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Rod Vagg's statement on the request to be removed from the Node.js CTC

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Re: Rod Vagg's statement on the request to be removed from the Node.js CTC

#61

Post by bhouston »

Too much drama and polemics. My god he spent a lot of time on that response -- like hours.

If you are writing long emails dealing with responses to drama, you need to move on. Not because you are at fault but the whole situation is screwed up and not worth your time. This is not a win-win situation, but an everyone lose situation.

It means you and others are in the muck. Once you get a bunch of these accusations and long polemical post flying around it is nearly impossible to figure out who is right and who is wrong. The way people try to win here is ultra long polemical posts, secret discussions, accusations, character assassinations, etc. Non of which is at all productive.

Being in the muck is a huge waste of time and energy for everyone. Find something that doesn't involve so much drama, life is short.

I think one rule in software development is that once you are engaging in polemics, especially many hours of it per day, and not technical matters, something is sick about the situation -- get out of it.

Re: Rod Vagg's statement on the request to be removed from the Node.js CTC

#62

Post by retox »

adamrezich wrote: post #25
andrewguenther wrote: post #23

> I have submitted myself to our Code of Conduct as a participant in this project. I have been involved in the application of our Code of Conduct. But I do not accept it as a sacred text that is above critique or even discussion. This, to me, is one of the most important lines of his response. I feel like critiques of CoCs and other related documents and processes coming from a white male are often interpreted as hos…

> I feel like critiques of CoCs and other related documents and processes coming from a white male are often interpreted as hostile. At what point do we stop ignoring this inconvenient truth?

If you want to be taken seriously by these troublemaking outrage addicts as a while male, you need to get a weird haircut and to dye your hair a few different colors. Chunky glasses are a plus.

Re: Rod Vagg's statement on the request to be removed from the Node.js CTC

#63

Post by geofft »

GenericsMotors wrote: post #55
geofft wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Eh, my personal reaction was that I was significantly more sympathetic to him after reading his writeup, so I was wondering if that's actually evidence-based or just emotion-based.

Please follow up on what was the supposed evidence against him and you will see his response was reasonable.

Oh yeah - his response was definitely reasonable if the facts are that the supposed evidence against him was trumped up and he's in the right.

I'm just trying to figure out if his response is also what I'd expect to see if the facts are that the supposed evidence against him is completely accurate and that he's a toxic contributor who's trying to hurt the project.

Re: Rod Vagg's statement on the request to be removed from the Node.js CTC

#64

Post by [deleted] »

wakeywakeywakey wrote: post #4

Having reviewed the relevant tweets/GitHub issues/blog posts, I feel most of the noise is generated by people who make it their mission to find things about which to be outraged. The NodeJS brand has the momentum necessary to build great things. If they squander it by cry-wolf-forking every time there is an internal disagreement, another JS engine (e.g. Chakra) will take the helm.

[deleted]

Re: Rod Vagg's statement on the request to be removed from the Node.js CTC

#65

Post by orless »

sulam wrote: post #59
orless wrote: post #50

What I'm completely missing in this discussion of Code of Conduct violation is a specific list of which actions violated which clauses in this Code of Conduct. I see a list of complaints, but for an outsider it is really hard to follow why these actions are considered to be CoC violations. Take this, for instance: "In [moderation repository discussion], Rod’s first action was to apologize to a contributor who had bee…

This as least is something I can understand (and it seems he understands it too, as he apologized for it). When you're not involved in a discussion, are in a leadership position, and apologize to someone for the outcome of the discussion, you are undercutting the authority of the people involved in that discussion, the decision they made, and the entire organizational process that produced the decision.

Yes I get it that he may have stepped over other moderators, I can understand this. But how is that in violation with Code of Conduct, exactly? Just don't say it is "Other conduct which could reasonably be considered inappropriate in a professional setting".

https://github.com/nodejs/TSC/blob/master/CODE_OF_CONDUCT.md

Re: Rod Vagg's statement on the request to be removed from the Node.js CTC

#66

Post by whipoodle »

dmitrygr wrote: post #49

He is clear, logical, and reasonable. Poor guy, they will eat him alive.

Oh stop. "They" who? There was already a vote to remove him and the motion was rejected. He has clearly declined to back down in the matter (I don't mean this negatively, I just mean he's not folding). Somehow I suspect he will be just fine.

Re: Rod Vagg's statement on the request to be removed from the Node.js CTC

#67

Post by rdtsc »

It was pretty hard to discern what happened. A lot of text and veiled insinuations. He is how far I got:

It was this article tweeted by Rod:

http://quillette.com/2017/07/18/neurodiversity-case-free-spe...

Which was noticed by a member of the community:

https://twitter.com/captainsafia/status/887782785221615618

Does that describe it? Maybe someone has a more clear summary

One thing I noticed is that Node.js community seems to be followed by drama. Maybe it's just something I misunderstood, but I have observed Python, Erlang, Elixir, other communities around specific projects and libraries and I just don't see these many scandals there. In fact at one point when I reject Node.js as viable platform, the community scandals and seeming immaturity was one of top factors. What is it about this community that seems to attract this kind of behavior? And note I am not taking any sides in this case, as it is not clear what happened, it is just it looks messy to an outside developer looking in.

Re: Rod Vagg's statement on the request to be removed from the Node.js CTC

#68

Post by zbentley »

Possibly off-topic: this is why GitHub, and GitLab, are both problematic platforms for online collaboration and community-building.

There was once a list of grievances against this person here https://github.com/nodejs/TSC/issues/310. That list is no longer present; it has been redacted, and a reason for that redaction has been posted.

As someone who has zero context for this issue, this makes it very hard for me to understand.

This redaction is not something that can happen easily with source code. Comments and other "metadata" can be edited, permanently and without a view into history. That makes it very hard to trace the genealogy of discussions.

Sure, you can rewrite git history and push, but that's a) less durable, because someone might have a fork/copy of the repo, and b) much less common by convention.

I really don't like the tendency of GitHub/GitLab as platforms to encourage the "facebook style" of content authorship (what you posted is what you posted . . . until someone edits, it, then it never was that in the eyes of recent arrivals).

Edit: I will probably accidentally type markdown into HN comments until the day I die.

Re: Rod Vagg's statement on the request to be removed from the Node.js CTC

#69

Post by nogbit »

chis wrote: post #20

It's insane that we might reach a point where people install different branches of a project based on their political leanings... I think the main takeaway here is that a Code of Conduct, while valuable, has to be treated carefully. A lot of these projects agreed to a Code of Conduct just to appease a certain faction of their devs, and are now seeing that it can be used against them.

Yes, and where does one draw the line? Maybe one day the city of Seattle is forced to be renamed because Chief Seattle (of which the city is named after) was actually a slave owner himself.
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