "What is your gender?" The multiple-choice options were "Male", "Female", and "Transgender". I was very disappointed at this 101 mistake, and sadly opened an issue referencing the question. The body of my issue read: > "'Transgender' is not a gender. Transgender people may be male, female, gender queer, non-binary... If you want to know if a survey respondent is transgender, you need to explicitly ask that question…

The best (worst) part is that this thread is now repeating that dynamic writ small... I admit I may be somewhat complicit in that, but it's important to be able to take a step back.
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