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Gitlab: don't discuss politics at work

theregister.co.uk

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Re: Gitlab: don't discuss politics at work

#231

Post by RcouF1uZ4gsC »

kemenaran wrote: post #99

Technical professions are generally held responsible for what they enable. Biology: researchers can't do anything they want on plants, animals or humans. Medicine: doctors are expected to follow strict guidelines with their patients. Even engineering: implementing a cheating system for diesel tests will (rightfully) get engineers into trouble. But software engineering seem to have a pass on how the things we build is…

> Technical professions are generally hold responsible for what they enable.

Not really. Doctors are expected to do the best for their patient without worrying about societal consequences. If Hitler came to a doctor in need of medical help, the doctor would be ethically required to do their best for him, desolate the negative consequences of Hitler to society.

Same with lawyers. Even if their client is a serial murderer and has co fessed their guilt to them, they still have to do their best in representing them.

Re: Gitlab: don't discuss politics at work

#232

Post by vowelless »

dvt wrote: post #21

GitLab are being hypocritical[1][2]. Let's not pretend the "women in tech" and LGBT movements aren't political. Frankly, I think more women in tech and LGBT representation are probably good things, but GitLab is being profoundly disingenuous with their guidelines. To clarify my point: if you open the gates to the marketplace of ideas, make sure it's an actual marketplace . [1] https://about.gitlab.com/blog/2018/10/08…

How is women in tech a political thing? Just seems like an effort to make the work place more welcoming to people.

Re: Gitlab: don't discuss politics at work

#233

Post by lazyasciiart »

The wording of this statement sounds very poorly thought out. Does a customer have to pay them? What if I argue I don't believe I should have to pay, or I have a moral objection? What if my belief in freedom says it's OK to ddos them? Presumably they'll fall back on something like "our contract says you have to pay us to use our services". Great. So you can and will refuse to work with a customer for a reason you chose, not an externally imposed restriction. The intended meaning is probably more like "we will work with anyone who works within our core beliefs about how society and payment for services should work, but we have not done the work of figuring out what those are in advance".

Re: Gitlab: don't discuss politics at work

#234

Post by zucker42 »

core-questions wrote: post #124
archi42 wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don’t understand why it’s encouraged (in some companies) to discuss politics at work in a way that leads to internal issues. There is a middle-ground between "talking about politics" is "encouraged" and "forbidden".

Where we seem to find ourselves today is in a position where if you have very progressive politics, you can say whatever you like - no matter how radical - whereas if you have conservative politics you can't even admit that without any specifics without being thought of as evil. This is how we can get away with saying it's "encouraged" while really making sure any meaningful counter-argument is "forbidden" at the sam…

I think you're wrong that this affects conservatives significantly more than other groups (and maybe that betrays your personal bias).

What is true is that people who are beliefs much are out of far outside the norm for their workplace are discouraged. For example, if you're someone who believes that profit is theft, and you make that clear during work, it will probably have negative effects for you. Whether "conservatives" are the victim of this depends on their workplace and just what views they espouse.

Re: Gitlab: don't discuss politics at work

#235

Post by keiferski »

jlawson wrote: post #204
Nullabillity wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don’t understand why it’s encouraged (in some companies) to discuss politics at work in a way that leads to internal issues. Purely from a commercial stance, team cohesion has a positive impact on people and product. Why do anything to disturb that? The health of the democracy is far more important than your company's profit margin. And besides, enforcing silence is still a political move that strongly favours th…

The health of democracy requires that individuals be able to speak their mind and advocate their beliefs. This doesn't work if their livelihood is controlled by a group of hyper-intolerant political totalitarians. What GitHub is doing is giving individuals rooms to breathe, think, and live. It's preventing the rule of the intolerant minority, the forced homogenization of thought and suppression of dissent. We banned…

Not sure if/what Github is doing, but I think you meant Gitlab.

Re: Gitlab: don't discuss politics at work

#236

Post by djsumdog »

sytse wrote: post #143

Someone at GitLab just made a suggestion to change the wording of the policy that I merged https://gitlab.com/gitlab-com/www-gitlab-com/merge_requests/...

> we encourage diversity of ideas. We respect the uniqueness and autonomy of others, even if we do not always agree with them.

I like this. I like this a lot.

I've never been a fan of the way the Contributors Code of Conduct does explicitly allow for people to have opinions of their own outside the projects so long as they don't try to represent those opinions as being a representative of the project.

If it had, and offered remedies, the guy in the Opal situation could have just removed Opal from his Twitter profile, instead of being asked to leave the project.

Re: Gitlab: don't discuss politics at work

#237

Post by cbuchanan »

repolfx wrote: post #225
sytse wrote: post #143

Someone at GitLab just made a suggestion to change the wording of the policy that I merged https://gitlab.com/gitlab-com/www-gitlab-com/merge_requests/...

That merge appears to change the policy in ways that render this discussion largely irrelevant (given the current subject line). It used to say: We do not currently exclude anyone from being a customer based on moral/value grounds. followed by a list of reasons why not. It now says: In some circumstances, we may opt to not work with particular organizations, but we assess those on a case-by-case basis. Some reasons w…

We're a team that moves quickly and is receptive to ideas and opinions. I'm very proud of that.

Re: Gitlab: don't discuss politics at work

#238

Post by earthscienceman »

keithnz wrote: post #194
corndoge wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't want to hear your political opinions at work. I want to work and make money for myself. Just because I have to be at work to make money for myself shouldn't mean I now have to listen to your views on politics. That is my view on it.

no ones talking about forcing you to talk about it, question is, if you wanted to talk about the ethics / poltical impact of what you are doing with coworkers, shouldn't you be allowed to?

I would go as far to say: aren't you morally obligated to? There are jobs that are inherently in political/philosophical/moral bounds. And they should be treated as such.

Re: Gitlab: don't discuss politics at work

#239

Post by [deleted] »

keithnz wrote: post #194
corndoge wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't want to hear your political opinions at work. I want to work and make money for myself. Just because I have to be at work to make money for myself shouldn't mean I now have to listen to your views on politics. That is my view on it.

no ones talking about forcing you to talk about it, question is, if you wanted to talk about the ethics / poltical impact of what you are doing with coworkers, shouldn't you be allowed to?

[deleted]
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