GitHub is undergoing a full-blown overhaul as execs and employees depart • Hacker News Board

Re: GitHub is undergoing a full-blown overhaul as execs and employees depart

#291

Post by pkinsky » Sat, Feb 06, 2016, 9:24 PM UTC

vidarh wrote: post #254

honestcoyote wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apparently Reddit is leaking. Tumblr: the scapegoat for everything they don't like.

As a white middle-aged male, Tumblr is the only place I've experienced what it is like to be on the receiving end of racism. It's quite fascinating to see just how vile some of it gets. Of course it is only fascinating to me because I can trivially withdraw from it and not be particularly affected.

It's not always fun and games: I'm Assyrian (a middle eastern, ethnically Christian ethnicity). When the first news reports of ISIS ethnically cleansing Assyrians in areas under their control came out, prominent members of social justice tumblr started joking about it being 'karma' because white-passing Christian-ish people were on the receiving end of genocide.

Re: GitHub is undergoing a full-blown overhaul as execs and employees depart

#292

Post by dang » Sat, Feb 06, 2016, 9:24 PM UTC

yaakov34 wrote: post #176

She certainly doesn't say "only white" and she explicitly excludes white women ("some of the biggest barriers to progress"). You can make convoluted excuses for her, but it's obvious that she sees white people (of whatever gender or socioeconomic status) as essentially enemies, and doesn't want them as allies (let alone is willing to accept some of them as people with different, but valid opinions). It's not acceptab…

Those conclusions exceed that evidence. This subthread went haywire as a result, so we detached it from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11049513 and marked it off-topic.

Re: GitHub is undergoing a full-blown overhaul as execs and employees depart

#293

Post by acidburnNSA » Sat, Feb 06, 2016, 9:24 PM UTC

obelisk_ wrote: post #232

jsksma2 wrote: post #220

Bring on the suits! While GH is busy distracting their world-class engineers with B.S. reverse-racism meetings, they will successfully free up their equity pool for more suit hires. That should suck the life out real quick... Goodbye revolutionary, forward-thinking work culture & hierarchy (meritocracy). You will be gravely missed. Good luck hiring sub-par engineers for the next 2 years and watching your data centers…

Well, what are the alternatives? Hosted: Bitbucket, GitLab Self-hosted: GitLab, Gogs None of these come close to GitHub in my experience.

We've been using self-hosted Phabricator at work for building nuclear reactor design software and it has been pretty darn amazing. It's quite easy to get going and has been very low-maintenance.

http://phabricator.org/

Re: GitHub is undergoing a full-blown overhaul as execs and employees depart

#294

Post by skewart » Sat, Feb 06, 2016, 9:24 PM UTC

malandrew wrote: post #130

hitekker wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This makes me sad. I thought you were being over the top about the racism but then I saw the slides in the article: http://static2.businessinsider.com/image/56b3d2462e526543008... My first reaction is that the language of "us" vs "them", victims vs oppressors, reeks of hatred. Hatred undermines productive conversation, which undermines any attempt at building a good culture. I would have to listen to the whole presen…

I don't know if you even need to see the whole presentation. A few of the full sentences on that one slide are more than enough to project a strong us vs them attitude of hatred and victim versus oppressor, especially the following bullets: - "This is not work for white folks to lead" - "Some of the biggest barriers to progress are white women" - "we need solidarity with our Asian friends and colleagues" This is blat…

The really sad thing is that there actually is sexism and racism towards women and minorities in various subtle ways at lots of tech companies. I've seen it first-hand myself. But this antagonistic line of thinking isn't helping. It just makes things worse for everyone.

The majority of sexism and racism that I've seen is probably subconscious and doesn't really seem intentional per se. People often just don't realize the side-effects of what they're saying or doing, or how it can come across to people sometimes. You certainly won't build shared camaraderie and empathy by antagonizing entire classes of people.

Re: GitHub is undergoing a full-blown overhaul as execs and employees depart

#295

Post by hitekker » Sat, Feb 06, 2016, 9:24 PM UTC

toufka wrote: post #190

malandrew wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know if you even need to see the whole presentation. A few of the full sentences on that one slide are more than enough to project a strong us vs them attitude of hatred and victim versus oppressor, especially the following bullets: - "This is not work for white folks to lead" - "Some of the biggest barriers to progress are white women" - "we need solidarity with our Asian friends and colleagues" This is blat…

It's actually written into GitHub's Open Code of conduct. (The 'Open' Code has not accepted any changes for quite some time even though this particular issue was under discussion [1].) The Open Code expressly excuses discrimination against some races and genders, specifically by explicitly ignoring any critique which might fall under a 'reverse'-ism; 'reverse-racism' or 'reverse-sexism' [2]. This line in the Open Cod…

I wasn't aware of this history. One thing to note is the sentence that precedes 'reverse'-ism:

>Our open source community prioritizes marginalized people’s safety over privileged people’s comfort. We will not act on complaints regarding: > ‘Reverse’ -isms, including ‘reverse racism,’ ‘reverse sexism,’ and ‘cisphobia’

Coded language for sanctioned discrimination.

Re: GitHub is undergoing a full-blown overhaul as execs and employees depart

#296

Post by lightlyused » Sat, Feb 06, 2016, 9:24 PM UTC

briholt wrote: post #223

iza wrote: post #15

> "We’re trying to build a new kind of enterprise company where the playbooks of old won’t always work" By replacing flat meritocracy and remote work with traditional top-down management? > "don't think we'll succeed teaching white, male middle managers empathy and compassion anytime soon, so let's limit their scope of damage" So the technical director and member of the social-impact team is a blatant racist.

This kind of anti-white, anti-male racism is poisoning Silicon Valley. Honest, meritocratic people can't idly stand by while self-serving idiot racists take over. I'm now cancelling my GitHub account and moving to BitBucket.

The above comment makes me like github more.

Re: GitHub is undergoing a full-blown overhaul as execs and employees depart

#297

Post by pkinsky » Sat, Feb 06, 2016, 9:25 PM UTC

ceejayoz wrote: post #248

yaakov34 wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ideological intolerance is part of it, but it's clearly not the only part, given that the very first point in her slide is "this is not work for white folks to lead", i.e. she doesn't want white allies. I don't see how much more explicit this lady can make the fact that she hates white people as such. As for German or Russian philosophers - that seems far fetched. This is an American phenomenon, and in its explicit a…

> "this is not work for white folks to lead", i.e. she doesn't want white allies Not wanting to be an ally unless you're allowed to be in charge is a pretty perfect illustration of why the slide exists.

It's a department at a company. You're not allowed to say that 'people of ethnicity X will never be given a leadership position'. That's blatant racism.

Re: GitHub is undergoing a full-blown overhaul as execs and employees depart

#298

Post by rhizome » Sat, Feb 06, 2016, 9:25 PM UTC

almostApatriot1 wrote: post #128

hitekker wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This makes me sad. I thought you were being over the top about the racism but then I saw the slides in the article: http://static2.businessinsider.com/image/56b3d2462e526543008... My first reaction is that the language of "us" vs "them", victims vs oppressors, reeks of hatred. Hatred undermines productive conversation, which undermines any attempt at building a good culture. I would have to listen to the whole presen…

Don't see what the big deal is. The slide refers to spearheading a diversity program, not the company itself. Seems intuitive to me that such a program with only white, male managers might be problematic.

This thread illustrates nicely the sentiment that participation in the program is meaningless if a white person can't lead it.

Re: GitHub is undergoing a full-blown overhaul as execs and employees depart

#299

Post by briholt » Sat, Feb 06, 2016, 9:26 PM UTC

briholt wrote: post #223

iza wrote: post #15

> "We’re trying to build a new kind of enterprise company where the playbooks of old won’t always work" By replacing flat meritocracy and remote work with traditional top-down management? > "don't think we'll succeed teaching white, male middle managers empathy and compassion anytime soon, so let's limit their scope of damage" So the technical director and member of the social-impact team is a blatant racist.

This kind of anti-white, anti-male racism is poisoning Silicon Valley. Honest, meritocratic people can't idly stand by while self-serving idiot racists take over. I'm now cancelling my GitHub account and moving to BitBucket.

Done. Also, fantastically, BitBucket is cheaper.

Re: GitHub is undergoing a full-blown overhaul as execs and employees depart

#300

Post by slavik81 » Sat, Feb 06, 2016, 9:26 PM UTC

Disruptive_Dave wrote: post #161

iza wrote: post #15

> "We’re trying to build a new kind of enterprise company where the playbooks of old won’t always work" By replacing flat meritocracy and remote work with traditional top-down management? > "don't think we'll succeed teaching white, male middle managers empathy and compassion anytime soon, so let's limit their scope of damage" So the technical director and member of the social-impact team is a blatant racist.

I've always been profoundly confused by people/groups who choose to fight racism with racism. I'm not quite sure that's the best corrective path for this problem. But everyone lets it slide, at least here in the US. Are we just scared?

"He who fights with monsters should look to it that he himself does not become a monster."

It's an inherent problem that as you fight something, you tend to mirror it. You almost have to do so in order to be effective. The problem is that at some point, it just feeds the cycle.