Antisocial Coding: My Year at GitHub • Hacker News Board

Re: Antisocial Coding: My Year at GitHub

#511

Post by andkon » Thu, Jul 06, 2017, 5:17 PM UTC

romanovcode wrote: post #400

throwaway8800 wrote: post #128

There's a couple of issues that stand out to me: Github is engaging in risky behaviour by reaching out to individuals (specifically activists) for hire explicitly on the basis of "diversity" and trying to incorporate those individuals in a highly merit-based environment. Secondly, Coraline seems to think that human relationships are a one way street: that she is entitled to be direct and even confrontational or insen…

> Github is engaging in risky behaviour by reaching out to individuals (specifically activists) for hire explicitly on the basis of "diversity" and trying to incorporate those individuals in a highly merit-based environment. This is the main issue right there. If anyone is reading this and wants to have a lot of HR/PR related problems in his/her company - start doing this and problems will pile up.

The sum of "problems" she brought was that she was direct in her feedback (surely that doesn't matter to a merit-based company?).

If that's all it takes for your company to come crumbling down, then good riddance.

Re: Antisocial Coding: My Year at GitHub

#512

Post by thehardsphere » Thu, Jul 06, 2017, 5:25 PM UTC

hiyou102 wrote: post #465

hasenj wrote: post #461

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Really? "Look, someone else wrote a post about leaving github and it wasn't received as negatively! It must because one was a white male and the other was transgender." No. How about, the tone of the post is completely different?

One Github issue is not sufficient to gain a understanding of what it would be like work with someone. Any blanks that are being filled in here are being done by yours and others baises.This a proven effect in other cases: https://www.theatlantic.com/sexes/archive/2013/03/are-succes... So many devils advocates in this thread you'd think Github hired his law firm

Umm, people are not judging Coraline based on a single Github issue, but in her own description of how the people around her behaved and what she says she thought about it. The Opal business is entirely secondary.

It's fine if you think they have biases and you want to cite The Atlantic as some sort of proof of that, but that doesn't mean that those conclusions you don't like are automatically wrong.

Re: Antisocial Coding: My Year at GitHub

#513

Post by roywiggins » Thu, Jul 06, 2017, 5:52 PM UTC

whywhywhywhy wrote: post #325

roywiggins wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I was very disappointed at this 101 mistake, and sadly opened an issue referencing the question. The body of my issue read: > "'Transgender' is not a gender. Transgender people may be male, female, gender queer, non-binary... If you want to know if a survey respondent is transgender, you need to explicitly ask that question." She was disappointed. She explained her problem with the survey in a non-judgmental way- "…

To me you're all arguing about the wrong issue. Some data scientist made a small survey faux pas, and now they're being called out in a lengthy blogpost about how bad and un-inclusive the company was to work for. How can anyone work with this person without feeling like they're standing on eggshells? How must the woman who wrote the survey who was just doing her job feel today if she reads this?

The post would never have been written if the author of the question hadn't immediately escalated by complaining to her manager. The data scientist was not walking on eggshells- they felt perfectly justified in escalating the situation. Even the manager didn't have a problem with how she'd handled it!

I read it as an indictment of the company and its procedures. The data scientist was not even named. The bulk of the post is indicting management, HR, company culture, and insane bureaucratic nightmares designed to push someone out.

Re: Antisocial Coding: My Year at GitHub

#514

Post by rocho » Thu, Jul 06, 2017, 6:03 PM UTC

openmosix wrote: post #125

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…

Reading the full article, it strikes me how you can be "inclusive" if you are constantly highlighting the differences. The fact, for example, she dismisses PRs or code reviews because made by white males. Or the blog post on her first deliverable, rewritten by a white male. I don't see what could be the benefit to point that out in every sentence: that all of that is made in malice because of gender and race? If I ha…

> it strikes me how you can be "inclusive" if you are constantly highlighting the differences

Really, I couldn't have said it better. This is the crux of the issue.

Re: Antisocial Coding: My Year at GitHub

#515

Post by ubernostrum » Thu, Jul 06, 2017, 6:15 PM UTC

hasenj wrote: post #488

ubernostrum wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're curious, consider doing research on the subject rather than asking people to re-litigate the whole thing from first principles every time the topic comes up. It gets exhausting because most people operate from a position of "a belief that there is no significant bias/significant effect from bias is the correct default assumption unless/until someone demonstrates otherwise through overwhelming evidence". And…

Instead of complaining you could have just posted a link?

Imagine that you live in a world where there is a large, extremely loud (larger and louder than the actual world) population of young-Earth creationists.

Now, imagine that every time you say something which even tangentially mentions evolution -- let alone something where the main topic is evolution -- some of those people immediately pop up with "got sources for that?" / "gonna need a source on that" / "citation needed for that claim" / etc.

And imagine that for a while you did go to the trouble of linking up primers on the topic, but every time you did that, they just responded with non sequiturs and attempts to nitpick little details of the primers and parlay that into discrediting the entire idea of evolution.

Now, imagine you've been living in that world, every day, for years. You might well finally decide "you know what, it's not my job to pause every single time I post a comment online and have to re-prove the theory of evolution to anyone and everyone who demands it; evolution is a basic fact we shouldn't have to debate at this point, and people who genuinely want an intro to it for some reason can find one on their own".

Now, imagine that if you do make that decision, you'll be branded an asshole for "complaining" instead of just posting a link. You'll be told that these folks are "just asking for sources". Or any of a large number of other explanations which don't jive with what you see day in and day out, but if you try to explain that you'll be told you're projecting, or making it up, or arguing with a strawman, and this is a sign that you are not trustworthy (which in turn just reflects back on the theory of evolution -- after all, if this is the kind of person who stands up as its representative...).

Imagine all of that, but change the topic from the theory of evolution... to the topic of this thread. And imagine how tired everyone is of the "got a source for that?" brigade. Regardless of whether the person asking has the noblest purest intentions in the history of noble purity, we're talking about basic stuff about the society we live in and the industry we work in, and if someone is genuinely unaware of it and genuinely curious, they can use Google on their own.

Re: Antisocial Coding: My Year at GitHub

#516

Post by ubernostrum » Thu, Jul 06, 2017, 6:23 PM UTC

5thaccount wrote: post #387

ubernostrum wrote: post #361

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't just look to companies for examples -- look to sports. There are professional sports franchises who go out and just throw money at "the best" players in their leagues. And the track record of doing that is pretty mixed; it turns out that just hiring a bunch of top individuals easily loses to putting together a group of players who are each objectively "worse" but whose play as a team is superior.

That's pretty rare! Almost all great teams have great players - and the teams that don't, usually have chronically underrated players, e.g. the Pistons with Ben Wallace - one of the greatest defenders ever. HOWEVER, I will say that, rather than a great team, strategic / tactical innovation can cover for flaws. The Sydney Swans pioneered "flooding" and made a grand final with a sub-standard team. Next season though, t…

That's pretty rare! Almost all great teams have great players

You're disagreeing with something I never said.

Imagine you're a baseball GM. You decide to build a winning roster by taking an unlimited amount of money, and then identifying the statistically best left fielder, the statistically best center fielder, the statistically best right fielder, and so on through all the field positions. You also identify the five statistically best starting pitchers, etc., and sign all of them.

There are franchises which try this "just sign a bunch of superstars, they have to win because they're so good" approach, and the track record of that approach is very, very mixed. But "just sign a bunch of superstars" is basically how tech companies claim they try to hire.

Re: Antisocial Coding: My Year at GitHub

#517

Post by thehardsphere » Thu, Jul 06, 2017, 6:36 PM UTC

ubernostrum wrote: post #288

the_watcher wrote: post #271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The post asked for sources. Presumably to facilitate research. The post did not ask anyone to relitigate anything.

The thing is, at this point saying that there's discrimination and systemic bias should be about as controversial as saying that the earth orbits the sun. It's not something that should be responded to with a demand for sources, and the fact that it always is, and always devolves into people trying to shift the argument to whether there's even a problem at all (regardless of any one individual's reason for starting s…

This is a very presumptive attitude to take which is not going to convince people on the fence on this topic who don't already agree with you.

I suggest that if you want to change minds and improve the status quo, you should engage these people who you find tiresome anyway. Not to persuade them, but the third-parties who will read the discussion and could be persuaded. Or, if that's too much work, simply don't engage, if only so you don't sabotage someone else's effort to persuade.

Re: Antisocial Coding: My Year at GitHub

#518

Post by fleetingmoments » Thu, Jul 06, 2017, 6:42 PM UTC

TaizWeb wrote: post #330

>tell data scientist their poll is flawed because it only includes "transgender" instead of "transgender female" and that makes them transphobic. >data scientist is upset and tells management. >management tells you to stop being a jerk. >proceed to be toxic in all your PRs and on Slack. >management tells you to stop being a jerk. >they put you under review. >start getting emotional and say you have emotional trauma.…

I don't know, it sounded like improving GH's diversity/inclusivity was exactly the reason she was hired and so that must have seemed like an obvious place where she could contribute. And she didn't call the data scientist transphobic or made any personal remarks, she just corrected her. I'm not saying I agree with everything she did, but based on that incident I'd say the data scientist was the one who handled it poorly.

Re: Antisocial Coding: My Year at GitHub

#519

Post by ubernostrum » Thu, Jul 06, 2017, 6:54 PM UTC

thehardsphere wrote: post #517

ubernostrum wrote: post #288

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The thing is, at this point saying that there's discrimination and systemic bias should be about as controversial as saying that the earth orbits the sun. It's not something that should be responded to with a demand for sources, and the fact that it always is, and always devolves into people trying to shift the argument to whether there's even a problem at all (regardless of any one individual's reason for starting s…

This is a very presumptive attitude to take which is not going to convince people on the fence on this topic who don't already agree with you. I suggest that if you want to change minds and improve the status quo, you should engage these people who you find tiresome anyway. Not to persuade them, but the third-parties who will read the discussion and could be persuaded. Or, if that's too much work, simply don't engage…

Read this:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14712546

Re: Antisocial Coding: My Year at GitHub

#520

Post by thehardsphere » Thu, Jul 06, 2017, 6:56 PM UTC

ubernostrum wrote: post #519

thehardsphere wrote: post #517

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a very presumptive attitude to take which is not going to convince people on the fence on this topic who don't already agree with you. I suggest that if you want to change minds and improve the status quo, you should engage these people who you find tiresome anyway. Not to persuade them, but the third-parties who will read the discussion and could be persuaded. Or, if that's too much work, simply don't engage…

Read this: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14712546

I did. I don't think it's constructive to tell people to google it in that case either.