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Announcing the GNU Kind Communication Guidelines

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Re: Announcing the GNU Kind Communication Guidelines

#301

Post by ryanobjc »

binaryapparatus wrote: post #126
SolaceQuantum wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Being politically correct vs getting the job done, I'll always choose getting the job done. I am absolutely baffled at the idea that there is ever a situation where getting the job done requires a choice to be politically incorrect as implied here. Do you have an example of the phenomenon you're discussing?

Yeah, like mirko said, being pressured by project leader to merge absolute crap (I was in charge of merging), "because it works and we don't want to suppress less skilled colleagues". "Try to explain nicely how to do it better" while that other guy a) doesn't want to learn and b) has feelings that are more important that making better software / learning. Edit: to clarify, that other guy couldn't understand the proje…

that's not political correctness, that's just good old fashioned office politics.

Re: Announcing the GNU Kind Communication Guidelines

#302

Post by microtherion »

sound1 wrote: post #285
microtherion wrote: post #220

Clearly RMS believes in having software licenses with teeth, which is why he so strongly advocates the GPL over the BSD and MIT licenses. When he disagreed with Apple's stance on IP litigation, he didn't just exhort them to be excellent — he boycotted them for several years. So it's not that RMS is strongly opposed to coercive enforcement; he just doesn't value people as highly as he does code.

I think the spirit of RMS' argument is to benifit the people in general. In first the intent is to get the software to be accessible to as many people as possiblez and now his intends to make sure that talented people don't shy away from contibuting to open source projects just because of rigid policies. In my opinion he's been quite reasonable in both cases, whether you and I agree with his proposed method.

The only "talented" people who benefit from lax harassment policies are people whose primary "talent" is harassment.

Re: Announcing the GNU Kind Communication Guidelines

#303

Post by tomatocracy »

Nelson69 wrote: post #50
LiterallyDoge wrote: post #29

Is it really this complicated to treat other people with respect?

Why is it such a dog whistle? What's mindblowing is the rage that seems to pour out of, mostly, non-contributors when this stuff comes up. There is a more fundamental insecurity or just a fundamental disrespect that some of these folks seem to have for others. I've heard claims that there have even been planted "social justice warriors" that have intentionally engaged in conflict to change projects. When you have guy…

It's become a "dog whistle" issue because there is a perception that some activists may use CoC-type documents to deny contributors' ability to freely engage in political speech in other, unrelated, contexts. The worry is that this in turn will lead to either witch hunts or chilling effects, which are viewed as at odds with modern Western political free speech culture.

Many people feel uncomfortable with this as a concept, regardless of whether they agree with the ideas in question. They point out that this effect may well reduce the contributor pool in much the same way that a particularly harsh technical culture (eg LKML) might do, i.e. it ends up substituting one disincentive to participate with another for no net gain.

On the other side, some people argue that the speech they are concerned about is not "political" and that it is right that it should be punished beyond simple disagreement.

At first blush, this might seem rather tangential to the issue at hand. But there are some high profile examples of this actually having happened - see [1], or the example of Brendan Eich at Mozilla.

[1] https://github.com/opal/opal/issues/941

Re: Announcing the GNU Kind Communication Guidelines

#304

Post by mrweasel »

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…

>In particular, by writing that codes of conduct are "punitive spirit", RMS shows a misunderstanding of how these texts came into existence.

But they are written in a punitive spirit. Someone did something, or behave in a way that someone dislike, rightly so in most cases. There's just some weird assumption that we can punish our way out of having certain types of people in or around a project. That never going to work, it doesn't work in real life and it's certainly not going to work online.

I have yet to see a single code of conduct, besides what Stallmann just posted, that's actually trying to address the underlying issues, and not just ban people. Kicking someone of a project isn't going to make them go away, nor is it going to positively influence they personality.

In one of his videos Brian Lunduke rightly pointed out that many of the people behind the FreeBSD code of conduct could be kicked on the FreeBSD project, if you where to follow their new code of conduct strictly. That it issue with most codes of conduct, they are written extremely aggressively, but enforce very very selectively.

Also, one question that has me puzzled, let's say that a person with autism behaves badly, not because he or she is a bad person, but rather have extremely poor social skills, due to a handicap. In many cases you can't kick that person of the project, because that would be targeting a person with a mental handicap. You can't really allow that person to stay either, because someone else got their feelings hurt, or feel attacked. Stallmans solution is better, because you instead aim to correct the behaviour.

Let's face it, in the end the vast majority of us know who to behave professionally, and the small group of people that we're targetting with a code of conduct isn't the type of people that will change due to the words of a well intended document. If you could write a text that would make people realise that they've behaved inappropriately the world would already be a much better place.

Re: Announcing the GNU Kind Communication Guidelines

#305

Post by nrclark »

haberman wrote: post #268
nrclark wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I haven't read much about NVC, so I can't speak to how the term is used there. But if it's anything like Crucial Conversations, they define/analyze conversational violence in a lot of detail. I thought it was a really interesting read. CC defines conversational violence as things like labeling, misrepresentation, accusations, defensiveness, getting angry, etc. I'd assume that NVC probably has a similar definition. I…

I like those insights. The danger with labeling words as violence though is that it leads many to the conclusion that words should be policed in the way physical violence is. A critical difference between words and physical violence is that words can cause harm to a listener based on the listener's interpretation and reaction to those words. If a fist hits my jaw I can't control whether it breaks it. But I have contr…

Agreed - conversational violence and physical violence are two very different things.

If I heard somebody say 'violence', I definitely wouldn't jump to conversational violence in my head. But as far as descriptive nouns go, it's not a terrible one. Just as long as everybody understands the context.

Your note about being able to control interpretations is interesting - I haven't had great success with that myself. Like if some rando came up to me and shouted bad stuff in my face, my day would be pretty ruined. I could try to rationalize it away later, but I definitely wouldn't be unhurt in the moment. And probably the memory would affect me whether I wanted that or not. Sticks-and-stones might be one of those "in theory, theory and practice are the same" kinds of situations.

Re: Announcing the GNU Kind Communication Guidelines

#306

Post by dang »

camdenlock wrote: post #298
dang wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This comment breaks several of HN's guidelines, including the one against calling names in arguments, as well as this one: "Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize." Please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and follow them when posting here.

I disagree strongly with your interpretation of my comment, which I made in good faith. I apologize for sounding rude or aggressive, but I'm confident that I haven't broken any guidelines. I've asserted that the OP is preaching what is essentially religious ideology, and that he or she is engaging in virtue signaling. I think it's a very uncharitable interpretation of what I've written to label it as "name calling".…

I'm not sure what the difference is between sounding rude or aggressive and being rude or aggressive, which certainly the site guidelines are asking you not to do.

Swipey phrases like "preaching of a religious person" count as name-calling in HN's sense.

Your comment was clearly written in the flamewar style. ("Your virtue signaling is unimpressive. Please take it elsewhere.") That's very much what we're trying to avoid here, so please don't do it on HN.

Re: Announcing the GNU Kind Communication Guidelines

#307

Post by claudiawerner »

xamuel wrote: post #289
claudiawerner wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the relationship between persuasion and force from a psychoanalytical perspective, Zizek has a nice example showing in what ways persuasion can actually be more subversive : >The psychoanalytic concept that designates the short-circuit between the repression and what it represses is the superego. As Lacan emphasised again and again, the essential content of the superego’s injunction is ‘Enjoy!’ A father works hard…

Zizek is good at uttering profound-sounding things, but there's no substance. Anyone who has raised young children knows there's a high chance they'll call your bluff.

He's using an analogy to drive home a point about authority, persuasion and command. The principle might have been better applied elsewhere, but that doesn't mean there's no substance; ironically you haven't seen the substance (essence) because you became hung-up on appearance. The essence may be less profound than he lets on, if we divorce it from the psychoanalytical justification, which is the point that when someone is kind to you (or gives the appearance of being so), you will feel less inclined to disobey, but it is merely the use of the techniques of someone experienced in convincing.

Re: Announcing the GNU Kind Communication Guidelines

#308

Post by aidenn0 »

mpalczewski wrote: post #203
nabla9 wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agree. I'm fan of Nonviolent Communication a.k.a Collaborative Communication. NVC acknowledges that moralistic judgments and demands make communication harder, not easier. Still it's important that people should be able to communicate the feelings, needs and make requests. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nonviolent_Communication

NVC is great and has improved my speaking and listening skills. However, I have to take issue with the name. Co-opting the word violence, is great marketing but dishonest.

I agree; I've also seen the term "aggression" co-opted in a similar manner.

Both violence and aggression require intent, and a big reason such communication skills need to be taught is that so many people don't understand how they sound.

This is important because the best corrective action for unintentional harm may be different than the best corrective action for intentional harm.

Re: Announcing the GNU Kind Communication Guidelines

#309

Post by binaryapparatus »

SolaceQuantum wrote: post #280
dec0dedab0de wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am absolutely baffled at the idea that there is ever a situation where... {example} I’m unsure if this is the sort of politics that’s the context of the article... I think it's fair to assume they were replying to you, not the article.

Yes, within context of the article, and the ambiguous language of the poster, I'm questioning an example in which politics in context of the article applies to the experiences of the claim in question. The claim in question then refers to an example which does not apply to the context of the article. I remain fairly confused.

Let me explain further then. It is all tied in, across the spectrum, along with linux code of conduct and sqlite topic today. In 'normal' company I can either respect the rules or walk away, there is usually little room for changing them. In open source project, small number of vocal butt hurts or political opponents that can use and channel 'hurt ones' can do much harm to the project, because they 'can' enforce different rules by being very noisy.

In this particular case, same with Linux CoC, reasons to try to apply or change rules can have much more sinister motives than what it seems on the surface.

Case in point.

1. Initial linux CoC is introduced by Greg KH, after one sensitive 'programmer' got hurt by Linus general behavior. Oh also she was working closely with Greg if I am not mistaken. https://lkml.org/lkml/2013/7/15/374

2. Next Linux leaves the project (temporarily? fingers crossed) and Greg KH remains to be the top decision maker for what goes in into kernel. Same guy who wanted to push d-bus like his life depends on it, which doesn't show good judgment for the project well being.

3. Then one of the first things to do is to introduce even more rules, even if Linus returns soon: https://lkml.org/lkml/2018/10/22/188

So underhand politics that has nothing to do with small tiny sensitive souls continues and quickly.

When I see Stallman not buying CoC crap I respect that.

Did I explain better?

Re: Announcing the GNU Kind Communication Guidelines

#310

Post by jl6 »

binaryapparatus wrote: post #126
SolaceQuantum wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Being politically correct vs getting the job done, I'll always choose getting the job done. I am absolutely baffled at the idea that there is ever a situation where getting the job done requires a choice to be politically incorrect as implied here. Do you have an example of the phenomenon you're discussing?

Yeah, like mirko said, being pressured by project leader to merge absolute crap (I was in charge of merging), "because it works and we don't want to suppress less skilled colleagues". "Try to explain nicely how to do it better" while that other guy a) doesn't want to learn and b) has feelings that are more important that making better software / learning. Edit: to clarify, that other guy couldn't understand the proje…

Hey, I don’t know your situation so this may be nonsense, but what you describe doesn’t sound so PC.

The guy’s code worked? Doesn’t sound unreasonable that the project leader would want it merged. Put the technical debt on the backlog, get on with writing other code that works.

The project leader presumably had a team to manage. Seems perfectly understandable that they would want all their team contributing, even if some team members were vastly more productive than others. The alternative is over-reliance on key personnel, or back to the recruitment treadmill (both of these are risks and uncertainties - which it’s the PM’s job to manage down).

The project leader should want his less skilled employees to grow their skills so that he may one day have a greater breadth and depth of talent at his disposal. It might even be reasonable for the leader to want his most talented developers to do nothing but coach junior colleagues - particularly on a typical project that isn’t rocket science, where 5 average developers will be more useful than one rockstar.

Like I said, I don’t know your situation. My point is that the behaviour you describe seems like it could be quite normal and rational and not motivated by PCness at all.

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