GitHub is undergoing a full-blown overhaul as execs and employees depart • Hacker News Board

Re: GitHub is undergoing a full-blown overhaul as execs and employees depart

#841

Post by hartpuff » Sun, Feb 07, 2016, 9:27 AM UTC

dang wrote: post #747

hartpuff wrote: post #597

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The poster I replied to was whining about being downvoted in order to score upvotes ("Please resist commenting about being downvoted."), when in fact their argument was just a bad one. In another post he made a stupid and offensive reference to the Nazis because someone said they were from Germany. So either he was trolling or he's an idiot. I'm not sure if pointing that out was what violated the guidelines or just t…

Yes, the comment about downvoting broke the rules, and yes the comment about Germany would have merited chiding if the author hadn't deleted it. But the HN guidelines apply to you, as to all of us, whether the other person breaks the rules or not. Your entire comment upthread was uncivil. If you're sincere about abiding by the guidelines (as I hope you are), it would be an instructive exercise to rewrite it in a neut…

Thanks. I don't know if you mean edit posts I've made (which AFAICS is not possible) or future posts, before posting, but I agree, polite, respectful posts mean better signal to noise, and I'll try not to slip into bad habits.

I hope it's still possible to disagree, argue or take a negative position towards someone's post or argument without it necessarily being taken as personal or uncivil though.

Re: GitHub is undergoing a full-blown overhaul as execs and employees depart

#842

Post by slavik81 » Sun, Feb 07, 2016, 9:39 AM UTC

alphapapa wrote: post #434

slavik81 wrote: post #300

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"He who fights with monsters should look to it that he himself does not become a monster." It's an inherent problem that as you fight something, you tend to mirror it. You almost have to do so in order to be effective. The problem is that at some point, it just feeds the cycle.

MLK, Jr. didn't mirror it, nor did he need to.

I'm sure he did in some ways, but certainly not in the ways that matter to me. I have tremendous respect for MLK and his work is a stunning example of what's possible. The warning would be somewhat pointless if becoming a monster were inevitable.

Re: GitHub is undergoing a full-blown overhaul as execs and employees depart

#843

Post by argonaut » Sun, Feb 07, 2016, 9:40 AM UTC

contravert wrote: post #832

argonaut wrote: post #613

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you look non-Asian? If you do, you will never be fully accepted in Chinese society, as I've heard from a few white people that have lived in China. Even if you marry and settle down there and raise kids.

How sure are you about that? Most "white" people don't actually fully integrate to the culture, despite marrying and raising kids. Take a look at this video about a Chinese villager with Russian ancestry: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2rS30IjG05c He is completely culturally Chinese, although in a rural kind of way, in his speech and mannerisms. If you can read Chinese, the comments are very inclusive. "Non-Asian" p…

100% sure. Chinese society is quite racist (I'm talking about the country China, not the race). I'm not sure what you think a single example of a villager (who I'm sure faces discrimination based on his skin color) shows.

They have settled for hundreds of years. And never been fully accepted.

Re: GitHub is undergoing a full-blown overhaul as execs and employees depart

#844

Post by argonaut » Sun, Feb 07, 2016, 9:47 AM UTC

Sevrene wrote: post #662

argonaut wrote: post #625

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are human. You are not a robot. That's the problem. Humans judge people, make snap judgments, fit people into sterotypes. I'm not saying you do that. I bet you don't. But if you start scaling the interviewing process, adding more and more people into it, you'll eventually get a few who do make racial/other unfair judgments.

Everyone has some level of bias. The best thing you can really do is try and counter your own bias when you notice it. In most jurisdictions not hiring someone based on racial or unfair judgements is illegal. Trying to change workplace culture away from meritocracy for the sake of diversity might sound noble and well intended, but just as 'meritocracy is a lie', so is diversity in that sense. Hiring people based on h…

I agree with you that everyone has some level of bias, but we disagree on to what degree people are biased. Race is a very complex issue in American society. It permeates everything: politics, economics, academia. And it's visually obvious. The evidence is pretty clear to me (all the statistics related to how racial judgments are made, how stunningly often resumes get rejected if they have names that sound like they belong to certain racial groups), that race plays a very large role in people's snap judgments of others.

Re: GitHub is undergoing a full-blown overhaul as execs and employees depart

#845

Post by spangry » Sun, Feb 07, 2016, 9:50 AM UTC

acidburnNSA wrote: post #293

obelisk_ wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, what are the alternatives? Hosted: Bitbucket, GitLab Self-hosted: GitLab, Gogs None of these come close to GitHub in my experience.

We've been using self-hosted Phabricator at work for building nuclear reactor design software and it has been pretty darn amazing. It's quite easy to get going and has been very low-maintenance. http://phabricator.org/

That product page is gold:

* Even has a serious business mode, for the most serious businesses. * Written in PHP so literally anyone can contribute, even if they have no idea how to program. * Even babies and dogs can contribute. * You, too, can contribute!

And then underneath: 'Companies probably using Phabricator'

Re: GitHub is undergoing a full-blown overhaul as execs and employees depart

#846

Post by mjolk » Sun, Feb 07, 2016, 9:53 AM UTC

KirinDave wrote: post #538

mjolk wrote: post #500

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do bad interview processes prove that meritocracy doesn't work?

You cannot prove meritocracy doesn't work. Fortunately you don't have to. The burden of proof is required for positive claims. We don't have a lot of evidence meritocracy works. We have several pieces of evidence suggesting that it, in fact, didn't serve github very well. The fact there was a sexual harassment lawsuit with a barely kept secret about a whole group of women bound by arbitration and non-disparage agreem…

If you're referencing GH with that sexual harassment lawsuit comment, it fizzled, and from the outside, it seemed like it wasn't anything sketchy, just that the accuser's work wasn't very good and people didn't treat her with kid gloves. The only inappropriate thing was one of the founder's wives trying to manipulate her, but that doesn't sell as well.

The philosophic burden of proof is on you as you're making a statement counter to user "audessuscest"'s claim that meritocracy is important and the ideal is to make solely skill-based hires.

Re: GitHub is undergoing a full-blown overhaul as execs and employees depart

#847

Post by argonaut » Sun, Feb 07, 2016, 9:56 AM UTC

EvanPlaice wrote: post #683

argonaut wrote: post #635

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is that white kid could dress up in a suit and tie, go into an interview, and be totally free of racial judgment (also dropping any obvious mannerisms). A black man can do that, including dropping any mannerisms, but they will still be black.

Under most circumstances you're right and that's sad. So what's the alternative? Systematically killing off all the old white guys who still cling to their anachronistic perceptions? Their children are still going to inherit their wealth and the 1% will continue to be the 1%. Hand the power over to militant feminists who happen to be as -- if not more -- biased based on race and/or gender? IMHO, that's just trading o…

Yes I agree with you. And I'm not a fan of affirmative action. I'm just seeing a stunning number of people in this thread who are in denial that race is even an issue at all, or who think the best course of action is to stop talking about it.

Re: GitHub is undergoing a full-blown overhaul as execs and employees depart

#848

Post by proc0 » Sun, Feb 07, 2016, 10:04 AM UTC

raquo wrote: post #839

proc0 wrote: post #828

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The moment you mention race, you are fighting the racist's battle. Instead if you avoid it, you are side-stepping and leaving the racists on their own ground, where they are just insane and/or ignorant people. History gave us inaccurate representations of people, and racists use these to spew their hatred. Why promote the tool and framework for racists to continue using?

Your argument, the way I see it: "People say lies about race[0]. So let's not talk about race anymore" . This is, appallingly, the current state of the art of racial discussions in the west. Try to apply that logic to any other subject however, and the insanity will reveal itself. "People say lies about used cars. So let's not talk about used cars anymore" "People say lies about the mistakes of The One Party. So let'…

That's not the argument, granted it's very subtle and hard to see.

The argument is "race as used in the U.S. is a social construct that is incorrectly correlated with some physical traits. So lets avoid bringing up someone's race when trying to explain their behavior and/or intentions."

Just because someone has dark skin doesn't automatically mean they are "black" because black is more of a cultural thing than a race. It's incorrectly attributed as a race in the U.S., and in many cases it does coincide, so someone that looks black is probably black, but not everyone. This is more so the case with white people. The white label is a huge generalization on many sub-cultures and races, not just one. So it is inefficient to try and explain behavior with these labels that are incorrectly seen as race.

To further expand, yes there is a problem with racist people, but what's the point of saying they are "white" racist people? They're just racist. No need to be further promote the same mis-categorization that racist people love to use. Racist people are ignorant and/or crazy, and we can continue analyzing them and fighting without mentioning anyone's race.

Re: GitHub is undergoing a full-blown overhaul as execs and employees depart

#849

Post by dvirsky » Sun, Feb 07, 2016, 10:05 AM UTC

smileysteve wrote: post #244

dvirsky wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been using Gitlab for a couple of years, and it's really great. Used a self hosted repo for a team of ~40, and I can't recall any major incidents or any loss of code, ever.

> I can't recall any major incidents or any loss of code, ever. It's Git either way, how does code get lost? It's not centralized unless you don't trust your local copies.

Of course, but I meant remote repo code loss.

I actually had this happen once when I was running a small filesystem based git server. Users could login with normal shell sessions with their public key, and repo permissions were handled with the unix permissions system. Some user with a funky git UI client for windows actually deleted a repo completely from the server.

It wasn't much of an issue because of local copies, but we moved to git-shell right after that, and to gitlab not long after when then team grew beyond a handful of people.

Re: GitHub is undergoing a full-blown overhaul as execs and employees depart

#850

Post by gaur » Sun, Feb 07, 2016, 11:04 AM UTC

StevePerkins wrote: post #488

codyps wrote: post #459

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was interested in your comparison in #1, wrt "HN community overreacted". I've been searching through old HN stories about Eich, but can't seem to find any where the comments generally supported firing him due to supporting Prop 8 (banning gay marriage). Is there a particular thread you had in mind? Or are you stating the overreaction was being angry that he might have been fired over that support?

I don't have a link, and I'll admit that this is subjective and anecdotal. I just recall there being a LOT of people who found it perfectly reasonable to oust somebody for long-ago political donations, despite there being no indication that he ever actually discriminated against anyone at Mozilla. Yeah, you can make arguments that the mere existence of a such past donation creates a symbolically hostile environment,…

> At the time Eich made that donation, every major Democratic presidential candidate (including Clinton and Obama) were ALSO publicly opposed to marriage equality. So it seemed like extreme mental gymnastics to put a "hate speech" label on Eich.

No, the extreme mental gymnastics here involve thinking that hate speech can be defined by looking at the content of Clinton and Obama's campaign speeches.

The ouster came six years after his donation. The only way that could be characterized as "long ago" is by the use of extreme mental gymnastics.

Anyway, donating to Proposition 8 is equivalent to making the statement "I will actively work to take other people's rights away, even though it will never affect me". Is it any surprise that he was ousted? It was a disaster for Mozilla to associate with him.