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Changes at Basecamp

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Re: Changes at Basecamp

#331

Post by sokoloff »

jakelazaroff wrote: post #313
sokoloff wrote: post #288

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, of course. I've seen that number decrease over the decades, but it's obviously not zero (and probably never will be). It's not clear that the presence of those people on the earth requires official work channels to be a political discussion free-for-all. I spend time on a fairly small number of discussion sites. Invariably, the ones with the highest signal-to-noise ratio are the ones which ban gratuitous politic…

I agree that political discussion generates more heat than light, and I agree that the company should be able to prohibit specific topics. At the same time, Basecamp’s definition of “political” is extremely broad (“every discussion remotely related to politics, advocacy, or society at large quickly spins away from pleasant”) and I don’t blame people for worrying that anodyne statements would fall under its umbrella.…

I think they are. I also don’t think they are appropriate in #official, #work, or during the meat of a work meeting, which is what it seems like Basecamp is saying.

Re: Changes at Basecamp

#332

Post by angry_octet »

reducesuffering wrote: post #253
chipotle_coyote wrote: post #191

There's a great blog entry I just read about this, "On Politics At Work". I think the author effectively hits on a real problem with a lot of these discussions. https://json.blog/2021/04/26/on-politics-at.html To some folks, "politics at work" means "endless battle royale political debates among coworkers in a Slack all day long; why wouldn't you be against that? But to others, "politics at work" means "are we paying…

> But to others, "politics at work" means "are we paying women and men the same for doing the same job?" and "are our recruiting practices leading to a non-diverse workforce and missing out on great people who should work here?" and "what problems does our company sole, and for whom?". These are really important questions. Why wouldn't you want to bring them up at work? Because there is only one accepted answer. Anyo…

No doubt you would be offended and angry if your CEO instituted a policy of workplace secularism, that extended to no career progression if you were a churchgoer. Or if important people commented on how smelly you were, and everyone laughed about Mr Stinker and your funny food. Banks wouldn't lend you money for a house in the nice part of town, because they all knew you were a snollygoster and they didn't want your kind at the local school.

You'd probably be angry at their prejudices. But I'm sure you'd understand, because groupthink is bad.

Re: Changes at Basecamp

#333

Post by tyingq »

Spooky23 wrote: post #325
tyingq wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't feel like it's a strawman. I don't know the culture there, but what about: - Talking about unions, or pay equity (Might be illegal to ban either) - "Hey Jodie, my partner and I are marching in a Gay pride parade this weekend, wanna come?" (Is that political at Basecamp?) - Some ex-military employees form an informal group to welcome and mentor new employees coming out of the military. (Is that political?) - O…

The whataboutism is the precisely the issue. No actual union will encourage or allow union business on company forums, for example. If you want to talk to Jodie about marching in a parade, give her a call or message her offline. I’ve worked for employers where it is illegal to discuss politics with their systems. Honestly, it made for a great work environment... I don’t need to know or care whether you’re a Baptist m…

It's not "whataboutism". I was genuinely curious what they meant. "Political" means different things to different people. I'm also curious if it's just the forums. I don't know if they are 100% remote, all the time, etc.

Re: Changes at Basecamp

#334

Post by drewbug01 »

Magicstatic wrote: post #307
djrobstep wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You are comparing a government to a company. Indeed. Both can be run either a democratic or authoritarian fashion. "Ownership should mean absolute power" is a common belief (everywhere but particularly in the US where labor rights have never been strong), but is only one option, and more democratic forms are possible. > Peasants don't optionally sign contracts to belong to their nation. Thinking that employers "bel…

Sincere question - not meant to be inflammatory: Do you actually believe that most employees in the United States are coerced/forced to sign employment contracts, or are you simply playing devil's advocate?

It is virtually impossible to survive in the United States without employment.

I don’t think the “coercion” perspective is the most convincing argument, personally: but there really isn’t much of an alternative to employment. The fact that the US has starving children speaks to how little of a social safety net we actually have.

I guess while I wouldn’t personally use “coercion” in a debate about this stuff, it’s also somewhat of a reasonable argument when you consider the alternatives. It’s just very ... meta.

Re: Changes at Basecamp

#335

Post by analogdreams »

drewbug01 wrote: post #318
analogdreams wrote: post #292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Neither of those messages should be posted in the workplace. And I really don't understand why your sexual preferences should be known to/by your coworkers either. Having recent returned to a corporate work environment I am amazed at how much time is spent focusing on these things instead of, you know, running the business and generating shareholder value.

> And I really don't understand why your sexual preferences should be known to/by your coworkers either. Well, to be fair - when I say “my husband” that doesn’t talk about sexual preferences any more than saying “my wife.” I don’t see how that’s talking about sex, do you?

In conjunction with knowing your gender, I believe it does, or at least provides a very strong suggestion.

The point is neither should matter, and I would argue, neither should be known, in the workplace.

Re: Changes at Basecamp

#336

Post by angry_octet »

StanislavPetrov wrote: post #239
chipotle_coyote wrote: post #191

There's a great blog entry I just read about this, "On Politics At Work". I think the author effectively hits on a real problem with a lot of these discussions. https://json.blog/2021/04/26/on-politics-at.html To some folks, "politics at work" means "endless battle royale political debates among coworkers in a Slack all day long; why wouldn't you be against that? But to others, "politics at work" means "are we paying…

>But to others, "politics at work" means "are we paying women and men the same for doing the same job?" and "are our recruiting practices leading to a non-diverse workforce and missing out on great people who should work here?" and "what problems does our company sole, and for whom?". These are really important questions. Why wouldn't you want to bring them up at work? These are questions for people at work whose job…

There will now be signs in the break room:

NO GOSSIP

NO POLITICS

YOU WERE NOT HIRED TO HAVE OPINIONS OF YOU OWN

JUST CODE

Re: Changes at Basecamp

#337

Post by jakelazaroff »

sokoloff wrote: post #331
jakelazaroff wrote: post #313

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree that political discussion generates more heat than light, and I agree that the company should be able to prohibit specific topics. At the same time, Basecamp’s definition of “political” is extremely broad (“every discussion remotely related to politics, advocacy, or society at large quickly spins away from pleasant”) and I don’t blame people for worrying that anodyne statements would fall under its umbrella.…

I think they are. I also don’t think they are appropriate in #official, #work, or during the meat of a work meeting, which is what it seems like Basecamp is saying.

I think they are, too. But I also think Basecamp’s wording (especially before they changed it [1]) leaves a ton of room for interpretation. And I’m not confident that many of them people who jumped in to defend this would be on the same page as us.

[1] https://twitter.com/waxpancake/status/1386810666221150210?s=...

Re: Changes at Basecamp

#338

Post by drewbug01 »

analogdreams wrote: post #335
drewbug01 wrote: post #318

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And I really don't understand why your sexual preferences should be known to/by your coworkers either. Well, to be fair - when I say “my husband” that doesn’t talk about sexual preferences any more than saying “my wife.” I don’t see how that’s talking about sex, do you?

In conjunction with knowing your gender, I believe it does, or at least provides a very strong suggestion. The point is neither should matter, and I would argue, neither should be known, in the workplace.

I mean, anonymous handles and no in-person (or zoom) chat might make that sorta possible, but you can’t get around the problem.

The real issue is that this is only a problem in one direction: nobody complains when someone says “my wife,” and some people definitely complain when someone says “my husband”.

It definitely gets made about sex, and gay sex specifically, by the people making the complaint. They’re the ones making it about sex and not leaving it alone as a conversation about one’s spouse.

Re: Changes at Basecamp

#339

Post by tcbasche »

Interesting; working at a company with a fairly high degree of psychological safety there is almost no heavy political fighting on Slack or other communication channels (except for the odd comment here or there). There is a high degree of focus on completing actual work and a level of professional behaviour that arguments like these would be very out of place. This is probably due to the size of the org; maybe with more people there would be higher levels of discussion overall and therefore more political chitchat; but I couldn't see it devolving into the bowels of Twitter...

I feel like a productive and healthy work culture basically eliminates the toxic discourse that can run rampant on Slack (I've seen it before; it led to the organisation banning Slack entirely!) and by having a safe workplace you wouldn't even need to mandate the removal of political or societal discussion.

To me this signals that there is a wider problem within the organisation and I'm not sure banning anything will change it.

Re: Changes at Basecamp

#340

Post by sidlls »

angry_octet wrote: post #332
reducesuffering wrote: post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But to others, "politics at work" means "are we paying women and men the same for doing the same job?" and "are our recruiting practices leading to a non-diverse workforce and missing out on great people who should work here?" and "what problems does our company sole, and for whom?". These are really important questions. Why wouldn't you want to bring them up at work? Because there is only one accepted answer. Anyo…

No doubt you would be offended and angry if your CEO instituted a policy of workplace secularism, that extended to no career progression if you were a churchgoer. Or if important people commented on how smelly you were, and everyone laughed about Mr Stinker and your funny food. Banks wouldn't lend you money for a house in the nice part of town, because they all knew you were a snollygoster and they didn't want your k…

One can object to a proposed solution to a problem without contributing to the problem or being part of the problem.

Opposing the explicit carve out of 25% of a recruiting pipeline specifically for HBCU candidates, for example, does not imply one is racist.

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