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

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

#391

Post by omegaham »

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?

Personally, it's because it's not worth my time. Why should I have any sort of dialogue with such people when it's not going to be productive and will provoke a massive amount of vitriol? At best, it's unproductive, and at worst it's career-ruining.

I think that most people think the same way, and as a result there are absolutely no consequences when the activists go from "challenging" to "outright hateful."

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

#392

Post by angersock »

alextgordon wrote: post #351
Laaw wrote: post #313

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm okay with it, because I can get a job elsewhere. Some minorities can't. I don't need to be able to get a job at GitHub, because for some stupid reason, society has a general bias in favor of me. I can work anywhere, but the folks they're giving a shot are folks who don't have it as good as I do.

What a load of tosh. Are there no disadvantaged people in America with light coloured skin?

Poor and middle class white people are a figment of your imagination. West Virginia basically is Narnia.

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

#393

Post by malandrew »

mjbh7k wrote: post #210
Absentinsomniac wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OK, but like 63% of the U.S consists of whites. If it were an even distribution it would be disproportionate. Whites are somewhat over represented based on your numbers, but not as much as you seem to imply.

Sure, but we're talking about white women, which make up about 33% of the population of the US. Are you arguing that it's ok that 79% of the publishing industry is white and 78% is female?

It's not necessarily okay or not okay. You first need to determine what you believe the correct percentage to be and justify why you believe that that percentage is "correct" or "okay".

I'm inclined to believe that there is no correct percentage and that even trying to simplify as you have is disingenuous and leads to simple but wrong explanations that ignore all sorts of contributory factors.

I'm a cis-male that identifies as agender, but I haven't seen any evidence that I'm under-represented in the publishing industry because my gender is discriminated against. That's an extraordinary claim and requires extraordinary evidence.

Furthermore, I'm curious to hear your thoughts on base rates and how they contribute to measurements of diversity?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Base_rate

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Base_rate_fallacy

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

#394

Post by tajen »

jcoffland wrote: post #114
victor9000 wrote: post #72

> While their efforts are admirable it is very hard to even interview people who are 'white' which makes things challenging How is this even legal? Change 'white' for any other race, and you'd have yourself a workplace discrimination lawsuit.

Well, you have to remember that this statement is the opinion of one anonymous employee. Some of the other more blatant racial statements are much more worrying.

A lawsuit would be nice to confirm that 1. This is not legal, then 2. Confirm that it's the role of GitHub to get rid of such employees, 3. Have it happen regularly at GitHub for both racist and revert-racist attitudes, until clean, 4. and in the IT sector in general.

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

#395

Post by im2w1l »

mercurial wrote: post #357
fweespeech wrote: post #333

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Given they are publicly singling out white women, I'm not really sure that is true. You shouldn't be generalizing on race if you want me to believe that.

So, as far as I'm aware, there is "racism-as-defined-in-some-academic-circles", where it's only racism when it's systematic and directed by a privileged ethnic group against an unprivileged ethnic group. Which is (IMHO) different from what non-academic people understand racism. Maybe that's what parent means?

Yes, it's clear that some parts of academia has people with really suspicious agendas.

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

#396

Post by FussyZeus »

scrollaway wrote: post #362
TheLogothete wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So yeah... github just lost an enterprise customer. And I will be making sure they will lose more.

For an excellent alternative, consider Gitlab: https://about.gitlab.com/ They have enterprise services, or can be self-hosted.

We use a self hosted gitlab instance, it's the best thing we've done since I've worked there. Incredibly useful.

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

#397

Post by DanBC »

untog wrote: post #390
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…

- "This is not work for white folks to lead" This one I actually don't think is so bad, in context. The title of the slide is "Diversity and Inclusion in Tech". It is difficult for someone that is not part of a minority to spearhead efforts to outreach to one, because they don't experience the same issues. Literally, they don't have the right experience for the job. It's a stretch as a comparison, but no-one gets sue…

A middle age white man could be gay. Or have one leg. Or have psychosis. Or be a Muslim.

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

#398

Post by angersock »

eghad wrote: post #347
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…

Perhaps you should actually take some time and read the article? This was given at a presentation not aligned with Github (so this isn't an official policy as you and others are making it out as). Further, its context is obviously needed to limit all of this specious extrapolation on how this is a contribution to the current shifts at Github; I'm impressed so many have been so easily taken in by this blogspam.

This is the brave new world we're living in.

If people can get thrown out of conferences for their tweets on unrelated things, if Eich can get in hot water over a political donation, then it is little surprise to see the knife cutting both ways.

You wouldn't forgive a developer for speaking at an MRA conference--why should these people be forgiven for unrelated presentations?

This is the future you chose.

EDIT:

Downvote all you want. This is the kind of goodthink/badthink politicking that happens once you move away from "Does the code work?"

The thing being complained about by my parent poster here is completely consistent with the social norms that have prevailed lately. I would say don't be surprised at the sudden double-standard, but logic apparently isn't the strong point of the mobs.

We've spent so much time lately attacking meritocracies that it is somewhat cathartic to watch the inevitable consequences.

EDIT2:

Just to make this painfully clear--we have decided as a community that it is okay to judge people based on their actions in unrelated contexts. That applies just as much to folks that have slides about "white women being obstacles" in some unrelated context to their work in HR as it does to people that tweet bigoted things while being maintainers of projects.

The logic and principle is exactly the same.

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

#399

Post by scrollaway »

dang wrote: post #380
scrollaway wrote: post #327

Earlier quoted context omitted.

specialk's comment thread went haywire, not this one. yaakov34's comment is a reply to the GP and very much on the same topic. Can you reconsider?

I'm happy to be wrong about this but here's why I snipped the thread where I did: (1) "some of the biggest barriers to progress" does not at all "explicitly exclude"; (2) it's not at all "obvious" that she "sees white people as enemies and doesn't want them as allies"—that's projection, filling in a lot of blanks based on assumptions; (3) the bit about "white people dying off" is hauling in a big barrel of off-topic…

I think all your points are correct but they'd be better suited as a reply, rather than as mod action.

I don't see a personal attack anywhere and, in fact, user themselves mentions below they avoided mentioning anyone by name because this is about more than this one particular person.

Won't be fighting this, though - if you think it's better this way, so be it.

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

#400

Post by untog »

DanBC wrote: post #397
untog wrote: post #390

Earlier quoted context omitted.

- "This is not work for white folks to lead" This one I actually don't think is so bad, in context. The title of the slide is "Diversity and Inclusion in Tech". It is difficult for someone that is not part of a minority to spearhead efforts to outreach to one, because they don't experience the same issues. Literally, they don't have the right experience for the job. It's a stretch as a comparison, but no-one gets sue…

A middle age white man could be gay. Or have one leg. Or have psychosis. Or be a Muslim.

Yes, sorry, I just edited my comment to address that. I wonder whether the point was expanded upon in the actual presentation to address that or not - bullet points on slides are usually "launching off points".
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