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Collaboration not Derision in the Node Community

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Re: Collaboration not Derision in the Node Community

#31

Post by mintplant »

From Joyent's blog post [1]:

> But while Isaac is a Joyent employee, Ben is not—and if he had been, he wouldn't be as of this morning: to reject a pull request that eliminates a gendered pronoun on the principle that pronouns should in fact be gendered would constitute a fireable offense for me and for Joyent.

For comparison, here is bnoordhuis's comment from the pull request thread [2] that the post is referencing:

> Sorry, not interested in trivial changes like that.

Honestly, Joyent's post strikes me as a horrible overreaction and attempt at character assassination over what should have been a small matter. Rejecting pull requests that only correct typos or comments has been standard practice for the Node.js project for a long time now--this isn't the first one to be closed for being too small of a change, a fact that Joyent, as the main driver of the project, should be aware of.

bnoordhuis followed standard procedure, yet Joyent tries to cast him as being intentionally sexist and a terrible person. Seeing such immature behavior coming from their corporate blog--calling him an "asshole", saying he should be fired, insinuating that they wish they could kick him out of the project--has pretty much destroyed the respect I had for the company.

[1] https://www.joyent.com/blog/the-power-of-a-pronoun

[2] https://github.com/joyent/libuv/pull/1015

Re: Collaboration not Derision in the Node Community

#32

Post by yapcguy »

rdtsc wrote: post #27

My understanding of Node.JS and libuv community is as an outsider. I don't follow what's going on unless it is on the front page of HN once in a while and other forums. But one impression I get from Node.JS and its surrounding community is arrogance and immaturity. This is from top to down -- companies sponsoring it (Joyent) and many of its vocal proponents. I see plenty of energy, enthusiasm, but mixed with immaturi…

Remember how vicious the Node.js "community" were to outsiders who critiqued event loop blocking?

Whatever the technical merits, I think this incident will do significant damage to the perception of Node.js as a serious platform to build on.

Re: Collaboration not Derision in the Node Community

#33

Post by mseepgood »

selmnoo wrote: post #16
dmpk2k wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't say I'm surprised though. bnoordhuis lacks tact; poke other people enough and eventually you'll get an angry mob. The parent article talks about learning, but glosses over that bnoordhuis' behaviour that set this all off isn't unusual for him. Learning? No. Class? No. That said, this is a tempest in a teacup. bnoordhuis upsets someone again, news at 11.

Uhm, Ben lacks tact? Says who? I think you guys are maybe confusing the tough Dutch culture as being insensitive to some hot issues. Ben is an extremely smart, extremely prolific programmer. When you're out and about like him you're bound to get yourself tripped somewhere along the way. As an aside, while Joyent has exposed itself as being extremely unprofessional and prone to jumping on the gun, I'm saddened that St…

> I think you guys are maybe confusing the tough Dutch culture as being insensitive to some hot issues.

I've read that the Netherlands have a racist Santa Claus tradition and even some politicians are defending it against change. :/

Edit: found the article http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/world/protests-sparked-...

Re: Collaboration not Derision in the Node Community

#34

Post by StavrosK »

itafroma wrote: post #13
rpedela wrote: post #6

I think the article is missing a lot of context. What was the offending issue?

The original issue was a pull request[1] made to the libuv code base to change "him" to "them". It was rejected[2] by one of the committers, Ben Noordhuis, as being too trivial. That decision was reversed by Isaac Schlueter (another committer) and committed[3]. Noordhuis reverted that commit[4], chiding Schlueter for not following procedure, but that revert was quickly reverted itself. Bryan Cantrill of Joyent, one o…

When did Ben say pronouns should be gendered? I saw nothing on GitHub like that, yet the Joyent post mentions it more than once.

Re: Collaboration not Derision in the Node Community

#35

Post by [deleted] »

selmnoo wrote: post #21
adriancooney wrote: post #8

> If Ben can’t learn, we’ll fire him. That statement feels a little to intimate for an outsider to the company. Ben made a mistake but to single out and threaten him like that in public would surely alienate him further. This entire situation has gotten extremely out of hand. It shows how activists can turn into extremists when faced with an adversary. I'm in no way advocating what Ben did but it's despicable how eve…

Thank you for pointing that out. What the fuck is it with these high-levels treating people like some easily replacable, unhuman commodity? Don't ever speculate firing people like that in public , just fucking don't.

[deleted]

Re: Collaboration not Derision in the Node Community

#36

Post by yetanotherphd »

aviraldg wrote: post #26
itafroma wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The original issue was a pull request[1] made to the libuv code base to change "him" to "them". It was rejected[2] by one of the committers, Ben Noordhuis, as being too trivial. That decision was reversed by Isaac Schlueter (another committer) and committed[3]. Noordhuis reverted that commit[4], chiding Schlueter for not following procedure, but that revert was quickly reverted itself. Bryan Cantrill of Joyent, one o…

Much ado over nothing. "Them" in that context just sounds odd to me (perhaps not in American English?) A 50/50 mix of him/her sounds way more natural.

Not all people belong to the categories "Male" and "Female".

Luckily you won't be fired for this post, but be warned for the future.

Re: Collaboration not Derision in the Node Community

#37

Post by Lazare »

mintplant wrote: post #31

From Joyent's blog post [1]: > But while Isaac is a Joyent employee, Ben is not—and if he had been, he wouldn't be as of this morning: to reject a pull request that eliminates a gendered pronoun on the principle that pronouns should in fact be gendered would constitute a fireable offense for me and for Joyent. For comparison, here is bnoordhuis's comment from the pull request thread [2] that the post is referencing:…

Wow, Joyent comes across very poorly.

For the record, I support using gender-neutral pronouns; I actually support the original pull request. But it seems inarguable that:

    1. It's a minor change  
    2. Node.js, like many projects, rejects minor changes  
    3. It was rejected for being a minor change  
    4. Joyent reacted amazingly unprofessionally
In particular, I have concerns both with the way the initial decision was reversed (this seems like an abuse of Joyent's power over the project), and in particular with their remarkable blog post. Following a project's guidelines on accepting a commit is "gobsmackingly inappropriate"? Really? I'm not sure I'm comfortable with that attitude from someone in Joyent's position. And as for their pointed comment that they would have fired Ben if he worked for them...really? Boy do they sound like a barrel of fun to work for. "Follow the rules or be fired; unless it's a rule we decide isn't important, then we'll fire you if you do follow it. Have fun guessing which one is which!"

I use Node.js professionally, and I will continue to do so for now. My opinion of Joyent, however, is dropping rapidly. Node.js will either grow beyond them or die.

Edit: Rephrased the language to better reflect my opinion. Had too much hyperbole in the first draft.

Re: Collaboration not Derision in the Node Community

#38

Post by [deleted] »

yetanotherphd wrote: post #17
adriancooney wrote: post #8

> If Ben can’t learn, we’ll fire him. That statement feels a little to intimate for an outsider to the company. Ben made a mistake but to single out and threaten him like that in public would surely alienate him further. This entire situation has gotten extremely out of hand. It shows how activists can turn into extremists when faced with an adversary. I'm in no way advocating what Ben did but it's despicable how eve…

It's important that everyone knows that violations against political correctness are serious things. Whether a person calls a commit that changes "he" to "they" trivial, or refuses to assert that women are at least as intelligent, if not more, than men, or attributes Africa's problems to something other than racism and exploitation, it is important that that person loses their job. Otherwise, how will people know who…

[deleted]

Re: Collaboration not Derision in the Node Community

#39

Post by dreamfactory »

Are these people illiterate? Are they not aware that in the English language masculine pronouns are correct for both gender-specific and gender-neutral uses? Mankind refers to everybody. It may seem awkward, particularly to over-literal types, but so is our spelling, grammar, and pronunciation generally.

Re: Collaboration not Derision in the Node Community

#40

Post by Lazare »

yapcguy wrote: post #32
rdtsc wrote: post #27

My understanding of Node.JS and libuv community is as an outsider. I don't follow what's going on unless it is on the front page of HN once in a while and other forums. But one impression I get from Node.JS and its surrounding community is arrogance and immaturity. This is from top to down -- companies sponsoring it (Joyent) and many of its vocal proponents. I see plenty of energy, enthusiasm, but mixed with immaturi…

Remember how vicious the Node.js "community" were to outsiders who critiqued event loop blocking? Whatever the technical merits, I think this incident will do significant damage to the perception of Node.js as a serious platform to build on.

It already has in my view. Joyent is not coming across as an organisation I'd trust to back an important project.
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