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Announcing the GNU Kind Communication Guidelines

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Re: Announcing the GNU Kind Communication Guidelines

#141

Post by x220 »

nabla9 wrote: post #43
brobdingnagians wrote: post #17

> The way we do this, rather than ordering people to be kind or else, is try to help people learn to make their communication more kind. This is excellent; using love and persuasion to help someone improve is so much better than by force, compulsion, and fear. How many children rebel against restrictive and domineering parents? but a child who is loved and taught, but allowed to make choices and pursue independence u…

Agree. I'm fan of Nonviolent Communication a.k.a Collaborative Communication. NVC acknowledges that moralistic judgments and demands make communication harder, not easier. Still it's important that people should be able to communicate the feelings, needs and make requests. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nonviolent_Communication

I love to promote this whenever I can. This method has a fantastic reward given the time it takes to learn and practice it and has made my in-person communication a lot better whenever I use it.

Re: Announcing the GNU Kind Communication Guidelines

#142

Post by defgeneric »

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…

> correcting the biases, conscious or not

This insipid attitude was destructive when it first appeared during the academic "culture wars" of the 1980s.

It's also extremely authoritarian--everyone is already guilty, not merely of incorrect conscious thoughts, but also unconscious thoughts!

Re: Announcing the GNU Kind Communication Guidelines

#143

Post by binaryapparatus »

s73v3r_ wrote: post #138
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…

"Being politically correct vs getting the job done, I'll always choose getting the job done." False choice; there is absolutely no reason whatsoever that one would ever need to choose between being polite to others and getting the job done.

Oh there is third option too. See my other post, I walked away while precious little programmer that has no skills but has feelings remained working at that company.

> False choice; there is absolutely no reason whatsoever that one would ever need to choose between being polite to others and getting the job done.

Sounds great but in reality not always possible.

Re: Announcing the GNU Kind Communication Guidelines

#144

Post by s73v3r_ »

repolfx wrote: post #100
jordigh wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was there to witness the private mailing list that culminated in this, and there was a very clear example of that happening there. A certain GNU contributor, let's call her Sal, was voicing concerns with current practices. Someone else replied to her with "Sally," condescendingly talking down to her. To this she said, "I did not invite you to call me by a nickname. Call me Sal." A sub-discussion then erupted about…

That sounds utterly trivial - why was Sal/Sally so upset by an attempt to be polite by not using a short form/pet name. That must happen to her all the time in formal settings. As for "voicing concerns with current practices", what were those concerns and practices? Technical?

Because they had already stated what they wished to be called. Once someone does that, conversation on the topic should be done; there is nothing more to be said. Choosing to ignore that is a massive sign of disrespect to the person, and should not be tolerated.

Re: Announcing the GNU Kind Communication Guidelines

#145

Post by joshuamorton »

jf- wrote: post #136
joshuamorton wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

See my longer comment[1]. At some point, with some hopefully small fraction of members, the maintainer will need to make a call between keeping the member and letting other people suffer, or kicking someone out of the project. Stallman even mentions this: >the appointed maintainer(s) of a GNU package can, if necessary, tell a contributor to go away; but we do not want to need to have recourse to that. in his email, a…

> why would you prefer that the circumstances be entirely up to each individual maintainer's discretion Exactly so that the same judgement isn’t applied everywhere. Different maintainers will end up having different audiences. I see that as acceptable, maybe even preferable.

This makes sense for technical judgement, but what about kindness, respect, or good intent changes when I tab over from gcc to gnome?

Re: Announcing the GNU Kind Communication Guidelines

#146

Post by dang »

fossdev wrote: post #95
dang wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please don't take HN threads on generic flamewar tangents. They are all the same and resolve nothing. We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18275156 .

How does detaching my comment from the person I was replying to and removing all context of the conversation help? There was nothing generic about my comment nor was it a tangent from the topic at hand. It was a direct reply to an individual in favor of "diversity as a goal" policies as a means for correcting biases.

It helps by allowing the generic flamewar topic to sink to the bottom of the thread, where it is less likely to burn everything else to a crisp.

The link back to the original parent is there to provide context for anyone who wants it.

It may be true that you didn't introduce the generic topic; flamewars arise by degrees, so the choice of where to snip them is often a little arbitrary. Usually we snip it where the discussion becomes unmoored from the topic, which might not be where the bait first appeared.

Re: Announcing the GNU Kind Communication Guidelines

#147

Post by frogeg »

Spivak wrote: post #85
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…

Speaking counter to not only RMS but also the tide of popular opinion not only on HN but the internet at large I'm sure takes a lot of courage -- and I just want to say thank you.

People who avoid saying what they think because they are afraid of losing internet points are retarded to begin with.

Re: Announcing the GNU Kind Communication Guidelines

#148

Post by Millennium »

mcguire wrote: post #41
Millennium wrote: post #14

This is interesting, but I have to say I'm skeptical that it'll do any better than the Linux kernel community's attempt to apply Wheaton's Law back in 2015. The geek community was largely formed by people who had been unfairly targeted by those who enforce social norms: picking inappropriate targets, taking things to inappropriate extremes, and the like. Our response was to create a community that didn't enforce soci…

I agree almost completely with your comment, with the exception of the second paragraph. We created a community with a different set of social norms, norms that are enforced as aggressively and often as inappropriately as any others.

It's not hard to argue that this is basically what happened in practice. Certainly it feels the same for those targeted. But I'd argue that the mechanism is different in ways that affect how it needs to be treated.

If there were norms that were actually being enforced, then existing enforcement could be brought to bear against the creepers. The problem is that there is no enforcement in the usual sense, allowing the creepers free rein to enforce, not any norms actually relating to the wider society, but their own emotional whims. In essence, rather than being proper enforcement of social norms, it is nothing but common bullying perpetrated by a vocal minority, which they get away with because there is no mechanism to bring any force to bear against the bullies. Their presence continues to be tolerated in the same way that any abusive person in a friend group is tolerated: it keeps the peace. Meanwhile, the targets leave because that's the closest thing they have to recourse.

The creeps don't mind Wheaton's Law or "Kind Communication Guidelines" much, because they know that no one with any clout will come after them for breaking the rules. Same goes for SQLite's adoption of the Rule of Saint Benedict, which they have already stated cannot be enforced for "minor" transactions. Only when the rules come with enforcement mechanisms do they actually complain, because that's the point when their targets gain a way to fight back against the bullying.

Re: Announcing the GNU Kind Communication Guidelines

#149

Post by frogeg »

ajross wrote: post #44
marijn wrote: post #13

While it sounds very reasonable, friendly, and non-authoritarian, a big problem with an approach like this, without real teeth or rigidity, is that it is very easy to harass people out of a community while staying within its constraints, and provides very little recourse for those being harassed (who often are not in a position of power) to put on pressure for getting something done about it. The approach taken large…

The current push for codes of conduct in software projects isn't about harassment per se. Realistically anyone can be harassed out of a community regardless of rules. The point of the rules is to change the norms such that behavior that would otherwise have been exclusionary or just off-putting is specifically called out and recognized as "wrong". "This code is fucking garbage and you should be ashamed" may or may no…

Do you really need a CoC to know someone who says "This code is fucking garbage and you should be ashamed" is an idiot? Do you really need a CoC to kick out someone who says that?

Re: Announcing the GNU Kind Communication Guidelines

#150

Post by tomjen3 »

x220 wrote: post #141
nabla9 wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agree. I'm fan of Nonviolent Communication a.k.a Collaborative Communication. NVC acknowledges that moralistic judgments and demands make communication harder, not easier. Still it's important that people should be able to communicate the feelings, needs and make requests. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nonviolent_Communication

I love to promote this whenever I can. This method has a fantastic reward given the time it takes to learn and practice it and has made my in-person communication a lot better whenever I use it.

I have heard about it, but always sorta wrote it of because while I can learn it, most other people wouldn't. I do wonder though, how does it work when only one side practice it? Do the user get the suckers payout?
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