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Gitlab: don't discuss politics at work

theregister.co.uk

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Re: Gitlab: don't discuss politics at work

#681

Post by zamalek »

z3phyr wrote: post #561
zamalek wrote: post #548

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll openly admit that I don't have an answer for the deeper issue here (Gitlab selling software to evil customers), in terms of specifically politics: I don't think politics should be discussed at workplaces that do not participate in political systems in an official capacity (lobbying, PACs etc.). If your employer engages in politics, then that should be an allowed topic and/or other accommodations should be made f…

Every voter (and non voter) is participating in a political system by choosing to vote (and not vote!). Those who got democracy also got all the responsibility with it. Those in a democratic system who do not engage in politics are bad citizens.

Which portion of my comments suggests nonparticipation in government by citizens? It suggests exactly the opposite.

Re: Gitlab: don't discuss politics at work

#682

Post by zarkov99 »

codeafin wrote: post #624
amoitnga wrote: post #605

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's my 2c. Why do you need to discuss anything at all? Work is where I work. I'm being paid for my time and professional expertise, not my opinion on anything else. I don't get why would I be allowed to spend that time on conversations not related to work. Being allowed to have some short talk, maybe discuss something quickly, like a game last night or something, is and should be more of a nicety. Nobody gonna sto…

>So banning conversations is reasonable imo I think that's a very sad thing to say. Say conversation is banned but "small talk" is allowed, where's the line between that? And like the guy above said, there's also no line on what's political - even talking about a video game like you said can be political. So in the end, I believe that would end up with people just avoiding talking to each other at all, to avoid any c…

It is sad indeed, that we lost the ability to discuss difficult issues. But it is true nonetheless, it is impossible to discuss politics unless we all pretend to be on the same page, and yes, in tech for the most part that is the left page. Silence makes for a dull workplace, but it is better than living in abject hypocrisy.

Re: Gitlab: don't discuss politics at work

#683

Post by p4bl0 »

journalctl wrote: post #419
p4bl0 wrote: post #360

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's one part of it. The part were employee cannot discuss politics at work is very problematic however. What about unionizing?

It is ostensibly illegal to prevent employees from unionizing in the United States.

Then the requirement to not discuss politics at work must be illegal too.

Re: Gitlab: don't discuss politics at work

#684

Post by TeMPOraL »

wonnage wrote: post #602
unscrupulous_sw wrote: post #560

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just to chime in, I also unknowingly got myself labeled sexist when the topic came up during a random lunch with "friends" (company provided lunch so it had random people from HR and recruiting). Somehow or another the topic of whether going for 50/50 will "lower the bar". So I started thinking about the problem mathematically like any engineer would, with statistical distributions and estimates of the existing pipel…

You can't use statistics without a model. The problem is that you have a shitty model and it's annoying when you keep parroting it like you're so logical. Your model as inferred from this comment is that there's some way to quantify the current applicants, and that applicants below a certain value are always rejected. The remaining applicants are "above the bar" and could be hired. The current "above the bar" group i…

> Mundane factors like whether or not the interview is after lunch have a major impact on pass rates.

[citation needed]

If this is just inferred based on that observation about judges and meal breaks, then keep in mind that this is just a factoid, and a one that fails the sniff test. C.f. http://nautil.us/blog/impossibly-hungry-judges.

Re: Gitlab: don't discuss politics at work

#685

Post by fzeroracer »

SpicyLemonZest wrote: post #113
dvt wrote: post #21

GitLab are being hypocritical[1][2]. Let's not pretend the "women in tech" and LGBT movements aren't political. Frankly, I think more women in tech and LGBT representation are probably good things, but GitLab is being profoundly disingenuous with their guidelines. To clarify my point: if you open the gates to the marketplace of ideas, make sure it's an actual marketplace . [1] https://about.gitlab.com/blog/2018/10/08…

I think it's fair to call women in tech initiatives nonpolitical. There's no significant political opposition to them; things like the INSPIRE Women Act (the women in tech initiative for NASA) regularly get passed with no real debate.

If it was non-political, then you would expect to see no debates on the issue. Given that there was a post here on HN [1] about an initiative for women devolving into flamebait and arguments about reverse sexism, I think one cannot say it's non-political. As most things are political.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19464269

Re: Gitlab: don't discuss politics at work

#686

Post by xiphias2 »

jyrkesh wrote: post #430
Mvandenbergh wrote: post #334

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem with at least Facebook and Twitter (and possibly Google) in this analysis is that their attention-grabbing model requires them to analyse and interfere with the data which is coming through their systems. The only way not to do that would be for FB timelines and Twitter feeds to be strictly sequential feeds which at some point in the past they may have been but they are not now. Once you start basing your…

Exactly. At face value, I'm firmly in favor of what Ravikant was saying, but even the simple example of a spam filter proves how it's impossible in practice: without basic spam filtering, something like Twitter would be absolutely unusable in the face of endless crypto and malware spam. At some level, Twitter/FB/et al have to do SOMETHING to shape/filter the volume of traffic they receive.

At Google the top metric used to be relevance for a long time (until Amit Singhal was kicked out) for a good reason: it's a metric that kicks out spam, but doesn't pick sides.

Times and leadership has changed since though.

Re: Gitlab: don't discuss politics at work

#687

Post by bmc7505 »

jyrkesh wrote: post #430
Mvandenbergh wrote: post #334

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem with at least Facebook and Twitter (and possibly Google) in this analysis is that their attention-grabbing model requires them to analyse and interfere with the data which is coming through their systems. The only way not to do that would be for FB timelines and Twitter feeds to be strictly sequential feeds which at some point in the past they may have been but they are not now. Once you start basing your…

Exactly. At face value, I'm firmly in favor of what Ravikant was saying, but even the simple example of a spam filter proves how it's impossible in practice: without basic spam filtering, something like Twitter would be absolutely unusable in the face of endless crypto and malware spam. At some level, Twitter/FB/et al have to do SOMETHING to shape/filter the volume of traffic they receive.

> without basic spam filtering, something like Twitter would be absolutely unusable in the face of endless crypto and malware spam

I don't understand this argument at all. Is it so difficult for users to curate the list of accounts they follow?

Re: Gitlab: don't discuss politics at work

#688

Post by keerthiko »

wolco wrote: post #649
Gunax wrote: post #512

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Refusing to serve a customer when you disagree with that customer's goal is pretty far from being a "moral arbiter for society." Keep in mind that anyone is free to use other services (or roll their own) and gitlab can't do anything about that. Neither would it be overreaching for the workers building that product to request a say in how it's used. I think this is the crux of the issue. Anyone is of course free to…

I didn't realize facebooi owned 90%. If you exclude twitter/reddit what's left snapchat?

I'd guess mostly WeChat/Alibaba/TikTok, and a few tiny players that ebb and flow in impact.

Re: Gitlab: don't discuss politics at work

#689

Post by sgarman »

pdonis wrote: post #205
eric_b wrote: post #32

I personally have no problem with them making this decision. I wish more companies would take stands like this. At least it's honest. Unlike the NBA and every other company with value statements they honor only when convenient or advantageous. Look, if you morally object to this, then don't use GitLab. If you think businesses should be held to a higher ethical standard than they are currently, get active with local o…

> If you think businesses should be held to a higher ethical standard than they are currently, get active with local or even national politics. Start a letter writing campaign to your elected officials. Do something productive. I would say the productive thing to do would be to start your own business that holds itself to a higher ethical standard, and then out-compete the other businesses.

Sadly sometimes I think having lower ethical standards gives an edge during competition.

Re: Gitlab: don't discuss politics at work

#690

Post by TeMPOraL »

slg wrote: post #601
legostormtroopr wrote: post #465

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We can’t improve without discussion, and it’s unfortunate that these type of issues are so divisive. Except Cancel Culture is making it that these can't be discussed without complete agreement. Take for example, "Women in Tech", personally I don't see underrepresentation of women in tech as a problem that can be or should be 'solved'. For the better part of 15 years, there has been a massive movement to encourage w…

>personally I don't see underrepresentation of women in tech as a problem that can be or should be 'solved' I say the below not as an attempt to criticize you for this viewpoint, but as a way to try to explain why this viewpoint is often interpreted as sexist. The question is why do you believe this? The possible explanations for why women are underrepresented in tech basically comes down to either nature or nurture.…

> Do you see how that could easily be interpreted as sexist? It doesn't take much of a leap for people to hear the non-sexist "woman don't do this" as the sexist "women can't do this". You need to be able to articulate why you belong in that first camp or else everyone will just write you off as being in the second.

Here you've identified the actual problem, which is people hearing "don't do this" as "can't do this". I.e. people failing to apply their brains to a basic comprehension task. If we're to levy accusations of "-ism", then I'd call promoting this behavior as anti-intellectualism, or being pro-stupidity.

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