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Announcing the GNU Kind Communication Guidelines

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Re: Announcing the GNU Kind Communication Guidelines

#91

Post by whatshisface »

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #81
whatshisface wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How much damage have Linus's snippy emails really caused, in light of how they have benefited us? I and many other people like reading them because they are fun, so you have to take that in to account. Different people like different things, and that principle extends to writing styles and personalities. Indeed, if you really want to have diversity you should have some emails that I like to read in addition to having…

I think that whole issue was, while it may be amusing to watch the drama unfold, that valuable contributors were being disaffected. No, its not about how entertaining the email chain reads. Its about getting work done? And it's disingenuous to describe the vicious attacks as 'snippy' and 'glib'.

Different people saw those emails in different ways. In fact, some people are invigorated by strong words as opposed to being cowed and driven away by them. I'm not saying that you didn't perceive them as vicious attacks, I'm saying that the spectrum of human behavior includes people who think being harsh is fine, and give and take it freely. You can't just throw out everyone that behaves in a way that makes you uncomfortable, that's just xenophobia sneaking in through the back way.

What's really wrong is when someone consciously goes out of their way to target another person's emotions, but that has little to do with the average niceness of their writing (which is mostly set by their natural personality baseline).

Re: Announcing the GNU Kind Communication Guidelines

#93

Post by repolfx »

civodul wrote: post #28

As co-maintainer of GNU Guix, I want to point out that the views expressed in Richard Stallman's message are his and not those of the Guix maintainers. In particular, by writing that codes of conduct are "punitive spirit", RMS shows a misunderstanding of how these texts came into existence. More importantly, by writing that he disagrees with "making diversity a goal", RMS seems to deny the role we free software peopl…

RMS seems to deny the role we free software people play in the demographics of our communities.

You're making a major assumption that any such role is played. There's no reason to think that is the case. The free software community is in many ways highly diverse, as measured by things like the countries they come from, their ages, their life experiences. It is dominated by men because women generally don't volunteer to write any kind of software at all. If there was really a widespread problem with GNU maintainers excluding legions of open source devoted women, we'd see open source projects crop up that consist entirely of women and a general separation of the community. That doesn't happen because women simply don't turn up to start with. That's not the fault of men anymore than the dominance of women in primary school teaching is the fault of women.

Re: Announcing the GNU Kind Communication Guidelines

#94

Post by pjc50 »

folknor wrote: post #76
ubernostrum wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your uncharitable interpretation of the tweet you linked cannot be read as accidental.

Yes it can, when you realise the fact that I linked to it, and that anyone who cares enough about the subject can investigate and apparently instantly realise that my face-value interpretation of the tweet was entirely mistaken. Then it should be obvious that it was an accident. If not, I would not have linked a source that instantly disproves what I said.

> anyone who cares enough about the subject can investigate

So you cared enough about it to post a comment framing them as an attacker on Linux, but not enough to verify your interpretation?

Re: Announcing the GNU Kind Communication Guidelines

#95

Post by fossdev »

dang wrote: post #52
fossdev wrote: post #39

Diversity as a goal is fundamentally flawed. It is what leads to policies like "affirmative action" which are in themselves simply a form of reverse discrimination.

Please don't take HN threads on generic flamewar tangents. They are all the same and resolve nothing. We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18275156 .

How does detaching my comment from the person I was replying to and removing all context of the conversation help?

There was nothing generic about my comment nor was it a tangent from the topic at hand. It was a direct reply to an individual in favor of "diversity as a goal" policies as a means for correcting biases.

Re: Announcing the GNU Kind Communication Guidelines

#96

Post by kadendogthing »

whatshisface wrote: post #74
joshuamorton wrote: post #60

So, I read through the list of guidelines, and while I have some minor quibbles with them, overall they seem fine and reasonable. But what happens if someone refuses to be kind? What happens if that person is a major contributor? What would happen if, in some strange alternate reality, Linux was a GNU project, and Linus-of-2012 said he'd really rather not care about all this politeness nonsense, and would prefer to c…

How much damage have Linus's snippy emails really caused, in light of how they have benefited us? I and many other people like reading them because they are fun, so you have to take that in to account. Different people like different things, and that principle extends to writing styles and personalities. Indeed, if you really want to have diversity you should have some emails that I like to read in addition to having…

>How much damage have Linus's snippy emails really caused

Don't downplay how he acted by using words like "snippy." There are contributors who have either left the project or actively avoid directly talking with him. There is a reason why Linus admitted he had a problem. It wasn't productive or useful.

https://plus.google.com/+LennartPoetteringTheOneAndOnly/post...

>But more importantly, I'd actually put some blame on a certain circle of folks that play a major role in kernel development, and first and foremost Linus Torvalds himself. By many he is a considered a role model, but he is quite a bad one. If he posts words like "[specific folks] ...should be retroactively aborted. Who the f*ck does idiotic things like that? How did they not die as babies, considering that they were likely too stupid to find a tit to suck on?" (google for it), than that's certainly bad. But what I find particularly appalling is the fact that he regularly defends this, and advertises this as an efficient way to run a community. (But it is not just Linus, it's a certain group of people around him who use the exact same style, some of which semi-publically even phantasize about the best ways to, ... well, kill me).

Re: Announcing the GNU Kind Communication Guidelines

#97

Post by KirinDave »

folknor wrote: post #68
KirinDave wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That quotation is a joke, state in irony in a thread about how much abuse someone is receiving for even proposing a change to the rules. It's disingenuous in the extreme to present that as a tweet that honestly reflected a goal, and anyone who takes a second to click "show thread" and looks around will see it's a tweet made in jest. Actions like this are misinformation. The question I'm left asking is, "Did folknor k…

You're absolutely correct, I just took the tweet at face value, and did not bother to investigate the tweet, or any followups, at all. I still haven't, and simply accept your statement that it's a joke, stated in irony. I do not use twitter, and do not allow javascript. I've never clicked "Show thread" on Twitter. I had to jump through hoops to find the tweet, and to be able to copy+paste the text of it. I just remem…

I appreciate your candor. Thank you. If you're unwilling to vet a source due to safety concerns, I completely understand. But please consider next time if it's then safe or responsible to use that source. The cognitive bias and mechanics of memory in humans is such that even if it's discredited, humans can often retain only trace aspects of the discourse which can strengthen later disinformation. We see examples of this in research around the "Mandela Effect" and it profoundly affects how communicators approach establishing truth in the face of fiction.

Your story here is an example of this effect in play in a more dire situation, when someone presents deliberate (as opposed to accidental) misinformation. You were manipulated, and subsequently passed that manipulation forward. Now everyone here will be more likely to believe the misinformed story, even me if I'm not careful.

Re: Announcing the GNU Kind Communication Guidelines

#98

Post by dec0dedab0de »

allannienhuis wrote: post #73

> Please don't argue unceasingly for your preferred course of action when a decision for some other course has already been made. That tends to block the activity's progress. I've seen this so many times in non-oss work too. Why do some people have such a hard time letting go? Even more so for Open Source projects - If you care _that_ much about your ideas - fork and move on; otherwise spend you and your co-contribut…

I have a hard time letting go when I feel like my input was dismissed out of hand, or not understood.

Re: Announcing the GNU Kind Communication Guidelines

#99

Post by joshuamorton »

whatshisface wrote: post #91
JoeAltmaier wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that whole issue was, while it may be amusing to watch the drama unfold, that valuable contributors were being disaffected. No, its not about how entertaining the email chain reads. Its about getting work done? And it's disingenuous to describe the vicious attacks as 'snippy' and 'glib'.

Different people saw those emails in different ways. In fact, some people are invigorated by strong words as opposed to being cowed and driven away by them. I'm not saying that you didn't perceive them as vicious attacks, I'm saying that the spectrum of human behavior includes people who think being harsh is fine, and give and take it freely. You can't just throw out everyone that behaves in a way that makes you unco…

But the spectrum of harshness is like the spectrum of spicy food. While I may be content with spicier food than my mother is, if I forced her to eat some of the food I find palatable, she would cry.

So if I want to have a pleasant, welcoming, and accessible meal, I should probably cook it to her spice level instead of mine.

Re: Announcing the GNU Kind Communication Guidelines

#100

Post by repolfx »

jordigh wrote: post #53
funkythings wrote: post #11

> In August, a discussion started among GNU package maintainers about the problem that GNU development often pushes women away I'm not trying to offend people or anything, but where is the evidence for this in GNU specifically?

I was there to witness the private mailing list that culminated in this, and there was a very clear example of that happening there. A certain GNU contributor, let's call her Sal, was voicing concerns with current practices. Someone else replied to her with "Sally," condescendingly talking down to her. To this she said, "I did not invite you to call me by a nickname. Call me Sal." A sub-discussion then erupted about…

That sounds utterly trivial - why was Sal/Sally so upset by an attempt to be polite by not using a short form/pet name. That must happen to her all the time in formal settings.

As for "voicing concerns with current practices", what were those concerns and practices? Technical?

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