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What It's Like To Be Ridiculed For Open Sourcing A Project

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Re: What It's Like To Be Ridiculed For Open Sourcing A Project

#701
post #377

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My takeaway: "Twitter makes it so hard not to accidentally be an asshole."

I once saw a BBC documentation about "why do car drivers easily get angry at each other?" This is really interesting, maybe you want to think for a minute yourself before I reveal the reason. When I watched the documentation to the end I was surprised, but when I think about it now I'm not surprised anymore: Car driving involves no eye contact, in fact you hardly ever see the face of the other person. People behave d…

Text messages are normally limited to 160 English characters, or fewer from other languages. I thought that was actually where the Twitter limit came from originally.

Re: What It's Like To Be Ridiculed For Open Sourcing A Project

#702
post #681

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The actual objection here, the reason why pg's comment is "fallacious and ignorant", is a bit fuzzy. People have pointed out a difference between HN users and federal prosecutors, but not why that difference is important. I can only think of one possible line of reasoning, but it's unbelievably hollow. Are you sincerely arguing "It's OK for me to be an unsympathetic asshole because I don't send people to jail"?

>The actual objection here, the reason why pg's comment is "fallacious and ignorant", is a bit fuzzy Because he is suggesting that "someone said someone else's code was bad" is a more pressing and concerning issue than "the federal government threatened to destroy the life of a young man and drove him to suicide over a trivial non-offense". >Are you sincerely arguing "It's OK for me to be an unsympathetic asshole bec…

> Because he is suggesting that "someone said someone else's code was bad" is a more pressing and concerning issue than "the federal government threatened to destroy the life of a young man and drove him to suicide over a trivial non-offense".

As someone once said to me: I can't imagine how someone could make an honest, good-faith attempt at communications and come to that conclusion.

What pg said, albeit more politely, is that calling out federal prosecutors for lacking sympathy when you don't exhibit any yourself is rank hypocrisy.

Re: What It's Like To Be Ridiculed For Open Sourcing A Project

#703
This guy needs to stop being a pansy and grow some balls.

Oh noes! Someone on the internet doesn't like my work! My world is over!

What are you, a little girl? Nine, maybe ten years old. I'm seeing pigtails and a frilly skirt.

Get over it dude. It's impossible to make everyone happy. haters are going to hate. No need to make a big deal about it.

Re: What It's Like To Be Ridiculed For Open Sourcing A Project

#704
post #702

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The actual objection here, the reason why pg's comment is "fallacious and ignorant", is a bit fuzzy Because he is suggesting that "someone said someone else's code was bad" is a more pressing and concerning issue than "the federal government threatened to destroy the life of a young man and drove him to suicide over a trivial non-offense". >Are you sincerely arguing "It's OK for me to be an unsympathetic asshole bec…

> Because he is suggesting that "someone said someone else's code was bad" is a more pressing and concerning issue than "the federal government threatened to destroy the life of a young man and drove him to suicide over a trivial non-offense". As someone once said to me: I can't imagine how someone could make an honest, good-faith attempt at communications and come to that conclusion. What pg said, albeit more polite…

No, that is not what he said. He very clearly, and completely explicitly stated that we should concern ourselves with this trivial non-issue before we concern ourselves with the serious issue. The only reason we could need to address one issue before we dare to consider another, is due to the overwhelming importance of the issue.

Stop trying to pretend he said something other than what he really said. His words speak for themselves, you don't get to invent an absurd justification to pretend they mean something else. You can read the post yourself, it is still there.

He has no way to know if the people calling out the federal prosecutors have sympathy or not. There is no hypocrisy in Bob saying the prosecutors did something wrong while Joe (who Bob has never met or heard of) is saying Sally wrote some bad code.

Re: What It's Like To Be Ridiculed For Open Sourcing A Project

#705
post #693

Seriously, i dont know what everyone is getting worked up about. Some wannabe smarty pants said something mean on the internets. How is that different than any other day? Steve Klabnik: what exactly is his claim to fame [2]? Lets all mock him for reinventing the wheel with 'pomodoro'. "Messes with your hosts file" and run some crap ruby daemon on :80 so you can't browse the web for some number of minutes? WTF: it's c…

I'm flagging this post, as it adds to the negativity cloud.

Re: What It's Like To Be Ridiculed For Open Sourcing A Project

#706
post #573
post #530

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Then I see these people’s follower count, and I sob harder. I can’t help but think of potential future employers that are no longer potential." Speaking as a hiring manager, if I see people behaving like assholes on Twitter or mailing lists, those people go on my do-not-hire list. Yes, we are all assholes from time to time, but for some people it's a pattern of behavior. Those are not people you want to work with, n…

There's a fine line between being critics (constructive) and being assholes (destructive). When hiring, be sure to differentiate the two.

No, it is a very thick line. Save for a few situations where you might question whether what you said was misconstrued, people for the most part know when they're being civil or not. "I'm just a straightforward guy", "I tell it like it is", and "I don't want to sugarcoat" are ways people justify being an asshole by acting as if they've got your best interests at heart and genuinely want to help. They damn well know how mean they're being.

Re: What It's Like To Be Ridiculed For Open Sourcing A Project

#707
post #527

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's David Cramer's notpology: http://justcramer.com/2013/01/24/being-wrong-on-the-internet...

Wow, David Cramer is a total asshole! That Steve Klabnik guy is also an asshole. The only one who doesn't appear to a complete dick is Corey Haines, whose apology was better. Not great, but better. Here's the thing - if you ever even consider saying things like this to someone on the internet, you're an asshole. It's not a one time accidental thing. Nope, it's in your personality. I hope I never meet either of these…

>Wow, David Cramer is a total asshole! That Steve Klabnik guy is also an asshole.

Since we are talking about insults, reputation and constructive criticism: Does HN think the quoted text is appropriate?

Personally I think it is about on par with "makes my eyes bleed".

Re: What It's Like To Be Ridiculed For Open Sourcing A Project

#708
If their criticisms aren't constructive, they're wasting your time. Don't let them. Ignore them if that's all they have to say. I don't care if it's your mom or your boss or Jeff Besos or Obama, wasting a person's time is an insult to that person.

Re: What It's Like To Be Ridiculed For Open Sourcing A Project

#709

What the fuck. (And I rarely say that word.) We've got to grow up. This is 9th grade all over again. You know, those weird people that do things that you don't understand? They're the ones that grow up and make big impacts on the world. Why can't we get over our negativity? We can't stop ourselves from thinking horrible things, or even saying them out loud to people around us, but surely we can restrain ourselves fro…

Serious question to you and any offended people here: what do you think of sites like The Daily WTF? Is it an anathema to any civilized person and the owners should be ashamed of themselves and apologize? After all there are real people behind every TDWTF story and if - god forbid - someday they stumble upon it they may recognize themselves and their feelings will be hurt!

Or is the whole point here that Github accounts are not (necessarily at least, as in this case) anonymous and as long as no individual is identified personally we can all share a chuckle at their crappy code?

Re: What It's Like To Be Ridiculed For Open Sourcing A Project

#710
1.) Open Source is a meritocracy intentionally designed to counter the never-ending threat of software homogenization that profit motives lure us into embracing, not a soapbox for fleeting quandaries about morality and "social change" (whatever the hell that means for the week). Apples and oranges. Mountains and molehills.

2.) Open Source is not some cool kid's club where people who understand what a semi-colon can do try their hand at avoiding the recession. Even if coders did not make the money they make, THEY WOULD STILL BE CODING BECAUSE IT'S ABOUT TRICKING FUNDAMENTAL PARTICLES INTO DOING MATH FOR YOU. IT'S FUCKING AWESOME SO PUT UP OR SHUT UP.

3.) You code... you put it out there... and you have, literally, -ZERO- idea what is going to happen. People might like it, people might hate it.

Now this is the important part to my final point:

---IT IS NOT YOUR PLACE TO CONTROL OR FILTER THOSE RESPONSES---

So you throw some code out there and people don't like it? You get mocked by some asshole? And? What, did you expect civility and ponies and rainbows? What fantasy model of human interaction are you relying on as the core of such assumptions?

Nay, sentient being. It is your place to ADAPT to those responses.

So... in short....

There is a BLAME option in version control, so point out the flaws in her code or shut up. So there's that.

Now as per the frothy mob trying to turn Open Source into some anti-bullying kumbaya because they watch too much Rachel Maddow...

There is -not- a SHAME option in version control, so either understand what problem Open Source is trying to solve (promoting software heterogeneity) or go back to the service sector where people are forced to be nice.

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