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Antisocial Coding: My Year at GitHub

where.coraline.codes

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Re: Antisocial Coding: My Year at GitHub

#91

Post by s73ver »

vdnkh wrote: post #42
Dirlewanger wrote: post #13

While GitHub seemingly handled her employment poorly, this person sounds horrible to work with: >Was politely calling out a data scientist on a problematic and transphobic survey answer a demonstration of lack of empathy? How presumptuous. Ever thought that maybe the person putting it together didn't know any better? What does framing oneself as the victim accomplish here? In addition, this is hilariously ironic give…

This was also the line that stuck out to me. I've had some personal experiences with coworkers in my recent career that has turned me on to issues of harassment in the workplace; I understood the issues before, but it wasn't until it affected someone close did I actually care. As I've been more involved I've seen how fast those active in making workplaces safer/more inclusive outpace those who merely empathize and un…

But... she didn’t. She pointed out that the question was a bad one, and that the question itself (not the writer of the question, just the question) was transphobic.

Further, she provided the straightforward, no none sense feedback that most people here advocate for, especially when the issues of someone like Linus’ gruffness and straight up meanness comes up. Here we have a story of someone doing just that, without the meanness, and everyone is dog piling on her.

Re: Antisocial Coding: My Year at GitHub

#92

Post by thehardsphere »

mattbillenstein wrote: post #47

If you're ever put on a PIP, get out -- it's a sign someone in the company doesn't want you there. I've never heard of a PIP working out and both the company and employee being happy -- maybe you only hear about the bad cases, but a PIP often seems to me like a cover your ass plan on the part of the company. They want to get rid of a person, but they're afraid of getting sued, so a PIP is a way to document why a pers…

Even if you're an at will state, you can still be sued or investigated by the government (state or federal) for all kinds of employment discrimination. Making some of these discrimination claims can be fairly easy to do, so the PIP acts as a cheap ass-covering document if it happens.

Re: Antisocial Coding: My Year at GitHub

#93

Post by georgespencer »

rjbwork wrote: post #84
mattbillenstein wrote: post #47

If you're ever put on a PIP, get out -- it's a sign someone in the company doesn't want you there. I've never heard of a PIP working out and both the company and employee being happy -- maybe you only hear about the bad cases, but a PIP often seems to me like a cover your ass plan on the part of the company. They want to get rid of a person, but they're afraid of getting sued, so a PIP is a way to document why a pers…

Guy on my team at my last company was - he was non-technical, but was in charge of looking at raw data and finding discrepancies and things we could write code to fix on an ongoing basis as he was a domain expert. He had a rough time with technical topics, and so part of his PIP, as I understand it, was to become basically proficient in using SQL to query, and understand the basics of RDBMS. He did so, and was remove…

It makes me happy to hear that others have had successful outcomes from using PIPs.

Re: Antisocial Coding: My Year at GitHub

#94

Post by avenoir »

> "What is your gender?" The multiple-choice options were "Male", "Female", and "Transgender". I was very disappointed at this 101 mistake, and sadly opened an issue referencing the question. The body of my issue read:

> "'Transgender' is not a gender. Transgender people may be male, female, gender queer, non-binary... If you want to know if a survey respondent is transgender, you need to explicitly ask that question."

> The next day I got an urgent request for a call with my manager. She told me that the data scientist who had written the survey questions was very upset and had gone to her manager to complain about me.

I can't help but shake my head reading thru the whole piece. It's like a soap opera. Everyone's so caught up in the social issues it's fucking impossible to not offed anyone.

Re: Antisocial Coding: My Year at GitHub

#95

Post by problems »

ohthehugemanate wrote: post #75
problems wrote: post #12

Isn't this the person who ran a code of conduct that has a website which includes things like "thoughtless use of pronouns" and mentions meritocracy as an evil, not a goal to strive for? Can't really say I'm expecting someone like that to be low friction.

Meritocracy is actually a very damaging thing, the way we tend to implement it in tech. Without concrete and public metrics of "merit", it becomes a buzzword for reinforcing the biases (conscious or not) of the evaluators. Particularly in tech, those biases tend to favor white, upper middle class, males. This kind of bias is demonstrated over and over in studies, even (and in some cases, especially) among people who…

Perhaps - but the goal is to remove that kind of thing, which is in my opinion at least a noble goal and should be respected even if it's hard to implement properly. My point was not that it's perfect, but that successful meritocracy is something to strive for.

Re: Antisocial Coding: My Year at GitHub

#96

Post by erikpukinskis »

opportune wrote: post #49

The main thing I've taken away from the whole github situation is that, as a tech company, you should just entirely stay away from public involvement in the social justice sphere. That doesn't mean exclusively hiring white men and sending out Kalanick-style emails; it means keeping your work environment as professional and politically neutral as possible unless absolutely necessary. My employer does a good job of thi…

> you should just entirely stay away from public involvement in the social justice sphere

I suspect you will find yourself publicly involved in another kind of justice sphere by accident.

That said, there is something to your hesitancy. I did a big part of my education in the social justice sphere, and while I believe in pretty much all of the core theories, in practice I don't think most activists have much of a plan of attack for tech companies. That's partly because they don't really get much practice, because companies are reluctant to give them power, and, as this story shows, quick to give up if results aren't progressing as expected.

Your solution—give up on that crew entirely—sort of solves the problem, I guess.

But my solution is to keep trying to study and talk and figure out what a good methodology would be for applying the core social justice theories (everyone has valuable compentencies, demographics are a useful signal, other realities exist than yours, consent matters, etc) in a tech corp setting productively.

Re: Antisocial Coding: My Year at GitHub

#97

Post by specialist »

dsr_ wrote: post #46

" The next day I got an urgent request for a call with my manager. She told me that the data scientist who had written the survey questions was very upset and had gone to her manager to complain about me. I asked my manager what had happened to upset her and was told that it was the feedback I provided on the gender question. I read back to her the body of the issue that I had opened and asked what I should have done…

Here's Coraline's feedback, from the article:

"'Transgender' is not a gender. Transgender people may be male, female, gender queer, non-binary... If you want to know if a survey respondent is transgender, you need to explicitly ask that question."

For contrast, this reminds me of Gene Wilder's feedback about his Willy Wonka costume:

https://www.bustle.com/articles/181340-this-letter-gene-wild...

I now try to emulate this style, in every situation.

As for the triggered data scientist... Well. Whaddya gonna do? I guess my skin's thicker than most.

Re: Antisocial Coding: My Year at GitHub

#98

Post by btym »

roywiggins wrote: post #66
Dirlewanger wrote: post #13

While GitHub seemingly handled her employment poorly, this person sounds horrible to work with: >Was politely calling out a data scientist on a problematic and transphobic survey answer a demonstration of lack of empathy? How presumptuous. Ever thought that maybe the person putting it together didn't know any better? What does framing oneself as the victim accomplish here? In addition, this is hilariously ironic give…

> I was very disappointed at this 101 mistake, and sadly opened an issue referencing the question. The body of my issue read: > "'Transgender' is not a gender. Transgender people may be male, female, gender queer, non-binary... If you want to know if a survey respondent is transgender, you need to explicitly ask that question." She was disappointed. She explained her problem with the survey in a non-judgmental way- "…

Agreed. That was an entirely reasonable and professional comment. It briefly states the problem, demonstrates it, and offers a solution.

Re: Antisocial Coding: My Year at GitHub

#99

Post by superplussed »

emodendroket wrote: post #85
opportune wrote: post #49

The main thing I've taken away from the whole github situation is that, as a tech company, you should just entirely stay away from public involvement in the social justice sphere. That doesn't mean exclusively hiring white men and sending out Kalanick-style emails; it means keeping your work environment as professional and politically neutral as possible unless absolutely necessary. My employer does a good job of thi…

I don't get it though. Didn't they want to bring her on specifically because her political profile gave them cachet with people they wanted to make overtures to?

Top-down hirings for the sake of culture change don't really work, though do they? It seems like the inevitable outcome is exactly this, a bright-eyed, and then soon-disenfranchised new hire, butting up against an resistant and entrenched culture.

Re: Antisocial Coding: My Year at GitHub

#100

Post by dcole2929 »

Dirlewanger wrote: post #45
ivraatiems wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you think this person is unusual in her communication style? She posted the complete text of the "problem" comment. If you got that message from a colleague, would you consider it unacceptable? Why or why not? If yes, what could she have said that would have made it OK? How would you answer her core question of whether or not the comment she made is appropriate?

I'm disgusted at her reflection that the question was transphobic, not that she commented on the difference. Whether the data scientist overreacted or not is irrelevant.

Calling a comment transphobic in no way implies that the speaker of that comment is transhpobic. It is a description of what's been said. The same way if someone was to say something that could possibly be construed as racist. If someone points that out and says hey that statement is racist, that's not calling that person racist. They might be. They might not, but that statement in and of itself implies no assertion on that actual person.

In short, calling the statement in question transphobic is correct.

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