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Open Letter to the Emacs Maintainers

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Re: Open Letter to the Emacs Maintainers

#41

Post by pnathan »

616c wrote: post #36
pnathan wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I am on the tail end of Linux/FLOSS culture, where a lot of people want more tooling and less learning To be honest, the 'less tooling, more learning' is exactly why I prefer the GNU culture. It keeps inessential complexity down. A lot of people are broadly in my side of the boat, and it's a major part of why we're here...

Some of us need tooling because we do not even know what to learn, or where to start. Again, this on me. I listened to Wiegley talk, and wanted to get involved. I looked into one weekend, but did not follow up. I need to stay committed. I like the history and culture of GNU as an outsider, and this is why I wanted to get more involved in Emacs.

Ask questions, read docs, hang out in IRC rooms. Some folks are on Twitter too. :-o

edit: Most of the floss world respects people who take the time to learn something before asking questions. So long as you dig about and frame an intelligent question backed by openly available information (did you RTFM :) ), the people worth respecting aren't going to trash you. I don't contribute to emacs myself, it does pretty much everything I could ever need. I would be happy to help you with floss norms and so forth... contact info in my profile. :-)

Re: Open Letter to the Emacs Maintainers

#42

Post by mixedCase »

sanswork wrote: post #27
cariaso wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He's quite sincere, and there are others of us who agree. Codes of conduct are a flavor of the month, and they don't achieve anything. I don't need to pre-announce that I will not accept patches from murderers or pedophiles, I can simply do it. The same is true for the types of offenses typical of a code of conduct. Perhaps it is generational, and the new guard will eventually win this battle one funeral at a time. B…

>Codes of conduct are a flavor of the month, and they don't achieve anything In other words you've never felt harassed. That's a good thing but it doesn't mean your situation is all encompassing. >The same is true for the types of offenses typical of a code of conduct. Also a good thing. How many times have you rejected a patch because someone was harassing another member of your community?

He says "Codes of conduct" don't work and your response is this?:

>In other words you've never felt harassed.

Do you fail to see the problem here?

>Also a good thing. How many times have you rejected a patch because someone was harassing another member of your community?

Does one need a written down, politically charged, potentially divisive document in legalese to say "I don't want to share my toys with the class bully"?

Re: Open Letter to the Emacs Maintainers

#43

Post by ciupicri »

xenadu02 wrote: post #15
marssaxman wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Regarding the "code of conduct" fad/trend, I don't understand where it came from or what problem it's trying to solve. I suspect that I might be sympathetic to their goals, if the "code of conduct" people did a better job of explaining them, but they just seem to take the necessity of this practice for granted. I therefore assume that the cultural conversation which produced the idea must have taken place in some ven…

Are you serious or arguing insincerely? I can't tell. Codes of conduct are a direct response to ongoing harassment and stalking against various contributors of various open-source projects, followed by inaction on the part of the project maintainers or the excuse of "that just can't handle criticism". What is so offensive about saying "make it about the code, not about the person" and "don't stalk, dox, or harass peo…

What's so bad about a code reviewer which starts sending you dick pics compared to a code reviewer which starts sending you cat pics? They're both a waste of time.

Re: Open Letter to the Emacs Maintainers

#44

Post by ofbriggs »

wtbob wrote: post #40
xenadu02 wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you serious or arguing insincerely? I can't tell. Codes of conduct are a direct response to ongoing harassment and stalking against various contributors of various open-source projects, followed by inaction on the part of the project maintainers or the excuse of "that just can't handle criticism". What is so offensive about saying "make it about the code, not about the person" and "don't stalk, dox, or harass peo…

> A code of conduct is a signal that juvenile behavior won't be tolerated Hardly: a code of conduct is juvenile behaviour. It's like when I was a little kid and drafted a huge constitution for my amazing awesome cool club — that was just me. Adults don't need to write down a code of conduct, because they adhere to an unwritten code of conduct. Children whinge, 'you shouldn't do that, because this says not to!'; adult…

> Adults don't need to write down a code of conduct, because they adhere to an unwritten code of conduct. Children whinge, 'you shouldn't do that, because this says not to!'; adults don't do that, because they know that they oughtn't — and they refrain from associating with others who do. Children want their clique to gang up on the people they don't like; adults simply walk away from those people.

Because no adult has ever harassed another in a programming community? I would love it if everyone behaved politely and courteously, however this is not currently what is happening in some projects. Having a CoC is merely a preventative measure to curb bad behavior for those who can't self-police.

Re: Open Letter to the Emacs Maintainers

#45

Post by mwfunk »

wtbob wrote: post #40
xenadu02 wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you serious or arguing insincerely? I can't tell. Codes of conduct are a direct response to ongoing harassment and stalking against various contributors of various open-source projects, followed by inaction on the part of the project maintainers or the excuse of "that just can't handle criticism". What is so offensive about saying "make it about the code, not about the person" and "don't stalk, dox, or harass peo…

> A code of conduct is a signal that juvenile behavior won't be tolerated Hardly: a code of conduct is juvenile behaviour. It's like when I was a little kid and drafted a huge constitution for my amazing awesome cool club — that was just me. Adults don't need to write down a code of conduct, because they adhere to an unwritten code of conduct. Children whinge, 'you shouldn't do that, because this says not to!'; adult…

I agree that that's how it ought to be; I strongly disagree that that's how it is. Plenty of people are physically adults; a subset of those people are mentally adults. This is even worse in the world of tech forums and open source projects than it is in the world at large.

FWIW, I have yet to see a code of conduct that really says anything beyond "don't be a jerk, and act like a grownup". It might be silly if it also told me how to dress on Tuesdays and who to vote for, but in reality they rarely or never say anything beyond "don't be a jerk, and act like a grownup." I also have no problem with someone else reminding me of that, because I have to remind myself of that all the time. I don't know why anyone would be offended by such a thing.

Re: Open Letter to the Emacs Maintainers

#46

Post by jcoffland »

MichaelGG wrote: post #32
xenadu02 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's the exact opposite of the intention of a Code of Conduct. Can you point out exactly what isnt welcoming about rules like "no racism" or "criticize code, not people"? Do you have a burning desire to call people "honkey" in code reviews? Can't live without calling people stupid for being old/young? Is being prohibited from stalking other contributors so you can call their workplace and get them in trouble a huge…

GitHub code of conduct actually is in favor of racism, if you're in the wrong group. Ditto for sexism. "We will not act on complaints regarding ‘reverse’ -isms, including ‘reverse racism,’ ‘reverse sexism,’" That they even use the term "reverse racism" is telling. This is from a company that, in internal training, has anti-white material. "This is not work for white people", "biggest barriers to progress are white wo…

Those quotes are inexcusable but are from a talk given by the presenter prior to her working with Github.

Re: Open Letter to the Emacs Maintainers

#47

Post by jcoffland »

marssaxman wrote: post #11
falcolas wrote: post #2

> the vast majority of modern software developers do not want to use email as their communication channel Wait. What? I must be old school then, with my ~12 years of experience, because I think email is much more approachable than some of the modern communication methods. I create text and send it in an email. I get an email back. Repeat until complete. Or do people really think it's better to go out and sign up for…

Regarding the "code of conduct" fad/trend, I don't understand where it came from or what problem it's trying to solve. I suspect that I might be sympathetic to their goals, if the "code of conduct" people did a better job of explaining them, but they just seem to take the necessity of this practice for granted. I therefore assume that the cultural conversation which produced the idea must have taken place in some ven…

The best CoC is simply DBAD.

Re: Open Letter to the Emacs Maintainers

#48

Post by 616c »

pnathan wrote: post #41
616c wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some of us need tooling because we do not even know what to learn, or where to start. Again, this on me. I listened to Wiegley talk, and wanted to get involved. I looked into one weekend, but did not follow up. I need to stay committed. I like the history and culture of GNU as an outsider, and this is why I wanted to get more involved in Emacs.

Ask questions, read docs, hang out in IRC rooms. Some folks are on Twitter too. :-o edit: Most of the floss world respects people who take the time to learn something before asking questions. So long as you dig about and frame an intelligent question backed by openly available information (did you RTFM :) ), the people worth respecting aren't going to trash you. I don't contribute to emacs myself, it does pretty much…

I have been lazy, but I am trying to figure out how to set up an IRC bouncer for different respective projects specifically with this in mind.

I already emailed you. Thanks for the encouragement.

Re: Open Letter to the Emacs Maintainers

#49

Post by drivingmenuts »

ciupicri wrote: post #43
xenadu02 wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you serious or arguing insincerely? I can't tell. Codes of conduct are a direct response to ongoing harassment and stalking against various contributors of various open-source projects, followed by inaction on the part of the project maintainers or the excuse of "that just can't handle criticism". What is so offensive about saying "make it about the code, not about the person" and "don't stalk, dox, or harass peo…

What's so bad about a code reviewer which starts sending you dick pics compared to a code reviewer which starts sending you cat pics? They're both a waste of time.

While one might be an annoying waste of your time, the other is not only annoying, but quite possibly illegal as well.

I leave it to you to figure out which is which.

Re: Open Letter to the Emacs Maintainers

#50

Post by marssaxman »

mwfunk wrote: post #45
wtbob wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A code of conduct is a signal that juvenile behavior won't be tolerated Hardly: a code of conduct is juvenile behaviour. It's like when I was a little kid and drafted a huge constitution for my amazing awesome cool club — that was just me. Adults don't need to write down a code of conduct, because they adhere to an unwritten code of conduct. Children whinge, 'you shouldn't do that, because this says not to!'; adult…

I agree that that's how it ought to be; I strongly disagree that that's how it is. Plenty of people are physically adults; a subset of those people are mentally adults. This is even worse in the world of tech forums and open source projects than it is in the world at large. FWIW, I have yet to see a code of conduct that really says anything beyond "don't be a jerk, and act like a grownup". It might be silly if it als…

I suppose that's part of the reason I've had trouble understanding this phenomenon: the couple of "code of conduct" documents I've read have seemed so inoffensively obvious that it is hard to understand why such a document would be necessary, much less why it would be controversial. It alarms me that people care so much about them that merely expressing confusion about the purpose or utility of such a document acts as an invitation for criticism, and it reinforces my perception that these are not my people, arguing about something that doesn't concern me, and I don't want to get involved. I suspect that this is not what the people promoting codes of conduct are actually trying to do. I'm mentioning it in hopes that becoming aware that the harsh moralistic approach is alienating people who might otherwise support their project will help them do a better job, because it sounds like the overall effort is worthwhile.
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