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“I'm basically giving myself a permanent vacation from being BDFL”

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Re: “I'm basically giving myself a permanent vacation from being BDFL”

#711

Post by yebyen »

gkya wrote: post #707
raverbashing wrote: post #670

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> if he limited his responses to “this is a bad idea” or “this isn’t done right” And then people keep wasting his time insisting on a bad idea Cultural differences and all that. A good 'perkele' will be enough to get the point across in most cultures, even if some leave a bit disappointed.

It is easy to filter such people out. Especially if it is email the sole medium of contact.

You want him to spend some of his time maintaining a block list of his professional volunteers that sometimes have bad ideas?

How long do you stay on the list? And doesn't this assume that every idea that person has is bad? What happens when some good ideas are caught in the net? (And what happens when someone goes off and grabs help to implement the bad idea, because you weren't there anymore to tell them again not to do it that way? Or worse, what if they come around to your point of view, but can no longer reach you?)

Wouldn't it be better to just say no, emphatically, and in a way that is clearly and unambiguously no? (I don't think it absolutely has to be a personal attack, but at least it's not passive-aggressively putting your ideas into a blackhole echo chamber...)

Re: “I'm basically giving myself a permanent vacation from being BDFL”

#712

Post by justbaker »

emmelaich wrote: post #610
nikofeyn wrote: post #604

Earlier quoted context omitted.

norvig is the only one anyone ever quotes for python vs lisp. he is beyond my knowledge, but i just cannot see what he says in this quote. python doesn’t feel like lisp at all when programming in it. the mindset is completely different. edit: i thought this quote was much more recent. it was from around when he first joined google or even before.

That wasn't his motivation for using Python. His motivation was much like many others -- it's the language that looks closer to pseudocode than any other. His first attempt at doing the AI book using Java was a failure because it's verbosity and lack of features. Students found the Python version much easier to comprehend than the Lisp one.

> His first attempt at doing the AI book using Java was a failure because it's verbosity and lack of features. Students found the Python version much easier to comprehend than the Lisp one.

Sigh. Is that the nature of the beast in lisp? To me, it has always been a difficult language to sell to more "traditional" minded devs.

Re: “I'm basically giving myself a permanent vacation from being BDFL”

#713

Post by nickthemagicman »

mtVessel wrote: post #570
nickthemagicman wrote: post #480

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think theres absolutely zero implicit contract that implies that open source software maintainers owe ANYone ANYthing at ANYtime. That's the reason it's open source because everyone can fix it, all an open source maintainer owes you is a P.R. review. Therefore if an open source project maintainer is giving you their time and patience then you better be extra polite and grateful to them. If Ben and Jerrys left a bun…

The next time someone asks me why I'm choosing a proprietary solution, rather than one of the many fine open-source options available, I'm just going to point them to this comment.

Perfect! If you're choosing open source software for the customer support then you're deff on the wrong track.

Re: “I'm basically giving myself a permanent vacation from being BDFL”

#714

Post by Jasper_ »

flukus wrote: post #671
okal wrote: post #668

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is laughable. What would you consider a "personal" insult?

Something personal to an individual, insulting their looks, background, family, etc. If you call me a dickhead it's not a personal insult, call me fat it's getting there and when it's that [redacted] event when I was drunk a few weeks ago it's personal. Anyone that find that Linus spray as "brutally personal" needs a cup of cement.

Since the people that enjoy arguing semantics and splitting hairs love a good "word definitions" argument, let's take a quick look at "personal". Merriam-Webster suggests "of, relating to, or affecting a particular person".

So, let's ask ourselves, is the term "dickhead" personal? Does it relate to a particular person? I don't see it relating to anything else, so I'm going to go with "yes" on that one.

But I could be missing something. What do you think it relates to?

Re: “I'm basically giving myself a permanent vacation from being BDFL”

#715

Post by Eliezer »

parrellel wrote: post #616
setgree wrote: post #490

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One person who understands and writes extremely well about this dynamic is Eliezer Yudkowsky. From the incomparable Harry potter and the Methods of Rationality : [0] ""I was going to be a hero, once," said Professor Quirrell, still looking upward. "Can you believe that, Miss Granger?" "No." "Thank you again, Miss Granger. It is true nonetheless... I was not naive, Miss Granger, I did not expect the power-holders to a…

It is worth mentioning that Eliezer Yudkowsky doesn't believe in the scientific method, and thinks it can be replaced with pure Bayesian reasoning, without, as far as I can tell, any data collection.

I'm not even sure I should bother replying to this. But, like many, I'd consider the scientific method properly applied to be a special case of probability theory, modulo some social rules that might technically depart from Bayesian reasoning but are supposedly there to create good equilibria among less than perfect reasoners. This involves observation, natch.

The parent commenter is presumably beyond all help, but anyone interested in an example of my views on this point may consult "A Bayesian view of scientific virtues" here: https://arbital.com/p/bayes_science_virtues/

Re: “I'm basically giving myself a permanent vacation from being BDFL”

#716

Post by smsm42 »

VikingCoder wrote: post #407
smsm42 wrote: post #383

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Because I don't want an individual (or small group of individuals) to have authoritarian power (BDFL) over a repo. And the solution is to trust Github (proudly owned by Microsoft) to be the rule enforcer? Hmm... BTW, there's nothing wrong with small groups of individuals having power over repos - millions of small software projects are governed that way, with exclusive control of one person or small team of people…

If you trust Github to hold your repo, and to implement the mechanics of modifying your repo, but you don't trust them to implement a system of governance over that, then I think you're odd. If Github screws up any of this, you fork to a different location. > BTW, there's nothing wrong with small groups of individuals having power over repos I'm not saying that shouldn't exist. I'm saying that's inappropriate for som…

> If you trust Github to hold your repo, and to implement the mechanics of modifying your repo, but you don't trust them to implement a system of governance over that, then I think you're odd.

It's a complete non-sequitur. It's like saying "if you trust water company with delivering your drinking water, you should allow them to raise your children". Keeping bits in place (protected by crypto hashes so any shenanigans would be noticed by people holding copies of the repo very quickly) is not the same as letting them govern the projects. Technical and social functions are completely different. Moreover, the issue of trust and control are completely different - there are a number of people who I trust, but I don't let them run my life for me.

Re: “I'm basically giving myself a permanent vacation from being BDFL”

#717

Post by v_lisivka »

dang wrote: post #691
v_lisivka wrote: post #689

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dang, you are not listening to user problems. I was moderator for more than 10 years on linux.org.ua and nobody told me that I was bad moderator. I also regular user on other forums/sites, so I have view on the problem from both sides. HN is badly moderated. However, most problems with moderation/flames/etc., can be fixed using technology or by writing better rules. If you are interesting in fixing of HN problems, co…

Happy to listen to user opinions and do so every day, but when someone has a history of not following the site rules, as you do, their complaints become less compelling. This can be fixed by reading https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and taking the spirit of this site to heart, and using at as intended from now on.

Well, I agree that I'm not the best HN user, but I'm not a young inexperienced person: I survived few assassinations, and lost few friends, which were not so lucky. I also quite busy with my work, my startup, education, science, history, politics, and some other topic, so I will not post something just to insult somebody.

IMHO, HN can be improved to automatically filter out discussions. Imagine, we have a magic system, which automagically labeled all comments as a) on topic or not on topic b) improvement, critics, opinion, correction, controversy, alternative view, support, trolling, joke, fun, suggestion, discussion, flame, etc. c) history, politics, physics, mathematics, engineering, computer science, programming, etc. Then we can just place some labels on top of each submission with number of comments for that label. By default, only on-topic comments with good labels should be enabled. But user should be free to enable other topics as well.

Now, we need to imagine how to implement such automagic labeling system with minimum of up-keeping cost. IMHO, first we should allow user to label his comments himself. If comment is labeled properly, then user will not punished. If comment labeled incorrectly, then other users can vote to change label with cumulative score (if user has higher rating, his vote worth more), and user will be automatically punished if label changed from good to bad.

On-topic/off-topic should be implemented as checkbox on submit form. Other labels can be implemented as hashtags or collapsible boxes. Users should be able to add or remove labels to other posts, if necessary, when they have high enough rating for such action and label. Users should be able to chose which labels they want or don't want to see with reasonable defaults.

IMHO, it's much better to be constructive ans ask user to label his post as "#politics #flame" instead of forbidding him to post.

Example:

A post title. yyyy.mm.dd hh:mm on-topic(12) off-topic(21)

vlisivka x hours ago | off-topic(up dn) #hn-site #suggestion (add label) I have a suggestion about how to improve HN.

Re: “I'm basically giving myself a permanent vacation from being BDFL”

#718

Post by sheepmullet »

DanBC wrote: post #657
sheepmullet wrote: post #651

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The culture you describe is toxic How? Which parts exactly? > It's also a culture of de-humanisation Again, how? I find it creepy that without any specific examples provided you would report them. Surely that creates a toxic culture.

The context is someone hearing comments that were "shocking", and that were so shocking they could only be delivered behind closed doors. This is a good, but not infallible, sign of a dysfunctional culture in health care. It might be fine in other industries, but in health care there are strong links between this culture and poor, harmful, practice. It's interesting that making a complaint is seen as a negative thing…

> The context is someone hearing comments that were "shocking"

Shocking because they were dehumanising or shocking because they were unexpected?

> and that were so shocking they could only be delivered behind closed doors.

My take is that it simply meant out of earshot of patients - and that's basic professionalism - not a sign of dehumanising patients.

They clearly weren't trying to hide their conversations from new staff.

> It's interesting that making a complaint is seen as a negative thing to do: if there's no basis for the complaint no action is taken.

I'd be extremely surprised if that's the case.

Even in the tech world complaints are treated seriously enough that people's lives are negatively impacted regardless of whether there is any basis.

> Have a read of the reports I mentioned to see where this toxic culture leads.

I've read your excerpts and can see no relation to the situation we are discussing.

Once again how does venting or making jokes about patients lead to a lower standard of care?

> The standard you walk past is the standard you accept.

And the parent poster made absolutely no comment about poor standards of care. In fact the implication was clearly that there was a high standard.

Re: “I'm basically giving myself a permanent vacation from being BDFL”

#719

Post by tomhoward »

antpls wrote: post #703
dang wrote: post #693

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The point is simply that he set the pattern for this site.

Things have to change at some point, that's why Guido is taking a permanent vacation.

The assertion being made, that you seemed to be endorsing, was that downvoting used to be only for incivil or troll comments, but that has changed recently under the newer moderation team.

As pg’s 2008 quote shows, that assertion is wrong.

Whether it should change now is a separate issue, but there seems to be no mood for that among the more active contributors to HN.

Re: “I'm basically giving myself a permanent vacation from being BDFL”

#720

Post by thedirt0115 »

rabidrat wrote: post #410
gerdesj wrote: post #392

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That could be considered a feature. At least you have to read what you have copied and pasted.

That's cute but I hope no one reading this thinks you are being serious. If they do, to wit: So many webforums strip leading indents from code. It's not like it looks right on the forum, and then gets inserted into your editor wrong. It's often not right on the source side either. So if you're trying to learn an algorithm from the Python code, you're SOL. This has happened to me.

I find this hard to believe. Searching for python copy paste indentation, the first page of results has everything from how to turn it on for various editors to how to turn it OFF for various editors (implying it's built-in to some). If you just gave up 5 seconds after pasting because it didn't look right or work immediately and you didn't even try looking for help... I dunno what to say.
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