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Antisocial Coding: My Year at GitHub

where.coraline.codes

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Re: Antisocial Coding: My Year at GitHub

#251

Post by pfooti »

YorickPeterse wrote: post #246
kevintb wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are so sadly mistaken to think that you can "stay away from social justice sphere". Taking the example of a survey question in the blog post, > What is your gender?" The multiple-choice options were "Male", "Female", and "Transgender" What would a "professional and politically neutral as possible" company, in your definition, do in this case? I would think, at the very least, an "Other" field would be a 1000x imp…

> What would a "professional and politically neutral as possible" company, in your definition, do in this case? * "Male" * "Female" * "Other (feel free to specify in the text field below)" Or something along those lines, it's not that hard.

One could imagine just putting a text entry field for gender, so as to not other any gender identity that doesn't align with the male-female binary. One could also imagine putting other fields in for respondents to self-identify as trans, should they want.

That said, it seems a very neutral approach to gender self-reporting is self-defeating (consider that, at least for bathroom laws in some US states), the very notion of something that's not on the assigned-at-birth male-female binary is itself controversial. I guess if your gender choices included "deconstruct the male-female binary" or something, that'd be overtly political, but at least in this political climate just acknowledging the existence of some people seems to be a political act. (one I'm in favor of, fwiw, but I'm one of those people that argue that being "apolitical" is just cover for being politically in favor of the status quo).

Re: Antisocial Coding: My Year at GitHub

#252

Post by s73ver »

rndmwlk wrote: post #152
ivraatiems wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Consider if the situations were reversed. What if some white male engineer was simply being terse in an email to her. Might she attribute it to rudeness, sexism, or transphobia? If the company fired the engineer would you be arguing that she should be a bit more charitable in her interpretations? These are good questions, and I don't know the answers. I'd like to tell you how I'd react, but I think given the curren…

>I can see how her comments could be perceived as rude, or "unempathetic." I cannot see how - especially at Github, a place not known for cultural sensitivity - they were firable. I agree, I think this is where the "fishy"-ness I spoke of earlier comes in. Giving the benefit of the doubt to Coraline, there is definitely more at play than being rude in a few emails. I just feel uncomfortable jumping from an individual…

This isn’t the first time sexism has reared its head at Github, though.

Re: Antisocial Coding: My Year at GitHub

#253

Post by kevintb »

YorickPeterse wrote: post #246
kevintb wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are so sadly mistaken to think that you can "stay away from social justice sphere". Taking the example of a survey question in the blog post, > What is your gender?" The multiple-choice options were "Male", "Female", and "Transgender" What would a "professional and politically neutral as possible" company, in your definition, do in this case? I would think, at the very least, an "Other" field would be a 1000x imp…

> What would a "professional and politically neutral as possible" company, in your definition, do in this case? * "Male" * "Female" * "Other (feel free to specify in the text field below)" Or something along those lines, it's not that hard.

Agreed. This is a very sensible answer. It boggles my mind that instead of ah "Other" field, they added a "Transgender" option.

Re: Antisocial Coding: My Year at GitHub

#254

Post by specialist »

s73ver wrote: post #247
specialist wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Okay. Continuing to quibble... She said what was wrong, but did not say what was right. Explicitly. To me, it's an example of "Guess what I'm thinking!" Or more famously, that UI designer who said "Don't make me think!" Granted, a "data scientist" should already know how to survey, be open to constructive criticism. I personally would have no idea how to ask the question. Though I'm not a data scientist, I can use go…

She exactly said what was right. She said EXACTLY what to do. There was absolutely no guesswork involved. She said that you should ask if one is transgender as a separate question. How is that not explicit?

Show vs tell.

With examples, like this: http://williamsinstitute.law.ucla.edu/research/census-lgbt-d...

Wrapped with pleasantries, like this: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14704542

The only reason I now have any notion of an appropriate phrasing is because I was curious enough to seek examples. (Unlike the aggrieved data scientist?)

If nothing else, this mini-thread illustrates the challenges with communication, even when all parties have the best of intentions.

Re: Antisocial Coding: My Year at GitHub

#255

Post by jdboyd »

kevintb wrote: post #241
opportune wrote: post #49

The main thing I've taken away from the whole github situation is that, as a tech company, you should just entirely stay away from public involvement in the social justice sphere. That doesn't mean exclusively hiring white men and sending out Kalanick-style emails; it means keeping your work environment as professional and politically neutral as possible unless absolutely necessary. My employer does a good job of thi…

You are so sadly mistaken to think that you can "stay away from social justice sphere". Taking the example of a survey question in the blog post, > What is your gender?" The multiple-choice options were "Male", "Female", and "Transgender" What would a "professional and politically neutral as possible" company, in your definition, do in this case? I would think, at the very least, an "Other" field would be a 1000x imp…

Politically neutral would be to not ask the question at all.

Re: Antisocial Coding: My Year at GitHub

#256

Post by problems »

Jare wrote: post #237
eqdw wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Without concrete and public metrics of "merit", it becomes a buzzword for reinforcing the biases (conscious or not) of the evaluators. I wish we could have discussions like this in the wider community without people going knee-jerk against the idea of it, itself. I'd be willing to accept that a lot of companies here are nepotistic. I'd even be willing to accept that they cloak their nepotism in the rhetoric of meri…

If the idea sounds great and is arguably great on all accounts, but in practice proves to not work, time and time again, perhaps the idea needs to be parked until the environment is fixed. Otherwise, arguing about it becomes a distraction while, in its corrupted form, the idea actively damages the things it should be improving. So you just say "don't do >" and, rather than expand and qualify the statement with a para…

> So you just say "don't do >" and, rather than expand and qualify the statement with a paragraph like the above, you just move on to the actual topic you want to focus on.

That's a terrible plan because it blanket dismisses a rational and widely accepted idea without explaining why or even forcing you to think about it.

How about you at least take the courtesy to explain why you're dismissing something that at face value provides a better solution than what you're suggesting. Even with its problems, you need to explain why your suggested solution is better than meritocracy.

I personally at least am yet to see a better alternative to meritocracy, despite its definite problems. In my opinion all proposed alternatives seem to introduce more unfairness and problems of their own.

Re: Antisocial Coding: My Year at GitHub

#257

Post by Skywing »

problems wrote: post #21
Dirlewanger wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

She went on a tirade against an Opal contributor a couple years back: https://github.com/opal/opal/issues/941

Didn't know about that, but abrasiveness like that is really unfortunate. It makes real progress harder because it means people dig in on views that maybe they shouldn't.

Looks like she wasn't even aware of the project, but instead saw it on a person's twitter profile and went to its github repo to get that person fired. In a way, she's doing the exact same thing, to others, that she is claiming github did to her.

Re: Antisocial Coding: My Year at GitHub

#258

Post by eqdw »

kybernetikos wrote: post #240
eqdw wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Without concrete and public metrics of "merit", it becomes a buzzword for reinforcing the biases (conscious or not) of the evaluators. I wish we could have discussions like this in the wider community without people going knee-jerk against the idea of it, itself. I'd be willing to accept that a lot of companies here are nepotistic. I'd even be willing to accept that they cloak their nepotism in the rhetoric of meri…

> Don't you want the best people, at least in principle? Maybe not. In many situations you want the best team, and the best team is not necessarily the team that has the most top flight individual contributors. The best teams I've been on seem stronger than the sum of their individual members, and I've definitely been on teams I rate less highly that had some very strong individual contributors. Along these lines, I…

Word games. "Best people" can mean the best team.

I mean like honestly, if you don't care _in principle_ about the quality of your staff, how are you deciding who to hire?

Re: Antisocial Coding: My Year at GitHub

#259

Post by s73ver »

specialist wrote: post #254
s73ver wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

She exactly said what was right. She said EXACTLY what to do. There was absolutely no guesswork involved. She said that you should ask if one is transgender as a separate question. How is that not explicit?

Show vs tell. With examples, like this: http://williamsinstitute.law.ucla.edu/research/census-lgbt-d... Wrapped with pleasantries, like this: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14704542 The only reason I now have any notion of an appropriate phrasing is because I was curious enough to seek examples. (Unlike the aggrieved data scientist?) If nothing else, this mini-thread illustrates the challenges with communicatio…

I fail to see that you have had this discussion in good faith. I believe you are holding her to a higher standard than you would have someone else.

She said EXACTLY what to change. She was not rude about it. To try and nitpick that away leads me to believe you have an agenda to push.

Re: Antisocial Coding: My Year at GitHub

#260

Post by eqdw »

problems wrote: post #256
Jare wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the idea sounds great and is arguably great on all accounts, but in practice proves to not work, time and time again, perhaps the idea needs to be parked until the environment is fixed. Otherwise, arguing about it becomes a distraction while, in its corrupted form, the idea actively damages the things it should be improving. So you just say "don't do >" and, rather than expand and qualify the statement with a para…

> So you just say "don't do >" and, rather than expand and qualify the statement with a paragraph like the above, you just move on to the actual topic you want to focus on. That's a terrible plan because it blanket dismisses a rational and widely accepted idea without explaining why or even forcing you to think about it. How about you at least take the courtesy to explain why you're dismissing something that at face…

+1. Parent comment's argument is not great because, among other things, the exact same argument could be made right back at them.

Amongst almost everybody I know, "meritocracy" still means it's dictionary definition. If the definition is contested, I don't understand why other peoples' definitions of it take priority over the official one

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