Oh my GOD I can't believe this is actually a thing.
Ben Noordhuis's Departure
171–180 of 241 posts
Re: Ben Noordhuis's Departure
#172Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't think he appears to really disrespect women. I would say that he is, as are most guys in tech, ignorant of issues around sexism and arrogant enough to believe that if he is not aware of an issue it does not exist. Having read his responses, I think he seems like a reasonable guy who could stand to understand the world better. edit: it wasn't that long ago? 16 years ago I was in elementary school. That's like…
I think we're allowed to be ignorant of the politically correct gender issues surrounding grammatical usage in a codebase. To do otherwise is to bikeshed. On the internet no one knows you're a dog. 99% of the time I have no idea if the person I'm talking to on Github is a man, woman or has a different gender identity, nor do I care. It'd simply doesn't matter. [0] All that original commit did is set off a giant clust…
Everyone is allowed to be ignorant, the problem is people who are not ignorant but simply dismiss issues as "unimportant" because they are unaffected. It is not the original committers fault that you and so many other people don't care about (or in some cases object to) gender neutral language, and bikeshedding is best stopped not by leaving the bikeshed unpainted but by you and others who fjnd it unimportant shutting up and not objecting to the damn color if you don't care about it. Be the reduction in trivial arguments you want to see in the world.
Re: Ben Noordhuis's Departure
#173For those who don't know what's going on: Joyent made a blogpost calling Ben, (one of _THE_ most prolific contributors to nodjs), an asshole ( http://www.joyent.com/blog/the-power-of-a-pronoun ) and said they'd fire him if he'd been working for them, because he refused to take a commit making language in some part of the code gender-neutral. Here's Ben's last response to the whole ordeal: https://github.com/joyent/li…
Jesus. Take a look at this "patch": https://github.com/joyent/libuv/pull/1015/files Ousted the guy because he referred to "user" as a "he" in the comments? Are you fucking kidding me? I'm all for gender equality, but the amount of drama that came out of this is just insane and disturbing for the hacker community. I can not see it as anything more than pure politics and gender issue as a convenient pretext. Joyent has…
No, it was not because the original documentation used "he". It was because of his rejection of a suggested update, followed by his revert of the update when committed by another guy.
Re: Ben Noordhuis's Departure
#174Earlier quoted context omitted.
I understand you believe it was trivial. Maybe Ben Noordhuis still does too. Others disagree. Using power to force one's own view because one can is a problematic behavior in open source projects. It needlessly costs contributors. And respect.
Please explain to me what view you think Ben was forcing upon the community, because I do not think the view you and others nerd-raging here is aligned with reality. Ben was forcing the view that the commit policy had not been followed, which is a view that the rest of the community agrees with . This all got blown out of control when someone misinterpreted Ben's actions and started a bikeshedding tempest in a teacup…
The view forced was that the change was trivial.
That's the same view you're trying to force here. But at least Noordhuis has the virtue of possibly believing that. You clearly don't; you've got 9 dismissive, rage-y comments on this article. That's not how people react to trivia, which you were helpful enough to define as of little importance.
I think you correctly recognize the topic, which is the politics of gender inclusion, as important. It's just that you disagree with the people who proposed and support this change. I'd rather you were honest enough to say that, rather than trying to get us to swallow the notion that this this totally unimportant thing is totally important.
Re: Ben Noordhuis's Departure
#175Earlier quoted context omitted.
Evidence? Know Your Meme documents it as related to spanking: http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/butthurt That matches my understanding of butthurt as an overreaction to being chastised or shamed.
"butthurt" is the pain you feel in your anus after being anally raped. If you scroll down on that knowyourmeme page that you linked, you will see a set of memes in the "Buttfrustrated" category. The Brony meme has a set of insults that reference the anal rape: "Im sur thers sumpony who can help fill ur ass with semen laced hrut". The percentage of cases in which a person is referencing "butthurt" to indicate a spanki…
I could believe some people use it that way; I just disagree that's the primary meaning.
Re: Ben Noordhuis's Departure
#176Joyent, Please do the classy thing and have Isaac create a NodeJS organization on Github and move the project to that organization under his stewardship. With great power came great responsibility and using the Joyent corporate blog to excoriate one of the community's most valuable contributors is the path to the dark side. http://substack.net/images/coronation.png
When Ryan originally announced the transition to Joyent, someone asked if node would be moved to Joyent's github repo. Isaac replied: "I hope not". But now he asserts that Joyent owns node, and considers it a "cash cow".
Re: Ben Noordhuis's Departure
#177Earlier quoted context omitted.
> he said "i generally reject trivial doc fixes for X reasons" But for people who do not consider the related gender issues trivial, it was not a trivial doc fix.
That's it? That's the reason to crucify someone? That seems insanely short sighted and stupid. Without inserting any personal views here, crucifying people who appear completely ignorant of a cause, or don't understand the level of concern you feel about something, is not an effective method of advocacy. It's exactly the opposite. If you don't understand how to be an effective advocate, you tend to hurt rather than h…
Well, for a person who doesn't consider the fix "trivial", it's kind of easy to see some other (more sinister) motives behind the rejection of the fix. And then even more suspicious motives behind the act of labelling a clearly non-trivial fix as "trivial".
In my opinion, both sides of the debate overreacted, but I am just trying to explain you the viewpoint that apparently feels quite alien to you. Well, if you don't even want to understand that way of thinking, that's fine, too.
Re: Ben Noordhuis's Departure
#178Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's it? That's the reason to crucify someone? That seems insanely short sighted and stupid. Without inserting any personal views here, crucifying people who appear completely ignorant of a cause, or don't understand the level of concern you feel about something, is not an effective method of advocacy. It's exactly the opposite. If you don't understand how to be an effective advocate, you tend to hurt rather than h…
Well, for a person who doesn't consider the fix "trivial", it's kind of easy to see some other (more sinister) motives behind the rejection of the fix. And then even more suspicious motives behind the act of labelling a clearly non-trivial fix as "trivial". In my opinion, both sides of the debate overreacted, but I am just trying to explain you the viewpoint that apparently feels quite alien to you. Well, if you don'…
"In my opinion, both sides of the debate overreacted, but I am just trying to explain you the viewpoint that apparently feels quite alien to you."
Sure, but your description seems to kinda imply that everyone assumes everyone else are passive aggressive assholes :P. Maybe that's the case here, but i would hope not in general :)
Re: Ben Noordhuis's Departure
#179Earlier quoted context omitted.
Well, for a person who doesn't consider the fix "trivial", it's kind of easy to see some other (more sinister) motives behind the rejection of the fix. And then even more suspicious motives behind the act of labelling a clearly non-trivial fix as "trivial". In my opinion, both sides of the debate overreacted, but I am just trying to explain you the viewpoint that apparently feels quite alien to you. Well, if you don'…
"In my opinion, both sides of the debate overreacted, but I am just trying to explain you the viewpoint that apparently feels quite alien to you." Sure, but your description seems to kinda imply that everyone assumes everyone else are passive aggressive assholes :P. Maybe that's the case here, but i would hope not in general :)
Here [1] is a wonderful (rather long) essay on whether balrogs have wings in Tolkien's books, or not. The point of the essay is that if your prior belief is that balrogs have/don't have wings, it's very easy to interpret the evidence (whatever Tolkien wrote concerning balrogs) in a light that supports your original stand.
So in the same manner, if you don't consider the fix trivial, then everything else Ben did afterwards, seems quite suspicious really. Or if you do consider the fix trivial, then everything than ensued, seems seriously out of proportion.
[1] http://www.glyphweb.com/arda/b/balrogs.html under ‘...And Whether Balrogs Have Wings’
Re: Ben Noordhuis's Departure
#180Although Ben could have handled this better, it's quite obvious that this is just a strategically motivated witch hunt by Joyent. Their actions are vicious and completely out of proportion. Sidenote: In Ben's native language, using gender neutral pronouns is considerably more contrived and artificial, and therefor not a regular subject of debate when it comes to gender equality.
Yep. Joyent's new corporate strategy: hunting witches. Nailed it.
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