Announcing the GNU Kind Communication Guidelines • Hacker News Board

Re: Announcing the GNU Kind Communication Guidelines

#391

Post by prepend » Tue, Oct 23, 2018, 4:33 PM UTC

jl6 wrote: post #310

binaryapparatus wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

A shaky patch that “just works” but doesn’t have good tests is a time bomb waiting to happen. When a change six months later breaks the shaky patch, who fixes it?

Piling on lots of little bad changes is only possible if you have a good cleanup process (that I’ve never seen, who likes cleaning up bad code that isn’t breaking yet).

I think this may just be different management / development philosophies.

Re: Announcing the GNU Kind Communication Guidelines

#392

Post by prepend » Tue, Oct 23, 2018, 4:46 PM UTC

mwfunk wrote: post #191

binaryapparatus wrote: post #31

Being politically correct vs getting the job done, I'll always choose getting the job done. There is plenty or role playing projects where your feeling matter more than your skills. In last couple of jobs I am always asking about company policy, if they start piling about diversity and getting everybody heard and how everybody's feelings are most important thing, I don't want to work there. Earn your place with your…

All of this stuff is in service of getting the job done. If people can't usefully collaborate with other people because they literally never developed adult social skills (not uncommon in the tech world), then they're not going to be good contributors or collaborators. They won't know how to constructively criticize others, or take constructive criticism, they won't learn from their mistakes, and they might not even…

“then they're not going to be good contributors or collaborators.”

Maybe you mean aren’t optimal contributors or collaborators. There are obviously good contributors who lack what some think are adult social skills. I mean, you can look at Linux and see commits with “poor social skills” that do quite well.

Re: Announcing the GNU Kind Communication Guidelines

#393

Post by johnminter » Tue, Oct 23, 2018, 4:52 PM UTC

s73v3r_ wrote: post #386

johnminter wrote: post #332

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thank you for sharing the context. One of the problems we have with written interaction is that we don't have all the information that we have in face-to-face communication. One helpful approach is to initially grant the benefit of the doubt to the person that you think offended you. I ask myself, "Am I certain the other person meant to be condescending" (or some other offense)? Do they have a history of this? If I r…

If someone has stated what they wish to be called by, and rather than respecting their wishes, you choose to go down a tangent on how what you said is not a problem, then that is condescending, whether you intended it or not. Although I would have a very difficult time believing that someone who did that did not intend to be condescending.

From the context supplied it appears to me that this was a first offense. If it were a repeat offense, I would agree. I still recommend a softer tone. If your goal is to maintain a healthy collaboration, that helps. Either way, the offended party is inferring motives that may or may not be accurate.

Re: Announcing the GNU Kind Communication Guidelines

#394

Post by prepend » Tue, Oct 23, 2018, 4:53 PM 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,…

I’m not OP, but I don’t think you need to convince anyone of your position.

This is not a problem that requires resolution in order to succeed. Different people have different ideas and philosophies. Build software with a group that’s compatible.

Done. Problem solved. There’s enough cool projects that if you disagree over something that one side of the argument thinks is trivial then you don’t have to stay married for the kids. (Or even get married in the first place)

It seems like a Jainist marrying a Baptist and then trying to really convince the Baptist to go veggie. It’s a big deal to the Jainist, part of their core beliefs, really important. The Baptist doesn’t care. Only cares because they’re married.

Now imagine it’s a stranger on the street that the Jainist is attracted to and goes into “quit meat so we can date.” The stranger is likely going to not respond. Eating meat is not an issue for the stranger, even though the Jainist thinks it’s really important (and millions of other Jainists do as well).

PS- Jainists are cool, and while I don’t know all Jains, I’m pretty familiar and never met one with such an unreasonable approach.

Re: Announcing the GNU Kind Communication Guidelines

#395

Post by dang » Tue, Oct 23, 2018, 5:49 PM UTC

s73v3r_ wrote: post #390

dang wrote: post #350

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please stop using HN primarily for ideological battle. We've discussed this before, but you've reverted with a vengeance. If that doesn't change, we're going to end up having to ban you again.

That was not ideological battle. That was responding to someone that their concern over civility was misplaced.

Obviously that comment was ideological rhetoric, regardless of that else was in there. But the point isn't one specific comment—it's your overall pattern of using HN overwhelmingly for ideological battle. That is an abuse of the site that we're constantly asking people not to do, regardless of which ideology they're battling for.

Since we've asked you many times over a long period, cut you all kinds of slack, and still you seem to have no intention of fixing this, I've banned this account.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re: Announcing the GNU Kind Communication Guidelines

#396

Post by ThrowawayR2 » Tue, Oct 23, 2018, 6:12 PM UTC

mcguire wrote: post #292

ThrowawayR2 wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No personal attacks were made; the posting individual was not even mentioned. Arguing against an opposing idea is permitted. No demographic groups were mentioned. Academics are not a demographic group, save possibly in the most academic possible interpretation of the word, and are certainly not a protected demographic group.

Absolutely! The "insipid attitude" was never attributed to any person at all and no one supports "authoritarian" behavior.

Sarcasm only works when it has a valid point to make.

The "insipid attitude" and "authoritarian behavior" was attributed to a (non-protected) group. Now, it might be that the individual that the poster was replying to is an exemplar of that group but is the beliefs and behavior of the group as a whole that is being challenged, not the individual.

Re: Announcing the GNU Kind Communication Guidelines

#397

Post by captainbland » Tue, Oct 23, 2018, 7:50 PM UTC

lawnchair_larry wrote: post #37

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…

Stallman’s guidelines fully support correcting biases. Making diversity a goal is identity politics, which is a very different thing than correcting biases.

The opposition to "identity politics" is a form of identity politics in itself. The reaction to so-called identity politics is merely a defense of the current status quo where the demographic of software developers is predominantly male, as the most obvious example. You could try to argue that this is somehow natural, although the evidence suggests that actually computer science and software was a lot more popular with women until the artificial intervention of certain technology magazines pitching software development as a hobby for men.

For instance see how the rate of women in computer science began to attenuate around 1985: https://jaxenter.com/women-in-computer-science-majors-133646...

Men acting in a misogynistic way defends and reinforces this trend, which is what codes of conduct attempt to alleviate. Calling the opposition to this is a staple of what has been labelled "identity politics", although again it is merely a form of defensive identity politics itself to maintain it as maintaining these behaviours will maintain the downward trend of women participating in computer science.

Re: Announcing the GNU Kind Communication Guidelines

#398

Post by winston_smith » Wed, Oct 24, 2018, 2:32 AM UTC

s73v3r_ wrote: post #388

winston_smith wrote: post #358

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, this attitude is harmful. First, because it dilutes the meaning of the word "politics", which describes something much more specific than "everything". And second, because as you point out in your last sentence, politics is something that can and should be kept separate from many aspects of life. Inviting politics where it does not belong particularly harms vulnerable populations, because politics is about the us…

"politics is something that can and should be kept separate from many aspects of life." The Trump administration had plans leaked this weekend that stated their intent to change the definition of "gender" so that trans people would not exist to the Federal Government. I'm sorry, but being able to keep politics separate is a privilege.

Listing the outrage du jour is not a good counterargument. The principle of "keep politics where it belongs" is a critical part of your ability to effect political change on issues like yours.

If you abandon it, then it gets much easier to silence unpopular voices -- the cab driver won't take you to the protest march, your ISP shuts down your advocacy domain, facebook bans your support group, all because your politics conflicts with theirs. Total political war is bad for everyone, especially those who are already unpopular.

Re: Announcing the GNU Kind Communication Guidelines

#399

Post by M_Bakhtiari » Wed, Oct 24, 2018, 8:02 AM UTC

pseudalopex wrote: post #233

M_Bakhtiari wrote: post #160

> For instance, call them by the names they use, and honor their preferences about their gender identity That's a backhanded way of cementing the validity of the concept of "gender expression" throughout the GNU project. I would have been perfectly on board with a guideline that simply said not to police people's gender expressions, the question being rather off-topic and disruptive in the given context. That would d…

The question is how to talk to and about other members of the community. Calling other people by their preferred names is a basic norm that goes beyond gender. Gender expression is rarely relevant in the context of software development, but gendered language is common enough in English to make the issue of gender identity unavoidable. You can require speakers to respect others' preferences, mandate gender-neutral lan…

Is it not possible to refer to someone by the name and pronouns they refer to themselves by not because you believe in the validity of transgenderism, but because that has simply always been the social convention? Gender identity needs to play no part in it, even if gendered language is being used. The outcome in the software should be the same whether the developer who claims to be a woman is really a man or vice versa.

Someone who isn't satisfied with that but rather requires full intellectual submission to their ideology is just as disruptive on a software mailing list as those who go out their way to "root out the trannies".

Re: Announcing the GNU Kind Communication Guidelines

#400

Post by tomatocracy » Wed, Oct 24, 2018, 12:01 PM UTC

s73v3r_ wrote: post #384

tomatocracy wrote: post #303

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 co…

Eich's "speech" (his donation to the Prop 8 campaign that would ban gay marriage in California) was telling all of his LGBT employees that he did not believe that they were entitled to the same basic human rights as he was. This is not a simple political disagreement; this is telling those people that he believes they are second class citizens. As a result, many of those employees, as well as other organizations that…

As I said, some people disagree that this type of speech is purely "political" - many others take the opposite side and would say that these viewpoints are legitimate political ones (even if they disagree with those viewpoints) which, when expressed in an entirely separate context, should not affect the workplace. I was trying to explain where people disagree.

Not that it's necessarily wrong that he left, but I think it is important to acknowledge that there were people at the time (and now) who felt that this was unfair and that it may have had an impact on certain people's likely participation in political speech, or put some people off contributing/working for Mozilla who otherwise wouldn't have been.

The dividing line between "workplace" and "personal" lives has been blurring for a long time which throws up many of these issues. Many people would like to undo some of that blurring - anti-discrimination laws in effect protect some of this but not all. This becomes even more problematic as the line between "volunteer community" and "workplace" is also increasingly being blurred in Open Source projects.

In the case of Eich, I would perhaps say it would be more accurate to say that he was hounded out - as the context was something coming to light that he'd done years earlier and not in a workplace context, when opinion polls showed the majority of the country agreed with him (and even President Obama agreed with him before Obama changed his mind).