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GitHub: Block the Bullies

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Re: GitHub: Block the Bullies

#131

Post by thenduks »

phaylon wrote: post #125
thenduks wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The thing is that this is amazingly rare. The handful of times it's happened, the 'victim' most likely just removes the repo (which has always been possible) and that's the end of it. Others might say to their friends on IRC "Hey, can you see dongml in my projects list on github?" and sure enough the answer will be 'no'. It's easy to say "oh just add it to the UI", but to actually do it is another story. Before you k…

I'm not sure we're talking about the same thing. I mean making it more clear in the UI that there's a separation between projects where you're a committer, and where you're just invited (to use another poster's words). If an (apparently) Github employee feels the need to wonder how often he's going to have to explain it, it seems that there exists a common confusion in the distinction.

Yea sorry I tangent-ed a bit there. Probably because I just think this is a non-issue. It's in the UI in that it's listed in your repositories you have access to, but not on your profile. I don't see what kind of UI change they could make that would make it clearer short of text or a tooltip or something, and I think that the %0.001 of users who would ever care is just not worth the time to even considering it. The reason kneath was wondering how many times he had to say it is because it's all over this thread -- including the direct parent of the asker in this case.

Re: GitHub: Block the Bullies

#133

Post by frou_dh »

Mafana0 wrote: post #132
frou_dh wrote: post #89

Zed just seems to react strongly to anyone who tries to intimidate him. Same deal with all the people called out in the classic Rails post. I don't fault him for it.

Would you post a link to the referred post?

http://harmful.cat-v.org/software/ruby/rails/is-a-ghetto

Re: GitHub: Block the Bullies

#134

Post by aplusbi »

bxr wrote: post #28
mycroftiv wrote: post #3

This is a very good feature, but I am also afraid it will make Zed Shaw and others think that his attempt to out-troll the trolls and multiply internet drama was a force for positive change. "If you throw a big enough temper tantrum and incite a large enough shitstorm, developers will address your concerns" is an unfortunate precedent. The fact that controversy and negativity attracts eyeballs and can trigger improve…

>"If you throw a big enough temper tantrum and incite a large enough shitstorm, developers will address your concerns" is an unfortunate precedent. Its unfortunate for many reasons, not the least of which is that they either were, or were perceived as (which is just as bad for the customer), so out of touch with the user base that such action was necessary. >it also creates perverse incentives No, it was created by a…

I don't know much about github's customer service,= but from what I can extrapolate from Shaw's rant, their service had a flaw which was likely just an oversight. Shaw never made an attempt to contact github about it (under the belief that they were in on it) and instead chose to exploit another flaw in their service and then angrily blog about it.

I don't see how that makes github "out of touch" nor do I see how this situation was created by a "general disregard of customer service." Granted this might be true, but it doesn't sound like it had anything to do with this particular incident.

Re: GitHub: Block the Bullies

#136

Post by aplusbi »

jonursenbach wrote: post #30
endlessvoid94 wrote: post #5

I think this was a good response to an attention whore. EDIT: I wasn't trolling. Not even a single response?

I never understood why people absolutely loathe Zed Shaw.

He has a tendency to blow things out of proportion and to air these problems publicly, using inflammatory language when most people would choose to use more direct channels.

All of the incidents I have read about have been legitimate problems, but I personally would have handled all of them very differently.

This particularly incident, for example, probably could have been solved simply by e-mailing github. In Shaw's case, he assumed they were in on it. I'm sure he had his reasons, and certainly the troll behind dongml gets no sympathy from me but I don't think blaming github and dragging them into this was appropriate.

Honestly I've never understood why some people (seemingly) defend him unconditionally. It sounds like he's a really stand-up guy in real life, but I'm still willing to call out my friends when I think they've gone too far.

-Niki Yoshiuchi

Re: GitHub: Block the Bullies

#137

Post by jmaygarden »

mileszs wrote: post #113
jmaygarden wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I got "dong markup" in my RSS reader from pull requests to zedshaw/mongrel2 today. So, the trolling was very much in public view.

As Zed mentions in the article, he contributed to the project, which is why it showed up in your RSS feed.

Actually, the RSS feed was for zedshaw/mongrel2. It showed up because these trolls were spamming pull requests to a legitimate project.

Re: GitHub: Block the Bullies

#138

Post by bandushrew »

endlessvoid94 wrote: post #126
bandushrew wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am pretty sure that you are overplaying the 'poor github bullied by Zed' angle.

I'm not saying they were bullied, but Zed forced them to respond. He did it in a juvenile way, and it truly wasn't unreasonable for him to handle it in a more mature way. Email them. He's criticized me for not emailing him and meeting him face to face, so why didn't he waltz on over to GitHub HQ in town here and talk to them? Oh, because then he wouldn't get any publicity. Doing support and keeping a startup in a goo…

You are an interesting thing.

I read your post and pretty much all I hear is a vaguely undirected bitterness and some jealous whining, and I DO NOT UNDERSTAND WHY.

Seriously, Dont worry yourself on their behalf.

If Github didn't want to implement that feature, they wouldn't have done it.

Zed has about as much power over them as I do over you.

Whatever other characteristics he may have, Zed certainly has a knack for bringing forth the shrieking sister in a certain type of personality.

Re: GitHub: Block the Bullies

#139

Post by randallsquared »

forensic wrote: post #94
gaius wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How does anyone in the Ruby "community" have the time to get any actual work done? No other language community in the world behaves like this.

The value proposition of the Ruby community has more to do with their mindshare than their technical merit. Compare and contrast Scientology with Psychiatry. Both communities make similar value propositions: improve mental health. Scientology is optimized to gain and keep converts and to spread like a viral meme. Psychiatry is optimized to achieve good treatment outcomes. Scientology makes more money despite being a…

Scientology makes more money [than the field of psychiatry].

This seems really questionable to me. If we assume 13 psychiatrists per 100K people in 2005 ( http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview?id=523453 ), and just count Europe and the US, that's ~80K psychiatrists, and if they average 120K USD per year, that's nearly 10 billion USD. Scientology had a worldwide income of less than 400 million in 1993 ( http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:jD-Xo-q... ), so it would have had to grow by 20 times to rival psychiatry circa 2005.

I think psychiatry (leaving aside everything but actual practicing psychiatrists) probably dwarfs Scientology in total income.

Re: GitHub: Block the Bullies

#140

Post by endlessvoid94 »

bandushrew wrote: post #138
endlessvoid94 wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not saying they were bullied, but Zed forced them to respond. He did it in a juvenile way, and it truly wasn't unreasonable for him to handle it in a more mature way. Email them. He's criticized me for not emailing him and meeting him face to face, so why didn't he waltz on over to GitHub HQ in town here and talk to them? Oh, because then he wouldn't get any publicity. Doing support and keeping a startup in a goo…

You are an interesting thing. I read your post and pretty much all I hear is a vaguely undirected bitterness and some jealous whining, and I DO NOT UNDERSTAND WHY. Seriously, Dont worry yourself on their behalf. If Github didn't want to implement that feature, they wouldn't have done it. Zed has about as much power over them as I do over you. Whatever other characteristics he may have, Zed certainly has a knack for b…

What is this, digg?
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