5 ms·

I've read a few of Linus' rants and been on the fence, but this one does seem to have crossed some sort of line into being unnecessarily abusive, and to add to

I've read a few of Linus' rants and been on the fence, but this one does seem to have crossed some sort of line into being unnecessarily abusive, and to add to that, unclear communication. The rewritten version really does emphasise a much better approach. Linus's rant doesn't read like it was written by... a stable person. I was in full agreement with the article up until this: >Of the many things I could say about this, I will say just one: sadly, I am certain the reaction to this text would be entirely different were it written by a woman. What the... where on earth did this come from? Completely irrelevant and not true in my opinion. This issue is about whether it post was abusive, the gender of the poster makes no difference. I'm pretty sure that female Linus (assuming female Linus had accomplished everything real Linus has over her life) would have had a bunch of loyal followers that defended her no matter what she said, and a bunch of people who thought she was out of line. Does the gender issue really have to be shoehorned into every story?

deleted 11y ago
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srpablo 11y ago
> Completely irrelevant and not true in my opinion. Hardly, when talking about brash/abusive behavior in the context of an industry where women are underrepresented, I think it's plenty fine to mention that there might be a connection to be made. > the gender of the poster makes no difference Eh, I don't agree. It's well-observed in social sciences that men are given more leeway to be abusive than women are; one example is how often words like "abrasive" or "bossy" come up in performance reports: http://fortune.com/2014/08/26/performance-review-gender-bias/ http://fortune.com/2014/08/26/performance-review-gender-bias... Or just look at our popular media: how many male antiheroes on TV have enough audience to support them vs. women antiheroes? For every Walter White or Doctor House or Tony Soprano, how many unlikeable women are there? Roxane Gay writes about this pretty well. http://www.buzzfeed.com/roxanegay/not-here-to-make-friends-unlikable#.ineD9MA1A2 http://www.buzzfeed.com/roxanegay/not-here-to-make-friends-u... > Does the gender issue really have to be shoehorned into every story? Per above, I don't think it's "shoehorned." And I think it's fine if we talk about it more than we currently do, because there's plenty to suggest we don't talk about it enough or are insufficiently introspective about it.
- lagadu 11y ago
  It's shoehorned because it's inserting a completely unrelated assertion despite nothing in the slightest pointing to it at all on the rest of the article. It would have made just about as much sense if they'd written "This would be entirely different had it been written by a black person". But they just had to make it political and race just isn't a hot enough topic in the tech world so they didn't go for that. It's a pathetic attention grab that sullies an otherwise valid critique.
- pervycreeper 11y ago
  >Eh, I don't agree. It's well-observed in social sciences that men are given more leeway to be abusive than women are; one example is how often words like "abrasive" or "bossy" come up in performance reports: http://fortune.com/2014/08/26/performance-review-gender-bias.. http://fortune.com/2014/08/26/performance-review-gender-bias.... Have they ensured that they are using identical behaviors in this comparison?
- mbrock 11y ago
  If women are socially punished for being abrasive or bossy, you could consider THAT to be a problem. I might consider it a basic human right to use curse words, get angry, and come off as abrasive, and in fact I truly do. Somewhat relatedly, the supposition some people have that "women" need to be especially protected from teh scary curse words pisses me off. THAT is a gendered prejudice based on Victorian morality or something.
  - chasing 11y ago
    > I might consider it a basic human right to use curse words, get angry, and come off as abrasive, and in fact I truly do. This is a common error, but you're mixing up the idea that the government shouldn't be allowed to penalize you for your free speech and the idea that no one at all should be able to react to you for using curse words, getting angry, or coming off as abrasive. If I think you're an asshole, I'm perfectly within my rights to not hire you, not befriend you, make fun of you to other people, not invite you out on camping trips, "accidentally" give you smaller slices of birthday cake at company parties, write internet comments calling you a doofus, etc.
eis 11y ago
I had the same feeling about the last bit of the article. Drama for no reason. I would be glad if the tech community focused more on tech than on shitstorms. Some people are just too sensitive. If you don't like how Linus behaves, then don't deal with him. Noone forces you. But why post an article on your blog which is associated with Mozilla including a gist of collected swear words? At least Linus didn't engage in some meta-drama nonsense. unfamiliar: I don't agree though that this makes Linus a unstable person. In fact I'd say if people can't swallow some swear words, then they are in turn not emotionally strong enough.
- SolaceQuantum 11y ago
  There's no reason that anyone would need to be emotionally strong enough that in a company with adults in which the focus is working together on technology, they should expect to get sworn at a few times as an acceptable interaction with their peers.
  - spacecowboy_lon 11y ago
    In normal interactions actually no - there are a few very rare situations where it might be appropriate to use expletives for emphasis. Day to day project work is not one of those.
  - eis 11y ago
    They don't have to expect it or even accept it. They can, if they want to. But they could as well just tell Linus he's a jerk. Or filter out the technical aspects of his post and ignore the rest. Or stop working with Linus. But there is no reason to create a wide discussion around this, imho.
- enneff 11y ago
  > If you don't like how Linus behaves, then don't deal with him. Noone forces you. Linus' status in the Open Source community makes him a role model for some people (whether he likes it or not; I suspect he doesn't), and so people imitate him. It's much less palatable coming from someone with less credibility and experience.
dwb 11y ago
Shanley Kane criticised Linus and got her and her family's addresses posted, death threats, rape threats, and other horrific abuse. If you think gender isn't an issue, you haven't educated yourself well enough.
- vox_mollis 11y ago
  This comment is very amusing in the context of the article. Shanley Kane uses abusive language, at minimum, two orders of magnitude more often than Linus does.
  - dwb 11y ago
    Abuse requires a power imbalance in favour of the abuser. That was not the case for Shanley's criticism.
    - tptacek 11y ago
      I think I know what you're trying to say, but it probably isn't true that abuse requires a power imbalance, unless "willingness to abuse" is itself a form of power, in which case the word doesn't mean much anymore.
sarciszewski 11y ago
> Does the gender issue really have to be shoehorned into every story? There are some people who believe it needs to be brought up more, even in places where it's off topic, because raising awareness is easy and historically it has been an effective strategy to move the needle on public perception. Linus isn't celebrated because Linus is a famous programmer notorious for being quick to reach for the poison pen, Linus is being celebrated because he's a man, or so the story goes. I agree that gender isn't relevant to Linus's behavior. The door swings both ways on abuse, after all. Humans of all gender identities are equally capable of being terrible to humans of any gender identity. But if the author's gripe is with the public reaction to it, it sort of makes sense why they would bring gender up. Namely: strategic political reasons.
spacecowboy_lon 11y ago
I have noticed that Nordic non native English people often have very good spoken English but have a poor grasp of the unwritten rules concerning "engineering language"
- toyg 11y ago
  It's not just Nordics. Non-native speakers tend to see swearwords as funny (aren't they the first thing one learns, after all? Even as a kid!), I'm guilty of that myself. For English in particular, this is reinforced by abundant film material: the cooler the movie, the highest the chance to have it packed with swearwords, because it makes it sexier for native-speakers. This results in non-natives (who will likely consume this sort of exceptional material but not necessarily the more average stuff) assuming "harsh" language is more acceptable than it might actually be in practice. Some productions' appeal is almost entirely based on swearwords, e.g. In The Loop.
  - spacecowboy_lon 11y ago
    Yes taking Malcolm Tucker as a guide to appropriate English usage is not a good idea.
GPGPU 11y ago
> Does the gender issue really have to be shoehorned into every story? Exactly right. I read that like and I lost interest in reading any more from this guy. Now he's trying to make a point about "sexism" by pulling a strawman out of thin air
JustSomeNobody 11y ago
My wife and I are both software engineers, so I'm particularly sensitive to this topic. However, this even through me for a loop as to why it was mentioned.
- tptacek 11y ago
  Me too. Like, I think I agree with this post? But I'm not sure it's the best illustration of the phenomenon, or even a good one.
  - JustSomeNobody 11y ago
    Yeah, it's just... awkward.
hoopd 11y ago
> What the... where on earth did this come from? It comes from the same place all flamebait comes from: they're picking a fight.
anonbanker 11y ago
If you've been paying attention to Mozilla post-Eich, it's overrun with social justice warriors now. the JWZ's are long gone, since replaced by the Apparatchik[0]. Thankfully, the Servo side of things still has competent engineers. 0. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apparatchik https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apparatchik

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]

srpablo 11y ago

> Completely irrelevant and not true in my opinion. Hardly, when talking about brash/abusive behavior in the context of an industry where women are underrepresented, I think it's plenty fine to mention that there might be a connection to be made. > the gender of the poster makes no difference Eh, I don't agree. It's well-observed in social sciences that men are given more leeway to be abusive than women are; one example is how often words like "abrasive" or "bossy" come up in performance reports: http://fortune.com/2014/08/26/performance-review-gender-bias/ http://fortune.com/2014/08/26/performance-review-gender-bias... Or just look at our popular media: how many male antiheroes on TV have enough audience to support them vs. women antiheroes? For every Walter White or Doctor House or Tony Soprano, how many unlikeable women are there? Roxane Gay writes about this pretty well. http://www.buzzfeed.com/roxanegay/not-here-to-make-friends-unlikable#.ineD9MA1A2 http://www.buzzfeed.com/roxanegay/not-here-to-make-friends-u... > Does the gender issue really have to be shoehorned into every story? Per above, I don't think it's "shoehorned." And I think it's fine if we talk about it more than we currently do, because there's plenty to suggest we don't talk about it enough or are insufficiently introspective about it.

lagadu 11y ago
It's shoehorned because it's inserting a completely unrelated assertion despite nothing in the slightest pointing to it at all on the rest of the article. It would have made just about as much sense if they'd written "This would be entirely different had it been written by a black person". But they just had to make it political and race just isn't a hot enough topic in the tech world so they didn't go for that. It's a pathetic attention grab that sullies an otherwise valid critique.
pervycreeper 11y ago
>Eh, I don't agree. It's well-observed in social sciences that men are given more leeway to be abusive than women are; one example is how often words like "abrasive" or "bossy" come up in performance reports: http://fortune.com/2014/08/26/performance-review-gender-bias.. http://fortune.com/2014/08/26/performance-review-gender-bias.... Have they ensured that they are using identical behaviors in this comparison?
mbrock 11y ago
If women are socially punished for being abrasive or bossy, you could consider THAT to be a problem. I might consider it a basic human right to use curse words, get angry, and come off as abrasive, and in fact I truly do. Somewhat relatedly, the supposition some people have that "women" need to be especially protected from teh scary curse words pisses me off. THAT is a gendered prejudice based on Victorian morality or something.
- chasing 11y ago
  > I might consider it a basic human right to use curse words, get angry, and come off as abrasive, and in fact I truly do. This is a common error, but you're mixing up the idea that the government shouldn't be allowed to penalize you for your free speech and the idea that no one at all should be able to react to you for using curse words, getting angry, or coming off as abrasive. If I think you're an asshole, I'm perfectly within my rights to not hire you, not befriend you, make fun of you to other people, not invite you out on camping trips, "accidentally" give you smaller slices of birthday cake at company parties, write internet comments calling you a doofus, etc.

eis 11y ago

I had the same feeling about the last bit of the article. Drama for no reason. I would be glad if the tech community focused more on tech than on shitstorms. Some people are just too sensitive. If you don't like how Linus behaves, then don't deal with him. Noone forces you. But why post an article on your blog which is associated with Mozilla including a gist of collected swear words? At least Linus didn't engage in some meta-drama nonsense. unfamiliar: I don't agree though that this makes Linus a unstable person. In fact I'd say if people can't swallow some swear words, then they are in turn not emotionally strong enough.

SolaceQuantum 11y ago
There's no reason that anyone would need to be emotionally strong enough that in a company with adults in which the focus is working together on technology, they should expect to get sworn at a few times as an acceptable interaction with their peers.
- spacecowboy_lon 11y ago
  In normal interactions actually no - there are a few very rare situations where it might be appropriate to use expletives for emphasis. Day to day project work is not one of those.
- eis 11y ago
  They don't have to expect it or even accept it. They can, if they want to. But they could as well just tell Linus he's a jerk. Or filter out the technical aspects of his post and ignore the rest. Or stop working with Linus. But there is no reason to create a wide discussion around this, imho.
enneff 11y ago
> If you don't like how Linus behaves, then don't deal with him. Noone forces you. Linus' status in the Open Source community makes him a role model for some people (whether he likes it or not; I suspect he doesn't), and so people imitate him. It's much less palatable coming from someone with less credibility and experience.

dwb 11y ago

Shanley Kane criticised Linus and got her and her family's addresses posted, death threats, rape threats, and other horrific abuse. If you think gender isn't an issue, you haven't educated yourself well enough.

vox_mollis 11y ago
This comment is very amusing in the context of the article. Shanley Kane uses abusive language, at minimum, two orders of magnitude more often than Linus does.
- dwb 11y ago
  Abuse requires a power imbalance in favour of the abuser. That was not the case for Shanley's criticism.
  - tptacek 11y ago
    I think I know what you're trying to say, but it probably isn't true that abuse requires a power imbalance, unless "willingness to abuse" is itself a form of power, in which case the word doesn't mean much anymore.

sarciszewski 11y ago

> Does the gender issue really have to be shoehorned into every story? There are some people who believe it needs to be brought up more, even in places where it's off topic, because raising awareness is easy and historically it has been an effective strategy to move the needle on public perception. Linus isn't celebrated because Linus is a famous programmer notorious for being quick to reach for the poison pen, Linus is being celebrated because he's a man, or so the story goes. I agree that gender isn't relevant to Linus's behavior. The door swings both ways on abuse, after all. Humans of all gender identities are equally capable of being terrible to humans of any gender identity. But if the author's gripe is with the public reaction to it, it sort of makes sense why they would bring gender up. Namely: strategic political reasons.

spacecowboy_lon 11y ago

I have noticed that Nordic non native English people often have very good spoken English but have a poor grasp of the unwritten rules concerning "engineering language"

toyg 11y ago
It's not just Nordics. Non-native speakers tend to see swearwords as funny (aren't they the first thing one learns, after all? Even as a kid!), I'm guilty of that myself. For English in particular, this is reinforced by abundant film material: the cooler the movie, the highest the chance to have it packed with swearwords, because it makes it sexier for native-speakers. This results in non-natives (who will likely consume this sort of exceptional material but not necessarily the more average stuff) assuming "harsh" language is more acceptable than it might actually be in practice. Some productions' appeal is almost entirely based on swearwords, e.g. In The Loop.
- spacecowboy_lon 11y ago
  Yes taking Malcolm Tucker as a guide to appropriate English usage is not a good idea.

GPGPU 11y ago

> Does the gender issue really have to be shoehorned into every story? Exactly right. I read that like and I lost interest in reading any more from this guy. Now he's trying to make a point about "sexism" by pulling a strawman out of thin air

JustSomeNobody 11y ago

My wife and I are both software engineers, so I'm particularly sensitive to this topic. However, this even through me for a loop as to why it was mentioned.

tptacek 11y ago
Me too. Like, I think I agree with this post? But I'm not sure it's the best illustration of the phenomenon, or even a good one.
- JustSomeNobody 11y ago
  Yeah, it's just... awkward.

hoopd 11y ago

> What the... where on earth did this come from? It comes from the same place all flamebait comes from: they're picking a fight.

anonbanker 11y ago

If you've been paying attention to Mozilla post-Eich, it's overrun with social justice warriors now. the JWZ's are long gone, since replaced by the Apparatchik[0]. Thankfully, the Servo side of things still has competent engineers. 0. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apparatchik https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apparatchik