Announcing the GNU Kind Communication Guidelines • Hacker News Board

Re: Announcing the GNU Kind Communication Guidelines

#371

Post by coldtea » Tue, Oct 23, 2018, 7:11 AM UTC

village-idiot wrote: post #272

coldtea wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The idea that "free speech" == "only protection from state censorship" is an americanism, and not some universally accepted dictum. Historically it wasn't even always the state that suppressed free speech - it was often some church, mobs of "concerned citizens", the private interests owning the press, the profits of cinema studios concerned with citizens boycotting lewd movies and thus self-submitting to things like…

It’s impossible to come up with a doctrine of free speech that allows for person A to say what they want, but does not allow person B to express outrage or opprobrium about what person A just said. It’s also well within person B’s rights of free association to not interact with person A because of what person A said. Of course a literal mob threatening violence is absolutely suppression of speech, very very few peopl…

>It’s impossible to come up with a doctrine of free speech that allows for person A to say what they want, but does not allow person B to express outrage or opprobrium about what person A just said.

Nobody asked for that. B should be able to complain about what A said all they want. They just shouldn't be able to censor A.

>It’s also well within person B’s rights of free association to not interact with person A because of what person A said.

It is, though it can be a way to create extremist groups that don't interact and exchange ideas between them, and thus an echo bubble.

>Of course a literal mob threatening violence is absolutely suppression of speech, very very few people want that. But people saying that they view you negatively because of what you’ve said is not a mob, and is in fact free speech in its own right.

People saying you should "kill yourself" or "be fired" from your unrelated job because of what you said on your personal social media account, and managing to do it is ok?

Or maybe it's just OK today, where it's just "bigots" that get this treatment?

Because one can easily imagine a past America with social media (or a future America if the conservative tides change), where someone saying they're pro this or that progressive cause gets you mob-fired. In fact it's not hard to imagine, as it happened, even without social media: word of mouth in smaller communities, print media, etc were enough.

Is that the precedence people doing that want to set, or are they just enjoy their temporary power are a lynch mob, like those that used to haze them back in the day?

Re: Announcing the GNU Kind Communication Guidelines

#372

Post by binaryapparatus » Tue, Oct 23, 2018, 7:49 AM UTC

mwfunk wrote: post #362

binaryapparatus wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What are the priorities? Is 'collaborating' supreme goal on its own? a) Quality b) Feelings c) Having as many as possible people 'collaborating' d) Getting job done Pick two. They are not excluding others but I wonder what the priorities are. I pick A and D, C is welcome but not priority, B only if it doesn't clash with any of other goals.

I agree with that list of priorities, but I don't know what you mean by "feelings"- I wouldn't use that word in my own division of goals. I would just call it "effective communication", not "feelings". You're phrasing it as if the the scenario people are trying to avoid is some brutally honest truthteller vs. some hypersensitive weenie who can't handle the truth, and that people are claiming that it's more important,…

We agree completely assuming that the other less skilled programmer doesn't twist any code criticism into personal attack and that project leader cares more about project quality than about feelings.

When I review or comment the code I couldn't care less if you have three hands and a hump, in fact I am least gentle about my own code. When every dialog goes like Me:"This code is bad" -> Other guy:"Why are you attacking me" there is little room for staying completely politically correct.

I was actually suggested never to use 'this code is bad' in any form in the last place I worked, because that can scare away less skilled colleagues.

Re: Announcing the GNU Kind Communication Guidelines

#373

Post by binaryapparatus » Tue, Oct 23, 2018, 7:54 AM UTC

kragen wrote: post #352

jl6 wrote: post #310

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

A low-quality codebase slows down everybody on the team and causes tasks that ought to be routine to hit unexpected roadblocks. Every software team has some set of practices for maintaining and improving the quality of their codebase; a few teams, like ØMQ, merge any old crap and then fix the crap (_but not in the backlog_, dear God! _Right away_, before it costs somebody else debugging time) while most teams require…

Word by word this is exactly my experience. Code I was forced to merge was working only on that day in a very limited set of tests. That's not 'working' in my definition. First next feature we needed to add and code would break all over the place. First I was politely telling it can't work because of this and that, then I was fixing the code silently so we don't all hit the roadblock the next day, then I was trying to discuss that we can't really work that way, then I walked away. All in a span of 30 days.

Re: Announcing the GNU Kind Communication Guidelines

#374

Post by atq2119 » Tue, Oct 23, 2018, 8:22 AM UTC

KirinDave wrote: post #325

atq2119 wrote: post #273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know what kind of conferences you attend, but I've never attended one where people got black-out drunk, nor have I attended any with my partner. On the other hand, I have attended conferences where we were specifically warned by the organizers about pick-pockets and not to go into certain parts of the (rather large, South American) city. So yeah, if we substitute "rape" for "wallet theft", people are in fact…

> I don't know what kind of conferences you attend, but I've never attended one where people got black-out drunk, nor have I attended any with my partner. I've certainly seen numerous examples of this behavior around technical conferences. There are often runs to local bars or other establishments where its socially normal to drink. In fact, that's a common complaint about tech! > On the other hand, I have attended c…

> And did anyone write a long, statistics-citing rant about how unnecessary it is to warn people about this? I suspect the answer is no, and in fact no one did.

You're getting the sides of the issues confused here.

The conference organizers' statement about pick pockets was essentially victim blaming. They were telling people how to behave in order not to become victims of a crime. The equivalent statement within the rape context would be something like telling women not to wear "provocative" clothing in order to avoid being raped.

My point was that there tends to be outrage about this kind of victim blaming when it comes to rape, but not when it comes to other crimes. SJWs (for lack of a better term) don't feel the need to gang up on people who give advice to tourists to avoid getting mugged; they don't feel the need to call the conference organizers from my example "mugging apologists". Why is that?

And for what it's worth, the analogy to the statistics-citing rant would be somebody who reacts to conference organizers putting out statements about how attendees should not steal each others' wallets as if that was a common problem at conferences.

Obviously conference organizers never make such statements in reality because it would be kind of ridiculous, given that the incidence rate of pick pocketing among conference attendees is completely incomparable to the incidence rate of pick pocketing in society at large, but well, that kind of brings us back to the original point about incident rates of rape :)

(And just to reiterate: There's broader context in the rape case which gives me some sympathy for the double standard demonstrated by "SJWs", but I think it should still be possible to acknowledge that the double standard exists.)

Re: Announcing the GNU Kind Communication Guidelines

#375

Post by joshuamorton » Tue, Oct 23, 2018, 8:29 AM UTC

binaryapparatus wrote: post #309

SolaceQuantum wrote: post #280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 diff…

This isn't a very good explanation. More like

1. Initial CoC is introduced by Greg KH

2. 5 years pass

3. Greg KH suggests updating the CoC. It is signed off by Chris Mason, Dan Williams, Greg KH, Jon Corbet, Olof Johansson, and Steven Rostedt, not to mention Linus himself. Rik van Riel, Tim Bird and Ted Ts'o make endorsing comments on the LKML in ensuing discussion. That is, the change is supported by Linus and at least 9/10 TAB members. HPA made no comments

4. Linus goes on leave

5. Greg KH and Olof and another guy make some minor wording changes to the CoC, and adds a new page describing how the kernel maintainers interpret the CoC, most of this would best be described as watering down some of the more objectionable parts of the unedited CoC. It is reviewed by Steve Rostdet and Ack'd by Linus, Ted Ts'o, Rik, Corbet, and approximately 50 other people.

Then of course, Ted Ts'o (the same Ts'o mind you, who people bring up as the person Sarah Sharp supposedly weaponized the old CoC against, so if anyone, he'd have a bone to pick against CoCs) clarified[1] that the addition of a CoC was a directive from linus, not something Greg snuck in, and while shepherded by Greg, was done with 'a huge amount of consultation with the top contributors to the kernel'.

So basically, if one actually looks at what really happened, instead of what what one wants to believe(?) happened, all of the sinister motives disappear.

[1]: https://lkml.org/lkml/2018/10/22/106

Re: Announcing the GNU Kind Communication Guidelines

#376

Post by jki275 » Tue, Oct 23, 2018, 10:28 AM UTC

s73v3r_ wrote: post #277

jki275 wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can't be harassed if you don't listen.

That is flat out not true. Someone constantly attacking your character to others is going to have an effect. Those other people may be influenced by what that person says, and that will affect how they perceive you, which will in turn affect your involvement in the project.

No, it is true. If a community doesn't listen to that sort of behavior, then it has no effect.

Re: Announcing the GNU Kind Communication Guidelines

#377

Post by deltron3030 » Tue, Oct 23, 2018, 12:45 PM UTC

ubernostrum wrote: post #366

deltron3030 wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An extravertedness bias in underclass culture is the main reason people why people don't get into coding, which is historically more something for introverts and a "nerd thing". It's still in peoples minds, nobody in High School wants to be like Steve Urkel, it's a vulnerabilty in certain circles. This can only be changed by changing the image of coders within mainstream pop culture, which in turn is mainly influence…

And round and round and round we go! Everybody has a convenient finger to point at someone else who's responsible, and if all else fails blame the people discriminated against and say it's their fault for not doing more to overcome the discrimination.

It's not a race or gender thing, but class struggle, dysfunctional families and problems that are passed on through generations. If your social group is basically your family, you can't afford to not fit in. It's a parallel society with its own rules.

Re: Announcing the GNU Kind Communication Guidelines

#378

Post by PurpleBoxDragon » Tue, Oct 23, 2018, 12:59 PM UTC

KirinDave wrote: post #254

PurpleBoxDragon wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In some states, definitely in the past and perhaps even today though I haven't kept abreast of the law, there were different ages deemed legal for a relationship based on the genders involved. To defend the statistic is to, likely unknowingly, defend the discrimination the laws hold in both structure and application. I am not saying one should discount all cases covered under the law, but it does deserve some context…

Things Ts'o said: not relevant or unfair. Things that might be problems with the statistics Ts'o didn't touch on? Somehow relevant and fair. His context and intent were clear. Please stop making retroactive excuses for his rape apologetics.

I only pointed out what defending and using a certain statistic is discriminatory. I made no other arguments, and none directed toward the individual in question or their overall point. Now that you are aware of the discrimination that has historically been encoded into the laws in question, please allow the knowledge to soften the judgement of the behavior of calling that particular statistic into question, specifically when the behavior is saying it is something complex to be discussed and not totally dismissing the entirety of that statistic.

Re: Announcing the GNU Kind Communication Guidelines

#379

Post by barrow-rider » Tue, Oct 23, 2018, 1:38 PM UTC

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.

Is there a Zizek-bot, like the Chompskybot? I feel like there could be...

Chompskybot -- http://rubberducky.org/cgi-bin/chomsky.pl (generates random Chompky-sounding nonsense)

Re: Announcing the GNU Kind Communication Guidelines

#380

Post by davexunit » Tue, Oct 23, 2018, 1:40 PM UTC

severine wrote: post #327

davexunit wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I rolled my eyes as soon as I saw the subject line in my inbox this morning. This is the culmination of an extremely frustrating internal GNU discussion. RMS has not handled this situation appropriately at all.

That's intriguing... Could you tell us more?

No, I can't. All I will say is that I've been involved with GNU in several ways over the past 5 years, even working at the FSF for awhile, and I've become increasingly disappointed in RMS' leadership abilities. He simply doesn't have the social awareness to foster a healthy community.