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A post by Guido van Rossum removed for violating Python community guidelines

discuss.python.org

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Re: A post by Guido van Rossum removed for violating Python community guidelines

#191
post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If that's your idea of "proof" I think we're done here.

So you'll take your arguments and go home, and not even try to convince me otherwise and potentially win me over with your candor and intellect and personality? That seems like the problem with politics as a whole these days.

No, citing one example of the current system as "proof" that the whole system must be thrown out is the problem with "politics as a whole."

Also: thinking that a few paragraphs on Hacker News constitutes sufficient wisdom is another problem with "politics as a whole." It is not going to convince you no matter what I or anyone else says.

Do some research. That probably means reading some books, hate to warn you.

Re: A post by Guido van Rossum removed for violating Python community guidelines

#192
post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You hate it. Don't generalize to "we all."

Check out this IPSOS poll that says otherwise. That was run in January. Yet somehow by May both of the upopular candidates won their national primaries. https://www.ipsos.com/en-us/most-americans-are-dissatisfied-...

The only polls that matter happen at the ballot box, and in the legislatures. You have one meaningless data point.

Re: A post by Guido van Rossum removed for violating Python community guidelines

#193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not just how much information you extract, but also what you do with that information. RCV, in the most common form of IRV, has a problem that I think is relevant. If we accept the truism that the appropriate compromise won't be anyone's first choice, then the very first thing IRV does is throw out any appropriate compromise, leaving it to make a decision between inappropriate options. I think we need to be more…

Yeah, it's painful seeing all the enthusiasm IRV gets. I've come to the conclusion it's how people think they want to be able to express support for third party candidates due to their frustration with the current system, but not actually seeing down the line to what happens when non-duopoly options gain some popularity. Basically it's still hopelessly wed to the two party model after the less-popular third parties a…

> It's only redeeming feature is that the same choices can serve as the input to a Condorcet decision process when the failures of IRV become apparent.

I think the concern raised by PaulHoule is very important. Assuming, for the sake of this particular digression, that it can be sufficiently satisfied by IRV in a context under consideration, BTR-IRV seems like an easy sell over IRV. It's like IRV, but instead of discarding the candidate with the least first place votes, you do a head-to-head runoff (looking at the rank ballots you already have) and discard the loser. Not much more complicated to understand or administer, and you can never discard a Condorcet winner (or a member of the Smith set, except in favor of another member of the Smith set).

Re: A post by Guido van Rossum removed for violating Python community guidelines

#194

The original text stated: > I don’t know much about voting systems, but I know someone who does. Unfortunately he’s currently banned. Maybe we can wait until his 3-month ban expires and ask him for advice? Currently, the text reads: > This post was flagged by the community and is temporarily hidden. Since it has been hidden for more than 24 hours, this suggests that a moderator action has marked it as permanently hid…

I'm an outsider who only knows Guido van Rossum by way of interviews his writing. Assuming your quote is what the original text said (I don't disbelieve you-- but nobody can see it to confirm) why would this have violated community standards? Is there some rule about not mentioning "un-persons" or something? It's very confusing. Edit: Answering my own question. There appears to be a kerfuffle afoot. Apparently the St…

> why would this have violated community standards? Is there some rule about not mentioning "un-persons" or something?

Flags may be cast by anyone, and this will eventually result in automatic hiding - flags on Discourse are weighted according to the "trust level" of those raising them.

My guess is that people perceived this as a passive-aggressive objection to Tim Peters' suspension. It has definitely been permitted up until now to refer to this (although everyone seemed to be avoiding the name on principle), but there seems to be an expectation that people should "read the air" now and stop talking about it - hence posts like https://discuss.python.org/t/moderated-posts-are-no-longer-p... and https://discuss.python.org/t/pr-disaster-surrounding-recent-... .

> and sparking a call for a vote of no confidence in the council which did not succeed

The call was retracted, which is not surprising. The Steering Council isn't the root of the problem, anyway. That would be the Code of Conduct Work Group (https://www.python.org/psf/workgroups/#code-of-conduct-work-...), which is not elected (https://wiki.python.org/psf/ConductWG/Charter#Membership), has membership overlapping other important groups (4 of them are on the PSF Board of Directors - https://www.python.org/psf/board/#id3 - and Brett Cannon and Łukasz Langa are Discourse forum moderators) and enforces the Code of Conduct according to hidden rules that betray the neutrality of that document (https://policies.python.org/python.org/code-of-conduct/Enfor...) counter to the wishes of one of the original drafters of said document (https://discuss.python.org/t/why-i-am-withdrawing-fellowship... ; https://discuss.python.org/t/why-im-leaving-discuss-python-o... etc.).

It's also noteworthy that the Steering Council - consisting of 5 core devs - apparently also now requires a "communications liaison" (https://www.notion.so/46aec24028fd4e8dbdba003097c18b5b?pvs=2...) who gets a glowing write-up in official updates on the forum (such as https://discuss.python.org/t/steering-council-updates-for-ju...) - which are not posted by said liaison. I have no idea why this should be necessary, nor is there anything in PEP 13 (https://peps.python.org/pep-0013/) about this position existing. It seems that this person was selected entirely out-of-process.

Re: A post by Guido van Rossum removed for violating Python community guidelines

#195

My spidey sense first got tingling a few years ago when the Python powers decided they were going to rename their git master branch to something else. Caused them unnecessary work and to this day it's not certain any developer or user actually asked for it. The word has multiple meanings of course; yet felt like a symbolic gesture to alleviate guilt totally unrelated to Python. I didn't complain without a dog in the…

>Unfortunately a few years later I can say the opposite. It's your contention that people getting up in arms about not changing the name of the 'master' branch specifically look good now, with hindsight? Can't say I agree.

You’ve reframed the disagreement about unnecessary work as “up in arms.” They look like sane folks who recommended not doing purely symbolic work.

Something substantial perhaps, say promoting under-represented folks within psf would be something. You can’t eat branch names.

Re: A post by Guido van Rossum removed for violating Python community guidelines

#196
post #11

This seems to be a repeating theme lately. NixOS went through something incredibly similar lately.

I miss that information, have you a link to share ?

> This is a repository that aims to concisely explain the issues in Nix community

https://github.com/KFearsoff/nix-drama-explained

Re: A post by Guido van Rossum removed for violating Python community guidelines

#197
post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

BDFL model seems to have worked pretty well for so many decades. Guido should have just transferred power to someone he trusted. Now look at him, he can't even comment freely.

I think the lesson is, if you should ever find yourself in the role of a BD and plan to give up control in favour of a committee or suchlike, always retain the option to throw them out and re-assume control, in case of need.

Yeah because after that you just have 5-10 dictators which inevitable build up cliques with their own personal grievances rather than any ideas to benefit the good of the community.

Re: A post by Guido van Rossum removed for violating Python community guidelines

#198

This kind of drama seems to exist very specifically to programming language design and implementation. Probably has something to do with the codified formal structures necessary for various committees/ decision making groups. But it's interesting. This kind of stuff happens in ECMA, Rust, Python and a few others. Go seems to have escaped. Maybe because it's a corporate owned Lang? Similarly no drama in the Typescript…

This drama exists in nearly every human committee in existence.

Re: A post by Guido van Rossum removed for violating Python community guidelines

#199
post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That the people implying they were monsters were the actual monsters.

[flagged]

It broke scripts and docs. Funny enough I never liked that name early on, in preference to to hg’s default. But once done for years, no point in changing it.

Re: A post by Guido van Rossum removed for violating Python community guidelines

#200
post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unnecessary politics in certain tech spheres is still a norm. For example, here's GNOME the desktop being concerned about climate change: https://discourse.gnome.org/t/question-to-candidates-the-boa...

[flagged]

Would you feel the same way if the message was "make America great again"?

And yes I did remove python from a big private repo and will argue against it at work when the question arises.

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