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Ben Noordhuis's Departure

blog.nodejs.org

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Re: Ben Noordhuis's Departure

#71

Post by nknighthb »

sanxiyn wrote: post #58
nknighthb wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1) Non-native speakers should know better than to pass judgement on linguistic issues without consulting others. 2) Ben rejected the change over 40 minutes after the submitter stated he had submitted a CLA.

I have issues with 1. Native speakers of English already enjoys tremendous privilege in open source world -- see antirez of Redis, another non-native speaker's take on this: http://antirez.com/news/61 -- and it should be native speakers who should be understanding of failings of non-native speakers, not the other way around. Check your privilege!

You are not addressing the subject I am addressing at all.

I am the only full-time monolingual employee of the company I work for, the only one who does not speak Mandarin, the only one whose mother tongue is English, the only one who grew up in a primarily English-speaking country, and one of maybe four who would be classified as fluent in English (and that count is probably high).

You can't imagine the things that pass through my inbox every day. I've worked for this company for years. This would be impossible were I not understanding of the failings of non-native speakers.

But when I need to correct their formal English (not often, because it only occasionally matters, since our target market is mostly Chinese), not one of my co-workers dismisses it out-of-hand. They know their limits, and immediately seek to understand what is going on, rather than ignoring the issue.

This has been my (much more limited) experience with non-native speakers from other parts of Asia and Europe, as well. Encountering a non-native speaker who does not behave this way is rare, I can think of only twice that I've personally run into it, and both times it involved people who had severe interpersonal issues well beyond language.

Re: Ben Noordhuis's Departure

#72

Post by Afforess »

tkorri wrote: post #65

In the recent weeks I've seend a few businesses make stupid statements on their websites and on social media. As a business owner I just don't understand why they're doing that. What do you achieve when you call your customer/associate/employee a(n) asshole/liar on your website? I haven't heard of Joyent before this whole thing started. And to be honest, I still don't know what they do, but I'm pretty sure I don't wa…

Agreed. From a business perspective Joylent's actions in this matter make no sense. Do they hope to gain sales from people impressed with their extreme name-calling?

I for one will not be recommending them or using their services in the future.

Re: Ben Noordhuis's Departure

#74

Post by jbigelow76 »

veemjeem wrote: post #57
[deleted] wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[deleted]

I just don't understand how a company the size of Joyent would waste time writing blog posts about pronouns in a code comment. This would be the equivalent of Microsoft blogging about some engineer's code comment in the Windows source code. Nobody cares about that stuff.

As others have pointed out in different comments, Joyent's participation in the whole affair looks like strategic maneuvering against a direct competitor. And if Ben is out at Strongloop (a co-founder of the company as well as being a Node/libuv contributor) then it worked like a charm.

To paraphrase the saying: "don't let a perfectly good crisis go to waste."

Re: Ben Noordhuis's Departure

#75

Post by tks2103 »

Zikes wrote: post #51
sneak wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, it's not. It references rape, but is not synonymous. Its current definition is roughly synonymous with "unreasonably upset".

I see, I've suggested a very simple change to a single word of your comment which would make it more inclusive to the community, but you have refused to change it and instead taken a stand of principle. I now have the choice of respecting your decision, or pressing the big red button to incite an internet mob upon you and score one for radical feminism. I'll let you know my decision shortly.

You should found a company and then not hire that guy but then write a blog post about how you would totally fire that guy.

Re: Ben Noordhuis's Departure

#76

Post by Myrmornis »

goldenkey wrote: post #16
Zikes wrote: post #9

Joyent called Ben an asshole and said they wanted to fire him over a minor grammatical preference. [1] But let's "please respect [their] wishes to let this issue rest", because it's not like we need an apology or any sort of reassurance from the company that owns a rising star of technology that we're supposed to invest our time and money in. Good luck finding a replacement. [1] http://www.joyent.com/blog/the-power-o…

Holy crap, what a read. You have to wonder... What feminist muff is he puffing? I can't stand white knighting especially when it befalls other men in armor. Ben, you've got my sympathies and support, sorry you have to hear this immature politico-feminist-fascluckery from Joyent

Agreed. Perhaps injudicious to fan the flames with a word like "muff" but I also 100% support this guy Ben Nordhuuis's response. Gender inequality is a real and important issue, but that does not mean that people writing code have to accept pull requests from busybodies piddling around with pronouns in comments.

Re: Ben Noordhuis's Departure

#77

Post by eropple »

Zikes wrote: post #43
rosser wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

if there's one thing I thought feminists had taken to heart it's "no means no". I'm a dude, and this comment seriously offends me. I'm sure you thought you were being funny or something, but I dare you to make that kind of quip to a woman's face, and see if you don't begin realize why by the way her expression changes.

I am quite serious. "No" is a powerful word, and the "no means no" slogan is about enforcing the power of that word and the expectations our society place on it no matter the context. Women and sexuality do not have an exclusive claim to protection from having someone force their ideals or their actions upon you or, as in this case, your repository.

This may fly as rhetoric on /r/MensRights (and yeah I mention that because I went and looked) but it doesn't hold true in...like...reality. "No means no" as popular phrasing most specifically does refer to unwanted sexual contact, originating specifically in the context of date rape--and no, to forestall the tired MRA argument, male- or female-initiated sexual contact. And it was not Noordhuis's repository at all, as can be evidenced by the whole "/Joyent/" part of the URL.

I don't know Mr. Noordhuis. I think his behavior was stupid and Joyent's moreso. I think your behavior, and your motives, are appalling.

Re: Ben Noordhuis's Departure

#78

Post by salehenrahman »

sneak wrote: post #47
salehenrahman wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're missing one very important detail: the person issuing the pull request didn't sign a CLA.

I don't subscribe to the idea of property rights for information, so that detail is irrelevant to me.

It is irrelevant to you, but not to libuv. All committers must sign a CLA, otherwise, pull requests issued by those that haven't signed the CLA will be rejected.

Edit: I might point out all pull requests that only have two lines of grammar change in documentation. Those lines which really don't mean anything to someone who speaks a language with gendered pronouns applied to inanimate objects.

Re: Ben Noordhuis's Departure

#79

Post by Tomte »

That happens when you publicly shame and demonize your core contributors.

Joyent has royally fucked up there, and if I was buying services from them, I'd have stopped now.

They didn't have to like his opinions, but this could have been handled much more amicably (maybe some "agree to disagree" and "we overrule you on this specific issue, no hard feelings").

Instead they chose the nuclear option, not only publicly blogging about how wrong they think Ben was, but actually fantasizing about firing him.

This is what happens when you're flat-out denying the Holocaust here in Germany. But for standing on the "wrong side" of how to handle gernder pronouns? Please...

Re: Ben Noordhuis's Departure

#80

Post by fauigerzigerk »

sneak wrote: post #33
kirinan wrote: post #2

This is so sad on many different levels. A guy who clearly liked working on this module has to make a choice to walk (which is his choice) because people get offended by pronouns. I seriously don't like where all this is headed: where he, she, they are all NEEDED so people don't get offended. This is the whole christmas thing all over again, and it needs to be enforced by society that just because you don't like some…

No, this is trivial and his stand was just him being pointlessly argumentative. It's entirely unproductive from both an equal rights standpoint as well as a technical one. Drama for drama's sake is and should remain a firing offense.

I guess in big corporations general rules like this may be useful to consistently deal with several such incidents per month. But in the context we're talking about, language like "firing offense" is itself needlessly dramatizing.

If someone creates drama about something all the time I may not want to continue to work with that person. But if after years of working well together, mistakes are made in one particular conflict that gets out of hand, I'm not going to delegate the matter to Catbert's office right away.

Yes, documentation should be gender neutral. But no, one argument about this should not lead to a core developer leaving.

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