Announcing the GNU Kind Communication Guidelines

And yes, we've had our share of unpleasantness.

My objection to the GKCC is that rms is failing to address the actual problems such as the disadvantage of certain groups. I think CoC detractors think that the CoC is going to be used to unfairly punish them in ways they don't understand but, (1) there really isn't much punishing that could be done even if we tried and (2) every community already has an implicit CoC. Writing one only makes it explicit.

Wouldn't you rather know what the rules are instead of having to guess? Right now the rules already exist, but you might not know about them.

(The few exceptions, such as directly encouraging a crime are very narrow. For example, expressing bigoted opinions is legal, saying “there’s a , get them!” Is not, because it’s a direct and specific incitement to commit a crime).

Those that bully others and encourage suicide should receive social opprobrium for being toxic. They are typically well within their right to say such odious things, but we are also within our right to call them out and shun them from polite society. Freedom of speech doesn’t just apply to nice speech.

You can suggest that such pressures are mercurial, and that businesses shouldn’t cave to the crowd demands. In many cases you would be right, but in general if your attitude is that humans should ignore social pressure when you don’t like it, you will be continuously disappointed. If you attempt to regulate that, then you no longer have freedom of speech, period.

I find your comparison of social disapproval via opt-in social media to a lynch mob that killed minorities in cold blood to be completely gross. Comparing the two overstates the former and trivializes the latter in a way that I don’t think people should find comfortable.

There’s no need to run counter factuals about social media powered past, plenty of people were actually killed for expressing progressive sentiments long before the era of social media or even mass media. A couple hundred people having it out over 280 characters is fine, and comparing that to lynch mobs is both historically illiterate and sensationalist.

Holy moly, please don’t tell me what I do and don’t have difficulty understanding. Even if you were a clinical psychologist, it’s a spectrum and throwing out what entire populations do or do not understand is so weird, I’m not sure what point it serves.

Even if I was the elected spokesperson of this population in the world, I’m not sure I’d have the authority to issue such a nebulous statement.

I once felt the same way, that there’s always a good way to give criticism. The shit sandwich really works well in even the mist dire situations (“this is great,” “this is garbage,” “but this is great too”).

But I once had a co-worker who had an opposing development philosophy. It was in a bit of a weird, anarchic environment where there was little supervision, but steady budgets.

There was an algorithm made and after reviewing it, it was just really, really bad. It was for improving health, but it used the wrong population, it inferred from data inappropriately, it made broad recommendations, and it did so I consistently. It was garbage, but it’s not helpful to say that as that never really helps and is not constructive and not accurate. Basically what you’re saying.

I got the merge request and sent it back with a thoughtful commentary, adding in another peer for input, asking for test cases, asking for user story requests, etc. Pretty polite.

They resubmitted it unchanged saying “no, I know it’s right. Just take it and we’ll fix it later.” (There’s no we, it’s just this one person).

I spent more time and sent more detail, showing similar, valid changes.

Same thing back. I spent probably a few hours between the two responses and they were resubmitted within seconds.

I figured I’d chat with the person so based on work schedules sent an invite for two days away.

Person said they couldn’t wait, had to go now. I tagged the other two maintainers, one was on the initial reply, and asked for a review. They pointed to response #1 and said “no, refer to reasons.”

Submitted then went to boss land and asked boss to approve the merge. Boss can’t do that, etc etc.

Boss and I meet with submitter. Submitter asks us to read original submission and gives nothing further.

Boss asks me to reconsider, I point out comments for improvements, submitter says they won’t change them. So request stays at no.

Lots of HR madness takes place over the next few weeks. Merge request never made it.

I probably spent 40 hours, plus peers and submitter added on.

Obviously, I’m not skilled enough to communicate why the merge request wasn’t sufficient. I’d love to learn, and am always trying. But I sometimes wonder that I could have saved a lot of time by just saying “this request is a garbage fire and a waste of time to discuss further. You are unworthy.”

It wouldn’t have worked to make the submission good, but would have cut directly to HR and skilled all the well intentioned attempts that ate up time. If this were OSS, it might be good for the community to prevent future stupid stuff.

I’m not sure what the solution is as you have folks who are good in one thing (algorithm design), but bad in another thing (conflict resolution / mentoring randos). Hopefully you’re lucky and have leads with both skills.