11 ms·

Why I'm leaving the R community

65 points by Dawny33 11y ago

sliken 11y ago
Imagine if everyone in every culture, using every language on the planet reviewed millions of lines of code and then filed bugs for any word that offended them or could possibly be related to a sexual innuendo. Was the variable name an accurate description of what it was used for or not? If it was, let it go. If it wasn't suggest a better one. Opensource software is not the place to enforce your views on society on someone else.
- PhasmaFelis 11y ago
  > Imagine if everyone in every culture, using every language on the planet reviewed millions of lines of code and then filed bugs for any word that offended them or could possibly be related to a sexual innuendo. Slippery slope fallacy. Yes, protesting functions whose initials spell out a cuss word in Swahili would be silly and counterproductive. But no one has proposed that, or anything like that. This is an English-language code base, and there is nothing ambiguous about the English meaning of the phrase "I give head."
  - pbhjpbhj 11y ago
    Exactly - "I give head" is clearly a reference to Herod's gift to Salome. If we're looking for juvenile innuendo then presumably give.length and give_log are both also objectionable?
- lifthrasiir 11y ago
  My primary opinion on this matter is that "let's not create a drama". Creating a drama is, whether intentional, accidental, unexpected or not, very consuming and basically a lose-lose game. If not creating a drama has a serious implication for the project, the project has to think hard about that, but otherwise (especially like this situation where changing the variable name has no other effect whatsoever) I would just accept that. I think the precautionary measure taken by Mozilla [1] on the Brotli Content-Encoding is an excellent example. [1] https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=366559#c147 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=366559#c147
  - glogla 11y ago
    But the people can make you do what they want by threatening drama, basically using terror tactics.
    - moopling 11y ago
      Presumably if the general reaction whenever someone raised an issue involving bigotry was for everyone to instantly take on board what they were saying, you might be right. From my experience however, that is definetly not the world we live in. To be honest, even if it was, I think you need to draw a line between hypothetically possible and an observation of what actually happens in the world. The real question is, can you point out any examples of 'terror tactics' (in the context given I take this to mean people using bigotry as a reason for change without actually beleiving it is bigoted)? I wouldn't worry till then
    - lifthrasiir 11y ago
      I have clearly indicated that the project has to think hard in such cases. Not every drama can be avoided in advance. Just make sure that we don't intentionally create and keep dramas alive.
  - LoSboccacc 11y ago
    same. this could have been fixed silently for it was an unintentional mishap, instead he decided to make a big political point out of it, mailing everyone and consuming a big chunk of brain space out of the whole project for some days, then feeding the internet hate machine with this blog post. in some ways, he's the one who brought the sexist tone to the whole conversation. > our accounts had been banned and locked also it irks me the wording, as there's a difference between "leaving" and being shown the door
    - glogla 11y ago
      That's a good point, yes. The author could have sent a patch renaming the variable with commit message "oh come on" or "let's be profesional" and it would have probably worked, but instead he wanted to be a hero fighting against (probably not real) sexism. It seems R foundation has no need for people who want to fell like a hero.
- ohlookapony 11y ago
  >Was the variable name an accurate description of what it was used for or not? If it was, let it go. If it wasn't suggest a better one. >Opensource software is not the place to enforce your views on society on someone else. While I completely agree, if you read the article he did suggest an alternative and submitted a patch. Rather than the patch being rejected, he got banned from the community. See below. Not a good look, but we only have one side of the story. === The second was a set of emails from Duncan Murdoch, President of the R Foundation and an R Core member, in which he dismissed my "bug report" (note the skeptical scare quotes he put on it) "about some variable name that you find offensive is clearly an example of nothing more than shit-disturbing" and stated that myself, and those who had commented in favour of changing it, were no longer welcome to participate in R's bug-tracker.
  - sliken 11y ago
    I did read the article. A developer in the authors words was "entirely proper, entirely reasonable", named a variable that describes what it does and filed a patch claiming it's "exclusionary as all hell". Just the type of thing that will create drama, debate, and divide the community. All because someone reads something into a variable name that wasn't intended... for a variable that is well named. What's next banning unlucky numbers? Rating colors by political correctness? Favoring data structures because of their religious analogies? How about saving bug reports for things that actually improve the application?
    - ohlookapony 11y ago
      I agree with you regarding the patch, and the name doesn't bother me in the slightest. However I think Duncan Murdoch, being the President of the R Foundation acted extremely immaturely by blocking the accounts of all involved.
    - ricksplat 11y ago
      I don't find the use of the word fanny by Americans to be inappropriate, though it means something completely different in my sociolinguistic context. Even more similarly when a German colleague expresses her enjoyment of driving ("ich möchte fahrt") I'm not about to cry "filth" because one of the words sounds like a rude noise to my puerile mind.
- arrrg 11y ago
  But by deciding to keep this people are “enforc[ing their] views on society on someone else”. You cannot not act. Keeping the status quo is acting, too. Neutrality is just impossible and you have to decide how you want to deal with these issues in a graceful and fair way.
  - Oletros 11y ago
    If there is an issue
Ardren 11y ago
Code reference: https://github.com/wch/r-source/blob/b156e3a711967f58131e23c1b1dc1ea90e2f0c43/src/library/utils/R/str.R#L57 https://github.com/wch/r-source/blob/b156e3a711967f58131e23c... Personally It seems a bit of stretch to call that "exclusionary as all hell".
- kaeluka 11y ago
  Sure. "Exclusionary as hell" is a stretch. In either case, I still think it shouldn't be in anyone's code base. There are some people who are offended by it and -- even though I'm not one of them -- the project can only lose by keeping code like this.
- ricksplat 11y ago
  Crikey seeing this in context really brings home the triviality of this whole thing. The only reason somebody would be offended by this would be if they knew what it meant in the first place - it's plausible that it's accidental. Yes there is a case for making the change but in doing so you're acknowledging that it was a mistake in the first place (because an observer attributed it as such) and you're setting a precedent - are you going to have to attend to every prude that objects to anything? Anybody who is smart enough to read code should be smart enough to see this for what it is. IMHO if this guy mounted a campaign on this issue banning was appropriate if a little heavy handed. A subtle talking to might be better but raising a bug is a matter of record, and that makes things a little trickier.
- Cthulhu_ 11y ago
  Or sexist, for that matter. Giving head is not limited to specific genders, if that even was the intent of that variable name. It probably isn't about the variable name though, but about the response from the developer to the PR.
andreaferretti 11y ago
Can anyone explain the sexual reference? I am not a native English speaker
- brusch64 11y ago
  I leave you a link to the urban dictionary item for this term: http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=giving+head http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=giving+head
Oletros 11y ago
Perhaps because I'm not living in the USA and I'm not part of its culture, but to me it seems that there is a very big over sensitivity to anything politically incorrect.
- TheLogothete 11y ago
  I have put a lot of effort in NOT writing a very snarky reply. The situation is becoming ridiculous. Get over yourselves. The world does not revolve around you.
  - glogla 11y ago
    The author is a man called Oliver, so it's even more ridiculous, because he is getting offended for someone else. EDIT: parent formerly referenced the author of the article as "lady".
    - TheLogothete 11y ago
      Yeah, I figured it out pretty quickly and edited. Sorry for not mentioning it. I'm very perplexed by all this sensitivity surrounding us.
      - rewqfdsa 11y ago
        Virtue signaling persists only because too few of us are willing to speak out against it. The good news is that I've noticed an increasing amount of opposition to political correctness culture in the FOSS world. We're fighting back, and we're winning, albeit slowly.
- noonespecial 11y ago
  It seems to center around virtue signaling. Those who participate the most seem to be indirectly involved and locked in an arms race to see who can be more indignant on behalf of those who might possibly take offense, when and if they exist. Its a bit insidious because usually there is some merit to the complaint (as in this case, the variable name was a bit embarrassing and should have been changed with little more than a self-conscious chuckle) but thanks to the cult of PC, everyone over-reacts.
PhasmaFelis 11y ago
> The second was a set of emails from Duncan Murdoch, President of the R Foundation and an R Core member, in which he dismissed my "bug report" (note the skeptical scare quotes he put on it) "about some variable name that you find offensive is clearly an example of nothing more than shit-disturbing" and stated that myself, and those who had commented in favour of changing it, were no longer welcome to participate in R's bug-tracker. > I independently confirmed that our accounts had been banned and locked - as had the bug, and replied to Duncan explaining my thinking and motivation and asking in what capacity the ban had been made. > The variable name is still there. I never got any reply to my email. This bit needs to be emphasized, because the incident is invariably going to be spun as one over-sensitive prude throwing a temper tantrum because he didn't get his way. We need to keep focus on what actually happened: Keyes pointed out something he perceived as a problem, going out of his way to be polite and non-accusatory; Murdoch punished and censored Keyes and anyone who had publicly agreed with him.
- TheLogothete 11y ago
  But we don't know what actually happened. Perhaps you can keep your judgement for AFTER you hear both sides of the story?
  - PhasmaFelis 11y ago
    Keyes' story was pretty clear and detailed; I don't see much room for misinterpretation. I suppose it's possible that he's outright lying and the locked bug he linked in the article was actually Viagra spam, but I don't think it's reasonable to suspend all discussion on that basis.
    - TheLogothete 11y ago
      Or perhaps it went something like this: A person who has a long history of creating drama wherever he goes sees a very aptly named argument with siblings which follow the same nomenclature. The person opens a bug report to change the name of said argument because he perceives some grand social injustice with it. This person is rather impatient so he hammers it, effectively spamming with emails the maintainers. But that's not enough, he hammers the mailing lists and contacts directly the (very busy) maintainers just for good measure. He doesn't get what he wants because he is being obtuse and ridiculous, so he decides to elevate this to the head maintainer and emails him directly, insisting actions to be taken to indulge his caprice. Maybe he even posts on twitter to get other people with nothing better to do on his side and exert pressure. Maybe, just maybe, this person feels excited and warm inside as he posts on twitter. He did it again. People will engage in meaningless rhetoric about things that are not really there and he is center of it all. Oh, the hours spent going back and forth and back again and all the ATTENTION. But the head maintainer sees right through it and will have none of it, so he just blocks this person from stirring drama YET again in the future. Not saying this happened, just fyi, but it's possible, even probable, one might think. And after all, here we are, creating rhetoric about things of absolutely no significance whatsoever.
nkurz 11y ago
It's worth reading the comments on the article, as the author explains his position further: I am not saying "duncan is a sexist". I am not saying "this language is sexist". I am saying "I suspect the end result of decisions like this is to perpetuate a bias away from the inclusion of marginalised groups, including women". I'm not certain if that's true, but it seems like a reasonable discussion for a community to have. And if the immediate response to that argument is unilaterally banning the bug tracking privileges of the reporter and everyone who commented in favor of the bug, I wouldn't blame anyone for deciding that R is a poisonous community that they they no longer want to be part of.
- Oletros 11y ago
  > "I suspect the end result of decisions like this is to perpetuate a bias away from the inclusion of marginalised groups, including women". I don't understand this
  - arasmussen 11y ago
    Bringing up concerns regarding sexism are abruptly shut down and labeled "shit disturbing" by a man in charge.
    - tomp 11y ago
      Not everything is sexism, even if some people like to pretend it is. Giving head definitely isn't sexist (both sexes do it).
- arasmussen 11y ago
  Agree 100%. Some are very sensitive to sexism and political incorrectness and some just don't care/notice. Regardless, a leader should encourage community members to voice their legitimate concerns. Duncan's actions were simply immature and unwelcoming. I don't blame Oliver for leaving and hope we see a public apology from Duncan.
  - mercer 11y ago
Cyph0n 11y ago
This reminds me of a PR merged into swift/master [1]. The PR renamed some "offensive" variables in one of the tests. It was merged almost immediately, even though it wasn't fully tested. We had a blast laughing at the stupidity of it all on Reddit [2]. [1]: https://github.com/apple/swift/commit/c2b5546512af24e52ed15c8cd204dc363c5eeeb6 https://github.com/apple/swift/commit/c2b5546512af24e52ed15c... [2]: https://www.reddit.com/r/ProgrammerHumor/comments/3veu2t/swiftly_abolishing_code_slavery/ https://www.reddit.com/r/ProgrammerHumor/comments/3veu2t/swi...
- arrrg 11y ago
  I don’t really understand what’s wrong with using more inclusionary language. I’m so very confused by this attitude. I mean, I can understand someone not viewing it as particularly important, but you seem to view it as very obviously ridiculous which is an attitude I really struggle to understand. This seems like a tiny little harmless improvement of the world.
  - Oletros 11y ago
    It is ridiculous because the meaning of master-slave in this context has nothing to do with exclusionary language and leaser-follower doesn't mean the same.
    - mercer 11y ago
      Furthermore, until we start actually running into the thorny issue of computer AI, it's consciousness and the ethical dilemma's surrounding it, the relationship actually is that of a MASTER and a SLAVE. It's like banning Huckleberry Finn for using the word 'nigger', or Der Untergang because it's about Hitler.
  - Cyph0n 11y ago
    What's wrong is that the original terminology is both more correct and has been convention for decades. There really is no replacement that can convey the intended meaning. I really don't see how one can get offended by terminology, as long as the usage is not intentionally offensive. What makes it all hilarious is the fact that the PR was merged almost immediately into MASTER without being fully tested first. It's as if not merging it ASAP would have started WW3 or something.
soft_dev_person 11y ago
"exclusionary as all hell" is such an overstatement it's hard to focus on the rest of the message in this post, but the response they got from Murdoch was completely out of line. I would also be skeptical to contribute when one of the project's leads are so quick to ban and flog a contributor, regardless of their misinformed intentions.
- slavik81 11y ago
  While I thought the issue was a little silly at first, the project's response did sound like an overreaction. Though, after reading the comments, I wonder if they were perhaps already familiar with ironholds. The underlying attitude behind this change is awful. > women do not trend towards [...] an absence of concern for those not of their background. Men (particularly cis, white men) tend to.
  - cellularmitosis 11y ago
    I find it ironic that his complaint was of "exclusionary language", when his own language looks like this: > This does not mean "all men suck". This means "society's conditioning and understanding of what 'male' means tend to result in a condition of suck". It's toxic for everyone (including those men. Of who I count myself a member).
chappi42 11y ago
Very bad reaction from Duncan to revoke access to issue tracker b/c of this. They could have closed/rejected the 'bug report' and all would be fine imho. (If one keeps pestering then it's another matter).
jevgeni 11y ago
In Germany police (or any governmental authority in fact) has to use the "mildest effective method" to deal with some contentious situation. For example, it is illegal to water cannon the shit out of say loud pensioners petitioning for more public parks. Regardless of how you see the issue with the variable name, the action taken by Murdoch is moronic, abusive, and over the top.
- Oletros 11y ago
  We only know one side of the history
UVB-76 11y ago
In the comments the author acknowledges the term is not gender-specific, but claims the term is "generally exclusionary" A "microaggression" not aimed at excluding anyone in particular. Not even an aggression of any kind. The mind boggles.
- glogla 11y ago
  It's especially confusing because outside the US, sex is usually not considered wrong per se or sinful or whatever.
  - screwedup 11y ago
    It's usually not considered wrong or sinful in the USA either.
taneq 11y ago
If the author feels they can't be part of a community because of some code containing a suggestively-named (in their particular culture) variable, then that's their choice and more power to them. The response from this Duncan guy was probably unnecessarily rude, and while I mostly agree with the content of his response, he certainly came across as a bit of a dick. That said, I fail to see why we should care. A person was part of a community until they had a snit and left it. Okay. (Edit: As rightly pointed out below, the author was effectively kicked out of their role after complaining about said variable. So fair enough, I'm upgrading Duncan & co. from 'bit of a dick' to 'complete dick who shouldn't be in charge'. In which case we should definitely care about a project's admin abusing their power in that way.)
- matthewmacleod 11y ago
  If the author feels they can't be part of a community because of some code containing a suggestively-named (in their particular culture) variable This is very obviously not an accurate description of events. In reality – author feels (rightly or wrongly) offended, submits a patch to resolve this, and in response is essentially kicked out of a core position. That's not just 'unnecessarily rude' – it's a stupid and broken way to run a community. That said, I fail to see why we should care Because I think generally we want to encourage reasonably welcoming open source communities, and responses like this seem generally disproportionate.
  - taneq 11y ago
    After a re-read, you are indeed correct. And I agree, that kind of behaviour does warrant warning potential contributors away from the project.
  - rewqfdsa 11y ago
    > essentially kicked out of a core position [snip] > That's not just 'unnecessarily rude' – it's a stupid and broken way to run a community. The project owner was harsh, but I respect his pragmatism. The perpetually aggrieved are never satisfied. Anyone who complains about something as trivial as the variable name in question is someone who lives for attention-seeking and virtue signaling. It's better to immediately and fully separate yourself from that kind of person, even if it involves a short-term reputation hit, than allow that person to gain influence and endanger your project's existence.
Findeton 11y ago
I am a man, and I don't understand the "microagressions" word, and I usually protest anti-men ("feminists") politics (like for example the fact that in Spain, by law, for two exactly equal murders you will be fewer years in prison if you are a woman). But in this case the R Foundation has acted as sexists.
- matthewmacleod 11y ago
  I usually protest anti-men ("feminists") politics I'd point out that this 'anti-men' is not really equivalent to 'feminist' and you might want to reconsider that position. But in this case the R Foundation has acted as sexists. It's hard to say this is anything to do with gender at all – the author is a man, the 'accused' is a man…
  - Paradigma11 11y ago
    I don't think he is analytically equating both but stating that they empirically are.
  - Findeton 11y ago
    I know anti-men does not mean feminist. I am a feminist, I'm pro gender equality. Anti-men are not feminists, they are "feminists", with the quotes.
lottin 11y ago
Here is the function in question [1]; it has arguments named "give.attr", "give.head", "give.length", among others. It doesn't seem at all a good idea to rename "give.head" to something else, as it would break the API and it would be inconsistent with how the other arguments are named. The R team devs were unnecessarily rude but the bug report was misguided. [1] https://stat.ethz.ch/R-manual/R-devel/library/utils/html/str.html https://stat.ethz.ch/R-manual/R-devel/library/utils/html/str...
spikels 11y ago
Ironholds has a long history of creating drama wherever he goes.
tomp 11y ago
Hm... seems like the author was creating unnecessary drama about a topic completely orthogonal to programming, and then complained when s/he was prevented from creating more drama. These are the people you kind of want to exclude from any community.
oelmekki 11y ago
To me, the problem this incident is pointing out is the toxicity of code review. We speak about changing the name of a local variable used four times in the whole codebase. Was this that a big deal? Merge it already and be done with it. Easy way to make people happy to contribute. Instead of that, people had to comment that change and explain why they don't like it, leading to confrontation, frustration and the departure of a team member. This is so typical. The worst part in code review is that people are convinced they do the right thing. How being aware of changes and trying to do some peer work could be a bad thing? Well, it's basically commenting over and over other people work, leading authors to mistrust themselves and to the feeling of unfairness. Reading other people code is cool. Commenting it... well, you should think you have a very good reason to do that.
- rewqfdsa 11y ago
  Are you proposing that the ability to comment on proposed changes is toxic? How exactly is a group of people supposed to come to a consensus on technical matters without the ability to communicate? Are you really suggesting that certain changes proposed by certain people get special treatment, immunity from discussion, and expedited merging to mainline? Technical excellence in such an environment is impossible. Nobody's stopping you running a project that way, but if you tried to introduce this kind of discrimination, prejudice, and, well, privileged treatment into a project to which I contribute, I'd fork, and everyone who actually wanted to write code would follow me.
  - oelmekki 11y ago
    I don't get how you come to thinking that reading my comment. It's not being able to comment that is problem, it's feeling that you have to comment.
    - rewqfdsa 11y ago
      Your comment calls "code review", the practice, "toxic". You go on to suggest that project maintainers "merge [the pull request] already and be done with it", suggesting that the normal review process not apply to this particular diff. You suggest that there should be a high bar for commenting on other people's code. Your comment sounds to me like it advocates lowering the bar for merging of external patches. That's a sure way to technical inferiority.
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
aaron695 11y ago
It's really important to kick these people when they behave this way and we need to start supporting this. If you contribute to the code, you have a right to comment, else fuck off and go back to leeching. Start by actually giving to the community rather than finding faults that waste peoples time who are creating things. How much time will this destroy from the R core community.
matthewmacleod 11y ago
I'm struggling to understand why such a term in a codebase would be offensive. Even if it were intentional (which apparently it's not) I fail to see how it could be considered 'exclusionary', as claimed. Frankly, the author comes off with the baffling sort of self-righteous political correctness which scares me a little in it's reductiveness. That said, this is obviously not the way to build a community. Kicking people out for this sort of thing sets a bad precedent. If enough people found this offensive to enough to back a change, then maybe it's better to accept that view as legitimate, even if it's not one you hold. Of course, we only know one side of the story, so maybe there's more to it.
- s9w 11y ago
  My guess would be that they wanted to stop this sort of thing before it becomes a real problem. There have been numerous examples of this kind of "sjw" behaviour influencing and even targeting big open source projects, and people become afraid of it (Sarah Sharp is the only name I can remember at the moment from such an incident). I don't know the people involved though.
kriro 11y ago
I can fully understand being upset even though I'd probably reject the patch. It's not the content that is being debated that is sad. I don't mind either position, personally I lean towards the "don't care about so called microagressions in codebases"[1]. The way this request was handled would upset me a great deal though so I can understand why he reacted the way he did. R is cool, sad to see a good member of the community leave. [1]"exclusionary as all hell" is too religious for my taste. Please change that language.
Tiquor 11y ago
I wrote a reasoned, but critical, response to this guy and he edited my Disqus response with a childish personal attack before approving it. He justified it by saying my Disqus post history was about gaming and telling people they were overreacting. Take from that what you will.
- glogla 11y ago
  Can you tell us more about what you wrote and what was edited? If the author is lying, it should be brought to light.
  - brohee 11y ago
    I suggest you read http://www.examiner.com/article/wikipedia-s-new-editing-software-gets-failing-grade http://www.examiner.com/article/wikipedia-s-new-editing-soft... (especially from "His name is Oliver Keyes"). Our herald of sensitivity was previously known for outburst like [12:19:35 A] <Sophiie> hi, can a page be undeleted just to see what it once was? [12:19:47 A] <Ironholds> Sophiie, fuck off and die [12:19:50 A] <Ironholds> thank you TBH, he looks more and more like a troll, and pretty talented at shit stirring. And removing people like that from your projects is best done early.
    - glogla 11y ago
      Ah, yeah. I understand perfectly why the decision "we're better of without you, bye" took like ten minutes.
  - Tiquor 11y ago
    I basically said that the concept of "giving head" had transcended a particular gendered relationship. In other words it had moved far beyond just being about a women giving head and that it was just about human sexuality at this point. I said his stance on the phrase was behind the times. It wasn't exclusionary, it was sexual and I think those are important to distinguish. He edited my post to say I only cared about telling people they were overreacting and talking about games. I own a company in the video game industry. What do you think my Disqus history will have in it?
golergka 11y ago
Homo, bi and heterosexual women and men can give head to each other as a happy adult consensual sexual act. How the hell is this offensive to anyone?
- becuzIwnatitobi 11y ago
  Because I want it to be an offensive phrase.
hsod 11y ago
This is going to keep happening. While I respect a project maintainers right to decide to what extent language should be policed in their own project, the pragmatic thing to do is probably just quietly merge.
justin_vanw 11y ago
Isn't this entire complaint about the variable name heteronormative? Also, are we supposed to assume that women are somehow more prudish about things that remind them of but aren't referring to sex acts than men are? Just because someone can imagine a hypothetical problem doesn't mean it's an emergency that others need to worry about. Eventually all code will be reviewed by Beavis and Butthead, and if they can manage to find anything to huhuhuh about, it will have to be changed. "Huhuhuh, that said 'Insert', huhuhuh."
richierocks 11y ago
I've met Oliver (Ironholds), Martin (who wrote the code with the dodgy variable name), and Duncan (who banned Oliver and others from the bug tracker for "shit-stirring"). All three of them are smart, delightful people in my experience. This strikes me as a bit of a storm in a tea-cup, but there is some background context worth noting. R's academic roots have created some interesting cultural aspects within the community. For example, in academia you spend a fair amount of time critiquing other people's work and trying to find flaws. It's perfectly acceptable to trash someone's argument, even to their face when they give a presentation. Once you accept that it's not personal but necessary for research to progress, it's OK, but to begin with its a horrible experience. Outside of academia, this is mostly just awful impolite behaviour. That attitude of being allowed to correct people's arguments without bothering with any formalities has been a feature of the many aspects of the R community since its inception. In particular, the R-help mailing list and the R bug tracker can be scary places for new users. As the R community has grown beyond the confines of academia, this has led to tensions within the community. These sorts of cultural issues have long worried a lot of R users, and I can only guess that Oliver's position on the R Foundation Task Force on Women led him to worry about diversity issues more than most. The other relevant aspect of the R community is that R is developed and managed by the R Core Team (https://www.r-project.org/contributors.html https://www.r-project.org/contributors.html), which consists of 20 guys, about half of whom are actively working on R, and all of whom have day jobs beside being in R Core. They do a great job, but the R community is now several million people, which means that managing the mailing lists and the bug tracker - dreadfully tedious tasks at the best of times - must now be rather overwhelming. I've personally been (mildly) scolded a few times when submitting bugs that I thought were reasonable but members of R Core thought differently. While I think that Duncan's response was a big overreaction, in the context of him trying to optimize not having to spend time dealing with the bug tracker, I can understand why he chose to ban Oliver. My opinion is that a lot of strife could be avoided if R Core delegated a lot more of the admin work - I'm sure there are plenty of grad students who could be persuaded into acting as first line support on the bug tracker, or moderators on a mailing list.
KieferWolfowitz 11y ago
Oliver Keyes is a very intelligent & energetic contributor to open-source projects. His contributions to Wikipedia have been discussed by journalists: http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Security-Watch/Backchannels/2013/0801/In-UK-rising-chorus-of-outrage-over-online-misogyny http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Security-Watch/Backchannels/2... http://www.examiner.com/article/wikipedia-s-new-editing-software-gets-failing-grade#His_name_is_Oliver_Keyes http://www.examiner.com/article/wikipedia-s-new-editing-soft... http://www.examiner.com/article/wikimedia-foundation-s-oliver-keyes-stripped-of-administrator-status http://www.examiner.com/article/wikimedia-foundation-s-olive... Keyes has also been discussed in threads at Wikipediocracy, a forum for critical discussions of Wikipedia (with the name inspired by "Idiocracy"!): http://wikipediocracy.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=38&t=7337 http://wikipediocracy.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=38&t=7337 http://wikipediocracy.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=14&t=2572&p=51647&hilit=Ironholds#p51647 http://wikipediocracy.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=14&t=2572&p=... (The latter thread has 15 pages.) Please note that I quoted some of your comments on Wikipediocracy, http://wikipediocracy.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=38&t=7337#p171800 http://wikipediocracy.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=38&t=7337#p1... which I hope shall alert others of your discussion here. Full disclosure: I was the editor whom Ironholds/Oliver Keyes suggested dowsing with oil and lighting on fire on Wikipedia's IRC. http://wikipediocracy.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=51423#p51423 http://wikipediocracy.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=51423#p51423
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
OliverIsAPrat 11y ago
Well, here's why I think he's more trouble than he's worth. http://wikipediocracy.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=2572 http://wikipediocracy.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=2572 15 pages of documenting a WMF employee behaving like a complete douche canoe. TL;DR: Oliver Keyes behaves so badly and on such a regular basis that, even as an employee of the WMF, he was forcibly stripped of admin status on wikipedia.

65 points by Dawny33 11y ago

Imagine if everyone in every culture, using every language on the planet reviewed millions of lines of code and then filed bugs for any word that offended them or could possibly be related to a sexual innuendo. Was the variable name an accurate description of what it was used for or not? If it was, let it go. If it wasn't suggest a better one. Opensource software is not the place to enforce your views on society on someone else.

PhasmaFelis 11y ago
> Imagine if everyone in every culture, using every language on the planet reviewed millions of lines of code and then filed bugs for any word that offended them or could possibly be related to a sexual innuendo. Slippery slope fallacy. Yes, protesting functions whose initials spell out a cuss word in Swahili would be silly and counterproductive. But no one has proposed that, or anything like that. This is an English-language code base, and there is nothing ambiguous about the English meaning of the phrase "I give head."
- pbhjpbhj 11y ago
  Exactly - "I give head" is clearly a reference to Herod's gift to Salome. If we're looking for juvenile innuendo then presumably give.length and give_log are both also objectionable?
lifthrasiir 11y ago
My primary opinion on this matter is that "let's not create a drama". Creating a drama is, whether intentional, accidental, unexpected or not, very consuming and basically a lose-lose game. If not creating a drama has a serious implication for the project, the project has to think hard about that, but otherwise (especially like this situation where changing the variable name has no other effect whatsoever) I would just accept that. I think the precautionary measure taken by Mozilla [1] on the Brotli Content-Encoding is an excellent example. [1] https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=366559#c147 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=366559#c147
- glogla 11y ago
  But the people can make you do what they want by threatening drama, basically using terror tactics.
  - moopling 11y ago
    Presumably if the general reaction whenever someone raised an issue involving bigotry was for everyone to instantly take on board what they were saying, you might be right. From my experience however, that is definetly not the world we live in. To be honest, even if it was, I think you need to draw a line between hypothetically possible and an observation of what actually happens in the world. The real question is, can you point out any examples of 'terror tactics' (in the context given I take this to mean people using bigotry as a reason for change without actually beleiving it is bigoted)? I wouldn't worry till then
  - lifthrasiir 11y ago
    I have clearly indicated that the project has to think hard in such cases. Not every drama can be avoided in advance. Just make sure that we don't intentionally create and keep dramas alive.
- LoSboccacc 11y ago
  same. this could have been fixed silently for it was an unintentional mishap, instead he decided to make a big political point out of it, mailing everyone and consuming a big chunk of brain space out of the whole project for some days, then feeding the internet hate machine with this blog post. in some ways, he's the one who brought the sexist tone to the whole conversation. > our accounts had been banned and locked also it irks me the wording, as there's a difference between "leaving" and being shown the door
  - glogla 11y ago
    That's a good point, yes. The author could have sent a patch renaming the variable with commit message "oh come on" or "let's be profesional" and it would have probably worked, but instead he wanted to be a hero fighting against (probably not real) sexism. It seems R foundation has no need for people who want to fell like a hero.
ohlookapony 11y ago
>Was the variable name an accurate description of what it was used for or not? If it was, let it go. If it wasn't suggest a better one. >Opensource software is not the place to enforce your views on society on someone else. While I completely agree, if you read the article he did suggest an alternative and submitted a patch. Rather than the patch being rejected, he got banned from the community. See below. Not a good look, but we only have one side of the story. === The second was a set of emails from Duncan Murdoch, President of the R Foundation and an R Core member, in which he dismissed my "bug report" (note the skeptical scare quotes he put on it) "about some variable name that you find offensive is clearly an example of nothing more than shit-disturbing" and stated that myself, and those who had commented in favour of changing it, were no longer welcome to participate in R's bug-tracker.
- sliken 11y ago
  I did read the article. A developer in the authors words was "entirely proper, entirely reasonable", named a variable that describes what it does and filed a patch claiming it's "exclusionary as all hell". Just the type of thing that will create drama, debate, and divide the community. All because someone reads something into a variable name that wasn't intended... for a variable that is well named. What's next banning unlucky numbers? Rating colors by political correctness? Favoring data structures because of their religious analogies? How about saving bug reports for things that actually improve the application?
  - ohlookapony 11y ago
    I agree with you regarding the patch, and the name doesn't bother me in the slightest. However I think Duncan Murdoch, being the President of the R Foundation acted extremely immaturely by blocking the accounts of all involved.
  - ricksplat 11y ago
    I don't find the use of the word fanny by Americans to be inappropriate, though it means something completely different in my sociolinguistic context. Even more similarly when a German colleague expresses her enjoyment of driving ("ich möchte fahrt") I'm not about to cry "filth" because one of the words sounds like a rude noise to my puerile mind.
arrrg 11y ago
But by deciding to keep this people are “enforc[ing their] views on society on someone else”. You cannot not act. Keeping the status quo is acting, too. Neutrality is just impossible and you have to decide how you want to deal with these issues in a graceful and fair way.
- Oletros 11y ago
  If there is an issue

Ardren 11y ago

Code reference: https://github.com/wch/r-source/blob/b156e3a711967f58131e23c1b1dc1ea90e2f0c43/src/library/utils/R/str.R#L57 https://github.com/wch/r-source/blob/b156e3a711967f58131e23c... Personally It seems a bit of stretch to call that "exclusionary as all hell".

kaeluka 11y ago
Sure. "Exclusionary as hell" is a stretch. In either case, I still think it shouldn't be in anyone's code base. There are some people who are offended by it and -- even though I'm not one of them -- the project can only lose by keeping code like this.
ricksplat 11y ago
Crikey seeing this in context really brings home the triviality of this whole thing. The only reason somebody would be offended by this would be if they knew what it meant in the first place - it's plausible that it's accidental. Yes there is a case for making the change but in doing so you're acknowledging that it was a mistake in the first place (because an observer attributed it as such) and you're setting a precedent - are you going to have to attend to every prude that objects to anything? Anybody who is smart enough to read code should be smart enough to see this for what it is. IMHO if this guy mounted a campaign on this issue banning was appropriate if a little heavy handed. A subtle talking to might be better but raising a bug is a matter of record, and that makes things a little trickier.
Cthulhu_ 11y ago
Or sexist, for that matter. Giving head is not limited to specific genders, if that even was the intent of that variable name. It probably isn't about the variable name though, but about the response from the developer to the PR.

andreaferretti 11y ago

Can anyone explain the sexual reference? I am not a native English speaker

brusch64 11y ago
I leave you a link to the urban dictionary item for this term: http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=giving+head http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=giving+head

Oletros 11y ago

Perhaps because I'm not living in the USA and I'm not part of its culture, but to me it seems that there is a very big over sensitivity to anything politically incorrect.

TheLogothete 11y ago
I have put a lot of effort in NOT writing a very snarky reply. The situation is becoming ridiculous. Get over yourselves. The world does not revolve around you.
- glogla 11y ago
  The author is a man called Oliver, so it's even more ridiculous, because he is getting offended for someone else. EDIT: parent formerly referenced the author of the article as "lady".
  - TheLogothete 11y ago
    Yeah, I figured it out pretty quickly and edited. Sorry for not mentioning it. I'm very perplexed by all this sensitivity surrounding us.
    - rewqfdsa 11y ago
      Virtue signaling persists only because too few of us are willing to speak out against it. The good news is that I've noticed an increasing amount of opposition to political correctness culture in the FOSS world. We're fighting back, and we're winning, albeit slowly.
noonespecial 11y ago
It seems to center around virtue signaling. Those who participate the most seem to be indirectly involved and locked in an arms race to see who can be more indignant on behalf of those who might possibly take offense, when and if they exist. Its a bit insidious because usually there is some merit to the complaint (as in this case, the variable name was a bit embarrassing and should have been changed with little more than a self-conscious chuckle) but thanks to the cult of PC, everyone over-reacts.

PhasmaFelis 11y ago

> The second was a set of emails from Duncan Murdoch, President of the R Foundation and an R Core member, in which he dismissed my "bug report" (note the skeptical scare quotes he put on it) "about some variable name that you find offensive is clearly an example of nothing more than shit-disturbing" and stated that myself, and those who had commented in favour of changing it, were no longer welcome to participate in R's bug-tracker. > I independently confirmed that our accounts had been banned and locked - as had the bug, and replied to Duncan explaining my thinking and motivation and asking in what capacity the ban had been made. > The variable name is still there. I never got any reply to my email. This bit needs to be emphasized, because the incident is invariably going to be spun as one over-sensitive prude throwing a temper tantrum because he didn't get his way. We need to keep focus on what actually happened: Keyes pointed out something he perceived as a problem, going out of his way to be polite and non-accusatory; Murdoch punished and censored Keyes and anyone who had publicly agreed with him.

TheLogothete 11y ago
But we don't know what actually happened. Perhaps you can keep your judgement for AFTER you hear both sides of the story?
- PhasmaFelis 11y ago
  Keyes' story was pretty clear and detailed; I don't see much room for misinterpretation. I suppose it's possible that he's outright lying and the locked bug he linked in the article was actually Viagra spam, but I don't think it's reasonable to suspend all discussion on that basis.
  - TheLogothete 11y ago
    Or perhaps it went something like this: A person who has a long history of creating drama wherever he goes sees a very aptly named argument with siblings which follow the same nomenclature. The person opens a bug report to change the name of said argument because he perceives some grand social injustice with it. This person is rather impatient so he hammers it, effectively spamming with emails the maintainers. But that's not enough, he hammers the mailing lists and contacts directly the (very busy) maintainers just for good measure. He doesn't get what he wants because he is being obtuse and ridiculous, so he decides to elevate this to the head maintainer and emails him directly, insisting actions to be taken to indulge his caprice. Maybe he even posts on twitter to get other people with nothing better to do on his side and exert pressure. Maybe, just maybe, this person feels excited and warm inside as he posts on twitter. He did it again. People will engage in meaningless rhetoric about things that are not really there and he is center of it all. Oh, the hours spent going back and forth and back again and all the ATTENTION. But the head maintainer sees right through it and will have none of it, so he just blocks this person from stirring drama YET again in the future. Not saying this happened, just fyi, but it's possible, even probable, one might think. And after all, here we are, creating rhetoric about things of absolutely no significance whatsoever.

nkurz 11y ago

It's worth reading the comments on the article, as the author explains his position further: I am not saying "duncan is a sexist". I am not saying "this language is sexist". I am saying "I suspect the end result of decisions like this is to perpetuate a bias away from the inclusion of marginalised groups, including women". I'm not certain if that's true, but it seems like a reasonable discussion for a community to have. And if the immediate response to that argument is unilaterally banning the bug tracking privileges of the reporter and everyone who commented in favor of the bug, I wouldn't blame anyone for deciding that R is a poisonous community that they they no longer want to be part of.

Oletros 11y ago
> "I suspect the end result of decisions like this is to perpetuate a bias away from the inclusion of marginalised groups, including women". I don't understand this
- arasmussen 11y ago
  Bringing up concerns regarding sexism are abruptly shut down and labeled "shit disturbing" by a man in charge.
  - tomp 11y ago
    Not everything is sexism, even if some people like to pretend it is. Giving head definitely isn't sexist (both sexes do it).
arasmussen 11y ago
Agree 100%. Some are very sensitive to sexism and political incorrectness and some just don't care/notice. Regardless, a leader should encourage community members to voice their legitimate concerns. Duncan's actions were simply immature and unwelcoming. I don't blame Oliver for leaving and hope we see a public apology from Duncan.
- mercer 11y ago

Cyph0n 11y ago

This reminds me of a PR merged into swift/master [1]. The PR renamed some "offensive" variables in one of the tests. It was merged almost immediately, even though it wasn't fully tested. We had a blast laughing at the stupidity of it all on Reddit [2]. [1]: https://github.com/apple/swift/commit/c2b5546512af24e52ed15c8cd204dc363c5eeeb6 https://github.com/apple/swift/commit/c2b5546512af24e52ed15c... [2]: https://www.reddit.com/r/ProgrammerHumor/comments/3veu2t/swiftly_abolishing_code_slavery/ https://www.reddit.com/r/ProgrammerHumor/comments/3veu2t/swi...

arrrg 11y ago
I don’t really understand what’s wrong with using more inclusionary language. I’m so very confused by this attitude. I mean, I can understand someone not viewing it as particularly important, but you seem to view it as very obviously ridiculous which is an attitude I really struggle to understand. This seems like a tiny little harmless improvement of the world.
- Oletros 11y ago
  It is ridiculous because the meaning of master-slave in this context has nothing to do with exclusionary language and leaser-follower doesn't mean the same.
  - mercer 11y ago
    Furthermore, until we start actually running into the thorny issue of computer AI, it's consciousness and the ethical dilemma's surrounding it, the relationship actually is that of a MASTER and a SLAVE. It's like banning Huckleberry Finn for using the word 'nigger', or Der Untergang because it's about Hitler.
- Cyph0n 11y ago
  What's wrong is that the original terminology is both more correct and has been convention for decades. There really is no replacement that can convey the intended meaning. I really don't see how one can get offended by terminology, as long as the usage is not intentionally offensive. What makes it all hilarious is the fact that the PR was merged almost immediately into MASTER without being fully tested first. It's as if not merging it ASAP would have started WW3 or something.

soft_dev_person 11y ago

"exclusionary as all hell" is such an overstatement it's hard to focus on the rest of the message in this post, but the response they got from Murdoch was completely out of line. I would also be skeptical to contribute when one of the project's leads are so quick to ban and flog a contributor, regardless of their misinformed intentions.

slavik81 11y ago
While I thought the issue was a little silly at first, the project's response did sound like an overreaction. Though, after reading the comments, I wonder if they were perhaps already familiar with ironholds. The underlying attitude behind this change is awful. > women do not trend towards [...] an absence of concern for those not of their background. Men (particularly cis, white men) tend to.
- cellularmitosis 11y ago
  I find it ironic that his complaint was of "exclusionary language", when his own language looks like this: > This does not mean "all men suck". This means "society's conditioning and understanding of what 'male' means tend to result in a condition of suck". It's toxic for everyone (including those men. Of who I count myself a member).

chappi42 11y ago

Very bad reaction from Duncan to revoke access to issue tracker b/c of this. They could have closed/rejected the 'bug report' and all would be fine imho. (If one keeps pestering then it's another matter).

jevgeni 11y ago

In Germany police (or any governmental authority in fact) has to use the "mildest effective method" to deal with some contentious situation. For example, it is illegal to water cannon the shit out of say loud pensioners petitioning for more public parks. Regardless of how you see the issue with the variable name, the action taken by Murdoch is moronic, abusive, and over the top.

Oletros 11y ago
We only know one side of the history

UVB-76 11y ago

In the comments the author acknowledges the term is not gender-specific, but claims the term is "generally exclusionary" A "microaggression" not aimed at excluding anyone in particular. Not even an aggression of any kind. The mind boggles.

glogla 11y ago
It's especially confusing because outside the US, sex is usually not considered wrong per se or sinful or whatever.
- screwedup 11y ago
  It's usually not considered wrong or sinful in the USA either.

taneq 11y ago

If the author feels they can't be part of a community because of some code containing a suggestively-named (in their particular culture) variable, then that's their choice and more power to them. The response from this Duncan guy was probably unnecessarily rude, and while I mostly agree with the content of his response, he certainly came across as a bit of a dick. That said, I fail to see why we should care. A person was part of a community until they had a snit and left it. Okay. (Edit: As rightly pointed out below, the author was effectively kicked out of their role after complaining about said variable. So fair enough, I'm upgrading Duncan & co. from 'bit of a dick' to 'complete dick who shouldn't be in charge'. In which case we should definitely care about a project's admin abusing their power in that way.)

matthewmacleod 11y ago
If the author feels they can't be part of a community because of some code containing a suggestively-named (in their particular culture) variable This is very obviously not an accurate description of events. In reality – author feels (rightly or wrongly) offended, submits a patch to resolve this, and in response is essentially kicked out of a core position. That's not just 'unnecessarily rude' – it's a stupid and broken way to run a community. That said, I fail to see why we should care Because I think generally we want to encourage reasonably welcoming open source communities, and responses like this seem generally disproportionate.
- taneq 11y ago
  After a re-read, you are indeed correct. And I agree, that kind of behaviour does warrant warning potential contributors away from the project.
- rewqfdsa 11y ago
  > essentially kicked out of a core position [snip] > That's not just 'unnecessarily rude' – it's a stupid and broken way to run a community. The project owner was harsh, but I respect his pragmatism. The perpetually aggrieved are never satisfied. Anyone who complains about something as trivial as the variable name in question is someone who lives for attention-seeking and virtue signaling. It's better to immediately and fully separate yourself from that kind of person, even if it involves a short-term reputation hit, than allow that person to gain influence and endanger your project's existence.

Findeton 11y ago

I am a man, and I don't understand the "microagressions" word, and I usually protest anti-men ("feminists") politics (like for example the fact that in Spain, by law, for two exactly equal murders you will be fewer years in prison if you are a woman). But in this case the R Foundation has acted as sexists.

matthewmacleod 11y ago
I usually protest anti-men ("feminists") politics I'd point out that this 'anti-men' is not really equivalent to 'feminist' and you might want to reconsider that position. But in this case the R Foundation has acted as sexists. It's hard to say this is anything to do with gender at all – the author is a man, the 'accused' is a man…
- Paradigma11 11y ago
  I don't think he is analytically equating both but stating that they empirically are.
- Findeton 11y ago
  I know anti-men does not mean feminist. I am a feminist, I'm pro gender equality. Anti-men are not feminists, they are "feminists", with the quotes.

lottin 11y ago

Here is the function in question [1]; it has arguments named "give.attr", "give.head", "give.length", among others. It doesn't seem at all a good idea to rename "give.head" to something else, as it would break the API and it would be inconsistent with how the other arguments are named. The R team devs were unnecessarily rude but the bug report was misguided. [1] https://stat.ethz.ch/R-manual/R-devel/library/utils/html/str.html https://stat.ethz.ch/R-manual/R-devel/library/utils/html/str...

spikels 11y ago

Ironholds has a long history of creating drama wherever he goes.

tomp 11y ago

Hm... seems like the author was creating unnecessary drama about a topic completely orthogonal to programming, and then complained when s/he was prevented from creating more drama. These are the people you kind of want to exclude from any community.

oelmekki 11y ago

To me, the problem this incident is pointing out is the toxicity of code review. We speak about changing the name of a local variable used four times in the whole codebase. Was this that a big deal? Merge it already and be done with it. Easy way to make people happy to contribute. Instead of that, people had to comment that change and explain why they don't like it, leading to confrontation, frustration and the departure of a team member. This is so typical. The worst part in code review is that people are convinced they do the right thing. How being aware of changes and trying to do some peer work could be a bad thing? Well, it's basically commenting over and over other people work, leading authors to mistrust themselves and to the feeling of unfairness. Reading other people code is cool. Commenting it... well, you should think you have a very good reason to do that.

rewqfdsa 11y ago
Are you proposing that the ability to comment on proposed changes is toxic? How exactly is a group of people supposed to come to a consensus on technical matters without the ability to communicate? Are you really suggesting that certain changes proposed by certain people get special treatment, immunity from discussion, and expedited merging to mainline? Technical excellence in such an environment is impossible. Nobody's stopping you running a project that way, but if you tried to introduce this kind of discrimination, prejudice, and, well, privileged treatment into a project to which I contribute, I'd fork, and everyone who actually wanted to write code would follow me.
- oelmekki 11y ago
  I don't get how you come to thinking that reading my comment. It's not being able to comment that is problem, it's feeling that you have to comment.
  - rewqfdsa 11y ago
    Your comment calls "code review", the practice, "toxic". You go on to suggest that project maintainers "merge [the pull request] already and be done with it", suggesting that the normal review process not apply to this particular diff. You suggest that there should be a high bar for commenting on other people's code. Your comment sounds to me like it advocates lowering the bar for merging of external patches. That's a sure way to technical inferiority.

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]

aaron695 11y ago

It's really important to kick these people when they behave this way and we need to start supporting this. If you contribute to the code, you have a right to comment, else fuck off and go back to leeching. Start by actually giving to the community rather than finding faults that waste peoples time who are creating things. How much time will this destroy from the R core community.

matthewmacleod 11y ago

I'm struggling to understand why such a term in a codebase would be offensive. Even if it were intentional (which apparently it's not) I fail to see how it could be considered 'exclusionary', as claimed. Frankly, the author comes off with the baffling sort of self-righteous political correctness which scares me a little in it's reductiveness. That said, this is obviously not the way to build a community. Kicking people out for this sort of thing sets a bad precedent. If enough people found this offensive to enough to back a change, then maybe it's better to accept that view as legitimate, even if it's not one you hold. Of course, we only know one side of the story, so maybe there's more to it.

s9w 11y ago
My guess would be that they wanted to stop this sort of thing before it becomes a real problem. There have been numerous examples of this kind of "sjw" behaviour influencing and even targeting big open source projects, and people become afraid of it (Sarah Sharp is the only name I can remember at the moment from such an incident). I don't know the people involved though.

kriro 11y ago

I can fully understand being upset even though I'd probably reject the patch. It's not the content that is being debated that is sad. I don't mind either position, personally I lean towards the "don't care about so called microagressions in codebases"[1]. The way this request was handled would upset me a great deal though so I can understand why he reacted the way he did. R is cool, sad to see a good member of the community leave. [1]"exclusionary as all hell" is too religious for my taste. Please change that language.

Tiquor 11y ago

I wrote a reasoned, but critical, response to this guy and he edited my Disqus response with a childish personal attack before approving it. He justified it by saying my Disqus post history was about gaming and telling people they were overreacting. Take from that what you will.

glogla 11y ago
Can you tell us more about what you wrote and what was edited? If the author is lying, it should be brought to light.
- brohee 11y ago
  I suggest you read http://www.examiner.com/article/wikipedia-s-new-editing-software-gets-failing-grade http://www.examiner.com/article/wikipedia-s-new-editing-soft... (especially from "His name is Oliver Keyes"). Our herald of sensitivity was previously known for outburst like [12:19:35 A] <Sophiie> hi, can a page be undeleted just to see what it once was? [12:19:47 A] <Ironholds> Sophiie, fuck off and die [12:19:50 A] <Ironholds> thank you TBH, he looks more and more like a troll, and pretty talented at shit stirring. And removing people like that from your projects is best done early.
  - glogla 11y ago
    Ah, yeah. I understand perfectly why the decision "we're better of without you, bye" took like ten minutes.
- Tiquor 11y ago
  I basically said that the concept of "giving head" had transcended a particular gendered relationship. In other words it had moved far beyond just being about a women giving head and that it was just about human sexuality at this point. I said his stance on the phrase was behind the times. It wasn't exclusionary, it was sexual and I think those are important to distinguish. He edited my post to say I only cared about telling people they were overreacting and talking about games. I own a company in the video game industry. What do you think my Disqus history will have in it?

golergka 11y ago

Homo, bi and heterosexual women and men can give head to each other as a happy adult consensual sexual act. How the hell is this offensive to anyone?

becuzIwnatitobi 11y ago
Because I want it to be an offensive phrase.

hsod 11y ago

This is going to keep happening. While I respect a project maintainers right to decide to what extent language should be policed in their own project, the pragmatic thing to do is probably just quietly merge.

justin_vanw 11y ago

Isn't this entire complaint about the variable name heteronormative? Also, are we supposed to assume that women are somehow more prudish about things that remind them of but aren't referring to sex acts than men are? Just because someone can imagine a hypothetical problem doesn't mean it's an emergency that others need to worry about. Eventually all code will be reviewed by Beavis and Butthead, and if they can manage to find anything to huhuhuh about, it will have to be changed. "Huhuhuh, that said 'Insert', huhuhuh."

richierocks 11y ago

I've met Oliver (Ironholds), Martin (who wrote the code with the dodgy variable name), and Duncan (who banned Oliver and others from the bug tracker for "shit-stirring"). All three of them are smart, delightful people in my experience. This strikes me as a bit of a storm in a tea-cup, but there is some background context worth noting. R's academic roots have created some interesting cultural aspects within the community. For example, in academia you spend a fair amount of time critiquing other people's work and trying to find flaws. It's perfectly acceptable to trash someone's argument, even to their face when they give a presentation. Once you accept that it's not personal but necessary for research to progress, it's OK, but to begin with its a horrible experience. Outside of academia, this is mostly just awful impolite behaviour. That attitude of being allowed to correct people's arguments without bothering with any formalities has been a feature of the many aspects of the R community since its inception. In particular, the R-help mailing list and the R bug tracker can be scary places for new users. As the R community has grown beyond the confines of academia, this has led to tensions within the community. These sorts of cultural issues have long worried a lot of R users, and I can only guess that Oliver's position on the R Foundation Task Force on Women led him to worry about diversity issues more than most. The other relevant aspect of the R community is that R is developed and managed by the R Core Team (https://www.r-project.org/contributors.html https://www.r-project.org/contributors.html), which consists of 20 guys, about half of whom are actively working on R, and all of whom have day jobs beside being in R Core. They do a great job, but the R community is now several million people, which means that managing the mailing lists and the bug tracker - dreadfully tedious tasks at the best of times - must now be rather overwhelming. I've personally been (mildly) scolded a few times when submitting bugs that I thought were reasonable but members of R Core thought differently. While I think that Duncan's response was a big overreaction, in the context of him trying to optimize not having to spend time dealing with the bug tracker, I can understand why he chose to ban Oliver. My opinion is that a lot of strife could be avoided if R Core delegated a lot more of the admin work - I'm sure there are plenty of grad students who could be persuaded into acting as first line support on the bug tracker, or moderators on a mailing list.

KieferWolfowitz 11y ago

Oliver Keyes is a very intelligent & energetic contributor to open-source projects. His contributions to Wikipedia have been discussed by journalists: http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Security-Watch/Backchannels/2013/0801/In-UK-rising-chorus-of-outrage-over-online-misogyny http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Security-Watch/Backchannels/2... http://www.examiner.com/article/wikipedia-s-new-editing-software-gets-failing-grade#His_name_is_Oliver_Keyes http://www.examiner.com/article/wikipedia-s-new-editing-soft... http://www.examiner.com/article/wikimedia-foundation-s-oliver-keyes-stripped-of-administrator-status http://www.examiner.com/article/wikimedia-foundation-s-olive... Keyes has also been discussed in threads at Wikipediocracy, a forum for critical discussions of Wikipedia (with the name inspired by "Idiocracy"!): http://wikipediocracy.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=38&t=7337 http://wikipediocracy.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=38&t=7337 http://wikipediocracy.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=14&t=2572&p=51647&hilit=Ironholds#p51647 http://wikipediocracy.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=14&t=2572&p=... (The latter thread has 15 pages.) Please note that I quoted some of your comments on Wikipediocracy, http://wikipediocracy.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=38&t=7337#p171800 http://wikipediocracy.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=38&t=7337#p1... which I hope shall alert others of your discussion here. Full disclosure: I was the editor whom Ironholds/Oliver Keyes suggested dowsing with oil and lighting on fire on Wikipedia's IRC. http://wikipediocracy.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=51423#p51423 http://wikipediocracy.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=51423#p51423

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]

OliverIsAPrat 11y ago

Well, here's why I think he's more trouble than he's worth. http://wikipediocracy.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=2572 http://wikipediocracy.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=2572 15 pages of documenting a WMF employee behaving like a complete douche canoe. TL;DR: Oliver Keyes behaves so badly and on such a regular basis that, even as an employee of the WMF, he was forcibly stripped of admin status on wikipedia.