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Ben Noordhuis's Departure

blog.nodejs.org

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Re: Ben Noordhuis's Departure

#181

Post by jack-r-abbit »

chc wrote: post #140
malandrew wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

This isn't about political correctness. It's about a practical consideration of the impact of language usage supported both by anecdotes from community members and academic studies. The defining quality of the "color of the bikeshed" discussion is that it makes no practical difference — but there is a difference here. When you say "bikeshedding," what you really seem to mean is "something I don't feel the impact of."…

Likewise... you should consider that just because something is important to you doesn't mean it has to be important to someone else. It does go both ways.

Re: Ben Noordhuis's Departure

#182

Post by IsaacSchlueter »

RyanZAG wrote: post #129
IsaacSchlueter wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You say "profit driven" like it's a bad thing. I thought this was a forum about startups.

It's a good thing for the startup, sure. But it's definitely a very bad thing for a third party choosing to use nodejs as a critical part of their infrastructure. You guys might take nodejs off on a direction that is beneficial to you and not to me, and I'm not in a position to fork the project myself if that happens.

> and I'm not in a position to fork the project myself if that happens

You don't have a github account?

Re: Ben Noordhuis's Departure

#183

Post by chc »

jack-r-abbit wrote: post #181
chc wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This isn't about political correctness. It's about a practical consideration of the impact of language usage supported both by anecdotes from community members and academic studies. The defining quality of the "color of the bikeshed" discussion is that it makes no practical difference — but there is a difference here. When you say "bikeshedding," what you really seem to mean is "something I don't feel the impact of."…

Likewise... you should consider that just because something is important to you doesn't mean it has to be important to someone else. It does go both ways.

Indeed, and I am not asking malandrew to act like this is important to him. My point is that we should not oppose it, not that you personally need to take action of some sort.

In other words, I'm fine if you don't want to go through and revise your docs to be more gender-neutral — it would be nice, but you should spend your time on what's near and dear to you. But to say that such a change "shouldn't be in any project" is a very different thing. It has practical benefits, even if they don't personally affect you, so opposing it is purely harmful.

Re: Ben Noordhuis's Departure

#184

Post by jacalata »

jack-r-abbit wrote: post #181
chc wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This isn't about political correctness. It's about a practical consideration of the impact of language usage supported both by anecdotes from community members and academic studies. The defining quality of the "color of the bikeshed" discussion is that it makes no practical difference — but there is a difference here. When you say "bikeshedding," what you really seem to mean is "something I don't feel the impact of."…

Likewise... you should consider that just because something is important to you doesn't mean it has to be important to someone else. It does go both ways.

I do consider that. I am baffled that people are willing to go to the mattresses over something that they don't object to, but which they argue is unimportant to them. That they spend time arguing not 'this is something I think is bad' but 'how dare you spend time on this thing I find unimportant!'

Re: Ben Noordhuis's Departure

#185

Post by xer0x »

tks2103 wrote: post #144
wpietri wrote: post #92

Earlier 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…

Yep, you just said that!

Re: Ben Noordhuis's Departure

#186

Post by millstone »

wpietri wrote: post #174
malandrew wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

The change was not "let's make libuv comments gender neutral," but "here's this one thing I noticed in this one place." A one-off change like that has a trivial impact on the overall gender-inclusiveness of the project, and that's the case no matter what importance you attach to it.

If gender-inclusive language in comments is deemed important, then it ought to be treated as important from the contributor side. For example, "comments must all be gender neutral" should have been incorporated into the coding standard for the project, along with a rationale, and the existing code should have been vetted for all uses of gendered pronouns. That would have made for a more serious contribution, and I bet Noordhuis would have treated it differently.

Re: Ben Noordhuis's Departure

#187

Post by jack-r-abbit »

jacalata wrote: post #184
jack-r-abbit wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Likewise... you should consider that just because something is important to you doesn't mean it has to be important to someone else. It does go both ways.

I do consider that. I am baffled that people are willing to go to the mattresses over something that they don't object to, but which they argue is unimportant to them . That they spend time arguing not 'this is something I think is bad' but 'how dare you spend time on this thing I find unimportant!'

I believe people are going to the mattresses over the rage being directed at him. They are arguing more "how dare you be so enraged at him simply for not finding the issue as important as you do!" This is why I said what I said.

Re: Ben Noordhuis's Departure

#188

Post by jack-r-abbit »

chc wrote: post #183
jack-r-abbit wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Likewise... you should consider that just because something is important to you doesn't mean it has to be important to someone else. It does go both ways.

Indeed, and I am not asking malandrew to act like this is important to him. My point is that we should not oppose it, not that you personally need to take action of some sort. In other words, I'm fine if you don't want to go through and revise your docs to be more gender-neutral — it would be nice, but you should spend your time on what's near and dear to you. But to say that such a change "shouldn't be in any projec…

My point is that we should not oppose it, not that you personally need to take action of some sort.

Hmm... but isn't a lot of the rage toward Ben because he didn't take action on something that some people feel is a big deal while others feel it is not such a big deal?

Re: Ben Noordhuis's Departure

#189

Post by chc »

jack-r-abbit wrote: post #188
chc wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed, and I am not asking malandrew to act like this is important to him. My point is that we should not oppose it, not that you personally need to take action of some sort. In other words, I'm fine if you don't want to go through and revise your docs to be more gender-neutral — it would be nice, but you should spend your time on what's near and dear to you. But to say that such a change "shouldn't be in any projec…

My point is that we should not oppose it, not that you personally need to take action of some sort. Hmm... but isn't a lot of the rage toward Ben because he didn't take action on something that some people feel is a big deal while others feel it is not such a big deal?

I don't think so. People are mad at Ben because he reverted Isaac's commit and they thought it was because he had an ideological axe to grind. They think that Ben wasn't indifferent on this matter.

Re: Ben Noordhuis's Departure

#190

Post by jack-r-abbit »

chc wrote: post #189
jack-r-abbit wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My point is that we should not oppose it, not that you personally need to take action of some sort. Hmm... but isn't a lot of the rage toward Ben because he didn't take action on something that some people feel is a big deal while others feel it is not such a big deal?

I don't think so. People are mad at Ben because he reverted Isaac's commit and they thought it was because he had an ideological axe to grind. They think that Ben wasn't indifferent on this matter.

Then they should take great comfort that Ben reversed it based on his thought that proper procedure was not followed. Awesome! We can all calm down now and... oh wait... seems we still have rage. shucks.
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