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Interesting. For projects that don't need a "community" we've been using Amazon CodeCommit. We don't like to use Github anymore because of the politics there.

Interesting. For projects that don't need a "community" we've been using Amazon CodeCommit. We don't like to use Github anymore because of the politics there. Example: We had a project involving software filters that included this sentence in the description: > Phase is related to time, but a pure time delay does not involve any phase shift. A pure time delay or "group delay" is constant with frequency. Phase shift varies with frequency and can advance or retard as the frequency changes. We got a note from a woman who works at github who was apparently scanning open source projects for "offensive" words. Our project was flagged for the use of the word "retard". We removed our project and never used github again.

theli0nheart 10y ago
Wow, that is absurd. Did you ever follow up with the employee who sent you a note? What did flagging entail? I.e., were you not able to use the repo?
- AWildDHHAppears 10y ago
  Yes. She indicated that it doesn't matter how the word is used, some will see it as aggressive. As she appeared to be a non-technical person mysteriously employed by GitHub as some consolation to some organization (IIRC it was called the "Ada Initiative") I realized that github is no longer a technology company. It's a Social Justice company. Good luck to them--I don't even disagree with the basic premise--but I like my git repo companies to be worried about git.
  - hrayr 10y ago
    Some of the commenters here assumed that the message was automated, you're making it abundantly clear thats was not the case. In fact she defended her position. Did you try to escalate it? This is absurd.
matthewmacleod 10y ago
We removed our project and never used github again. That seems like a totally disproportionate approach versus responding with a polite 'this is a legitimate use of the word, thanks' message.
- ep103 10y ago
  I would agree with you, if it weren't for all the other articles that have come out about politics and github.
  - matthewmacleod 10y ago
    People on the internet will make lots of noise about everything; paying undue attention to it is a bit silly, IMO.
    - karma_vaccum123 10y ago
      we're not talking about anonymous web forums, we're talking about a git repository. It isn't "silly" to be bothered by random github employees scanning and flagging keywords
    - Karunamon 10y ago
      Anything and everything posted online can be handwaved with this argument.
- pille 10y ago
  Maybe she actually could've read the text and figured it out herself before sending out the note? Just firing off a warning based on a simple text match seems high-handed and/or incompetent enough to consider leaving.
  - matthewmacleod 10y ago
    I actually assumed that this message was automated – "We found on objectionable word in your project, please don't use it." It just seems that this problems is remarkably easily solved with a simple "We are using a technical term correctly, maybe you should consider adjusting your automated emails." I do get the impression that people generally seem to be all to eager to take offence, and it strikes me as a bit ironic to flounce off in a huff as a result of a badly-judged automated process!
akitaonrails 10y ago
This was also one important reason why I am switching. The price, the enjoyment of hacking are primary reasons, but the politics pathway bothers me as well.
- mildbow 10y ago
  I know HN frowns upon "me too!" comments. But .. Me too! I now use gitlab for my company and haven't noticed a difference. I want my git host to worry about hosting git.
Chris2048 10y ago
What did the email say?
favadi 10y ago
I find that github's point of view on those problems are very hard to understand. For example, I once read a github's blog complaints that they don't have enough black, women leaders in github company. But if they really think all races/genders are equal, why they care about how many percent of leaders are non-white, or women?
- matthewmacleod 10y ago
  I think that's a bit of a simplistic way of looking at it. There's an easy explanation of why this approach exists though, if you agree with the following statements: - Race, gender, sexual orientation, disability etc. do not generally affect an individual's skill as an employee - People from certain groups are under-represented in the industry - Under-representation generally reflects an underlying problem somewhere, because one would expect various groups to be represented broadly in line with wider society - One of the problems that can cause under-representation is an existing bias in an industry, which can discourage other members of a group - One of the approaches to solving this is to help ensure that those groups feel comfortable in the industry - One of the approaches to helping them feel comfortable is to ensure that communities are inviting, open-minded, and aware that things they say or do may upset or discourage other people, even though they are do not find those things offensive themselves. It's about observing a trend which seems wrong for various reasons, and attempting to help solve it. I don't doubt for a second that many people go completely overboard on this issue, but outright rejecting any attempt at using, say, gender-neutral language in open-source projects just seems to go completely in the other direction.
- GFK_of_xmaspast 10y ago
  Don't be tiresome.
- allemagne 10y ago
  I'm confused by your question. A lot of organizations have similar concerns. Do you believe that all discussion of diversity is equally nonsensical, or is there something about Github's stance that strikes you as especially so?
Singletoned 10y ago
I'm tempted to have a play with this, and see how many legitmate, non-offensive uses of "retard" I can get into my repos. EG The french for "I'm late" is "Je suis en retard".
kmonsen 10y ago
Why are you specifying it was a woman?
- zwerdlds 10y ago
  Moreover, why would he even know in the first place?
  - cocotino 10y ago
    Maybe because she had a female name?
  - zo1 10y ago
    Perhaps she signed-off her email/post/comment with a female name? You know, it is perfectly reasonable to assume gender when the name is obvious. E.g. the odds of a person called "Samantha" being male are miniscule compared to it being a female. Because in both cases, "it" is a person we are talking about. We can't just erase gender. People think in gender, and they consequently speak it. I don't think twice about mentioning "some guy" commented on my post, for example. Just the other day I decided to be even and refer to a hypothetical person by using "s/he", and even got called out on it.
  - redbergy 10y ago
    If either of you bothered to read the thread before moving forward with your agendas you would have the answers to the questions you're asking[1]. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12232822 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12232822
- FeatureRush 10y ago
  [I'm not OP] Does one have to always make sure not to mention gender in English? I'm from Poland and in Polish you mention it all the time unless you specifically go out of your way not to do so. Before I've seen people criticized for translating "programistka" as "female programmer" and there was that proposal for some NLP library the other day, to drop any functionality detecting gender... And doing that to Polish (or any Slavic) NLP library would make the software useless: emperor/empress,prince/princess,sorcerer/sorceress - it may sound like fantasy to many but this is the reality for language with grammatical gender. I'm not saying there are no biases against women in Eastern Europe, but no one here would find mentioning gender offensive or inappropriate, in fact the opposite is true... I also don't remember such rule being mentioned in my English course.
seattle_lol 10y ago
I did the same with my business, personal projects, and open source stuff I worked on. Github is never getting another penny from me.
nolite 10y ago
I'm offended by her stupidity.. Can I flag her?

theli0nheart 10y ago

Wow, that is absurd. Did you ever follow up with the employee who sent you a note? What did flagging entail? I.e., were you not able to use the repo?

AWildDHHAppears 10y ago
Yes. She indicated that it doesn't matter how the word is used, some will see it as aggressive. As she appeared to be a non-technical person mysteriously employed by GitHub as some consolation to some organization (IIRC it was called the "Ada Initiative") I realized that github is no longer a technology company. It's a Social Justice company. Good luck to them--I don't even disagree with the basic premise--but I like my git repo companies to be worried about git.
- hrayr 10y ago
  Some of the commenters here assumed that the message was automated, you're making it abundantly clear thats was not the case. In fact she defended her position. Did you try to escalate it? This is absurd.

matthewmacleod 10y ago

We removed our project and never used github again. That seems like a totally disproportionate approach versus responding with a polite 'this is a legitimate use of the word, thanks' message.

ep103 10y ago
I would agree with you, if it weren't for all the other articles that have come out about politics and github.
- matthewmacleod 10y ago
  People on the internet will make lots of noise about everything; paying undue attention to it is a bit silly, IMO.
  - karma_vaccum123 10y ago
    we're not talking about anonymous web forums, we're talking about a git repository. It isn't "silly" to be bothered by random github employees scanning and flagging keywords
  - Karunamon 10y ago
    Anything and everything posted online can be handwaved with this argument.
pille 10y ago
Maybe she actually could've read the text and figured it out herself before sending out the note? Just firing off a warning based on a simple text match seems high-handed and/or incompetent enough to consider leaving.
- matthewmacleod 10y ago
  I actually assumed that this message was automated – "We found on objectionable word in your project, please don't use it." It just seems that this problems is remarkably easily solved with a simple "We are using a technical term correctly, maybe you should consider adjusting your automated emails." I do get the impression that people generally seem to be all to eager to take offence, and it strikes me as a bit ironic to flounce off in a huff as a result of a badly-judged automated process!

akitaonrails 10y ago

This was also one important reason why I am switching. The price, the enjoyment of hacking are primary reasons, but the politics pathway bothers me as well.

mildbow 10y ago
I know HN frowns upon "me too!" comments. But .. Me too! I now use gitlab for my company and haven't noticed a difference. I want my git host to worry about hosting git.

Chris2048 10y ago

What did the email say?

favadi 10y ago

I find that github's point of view on those problems are very hard to understand. For example, I once read a github's blog complaints that they don't have enough black, women leaders in github company. But if they really think all races/genders are equal, why they care about how many percent of leaders are non-white, or women?

matthewmacleod 10y ago
I think that's a bit of a simplistic way of looking at it. There's an easy explanation of why this approach exists though, if you agree with the following statements: - Race, gender, sexual orientation, disability etc. do not generally affect an individual's skill as an employee - People from certain groups are under-represented in the industry - Under-representation generally reflects an underlying problem somewhere, because one would expect various groups to be represented broadly in line with wider society - One of the problems that can cause under-representation is an existing bias in an industry, which can discourage other members of a group - One of the approaches to solving this is to help ensure that those groups feel comfortable in the industry - One of the approaches to helping them feel comfortable is to ensure that communities are inviting, open-minded, and aware that things they say or do may upset or discourage other people, even though they are do not find those things offensive themselves. It's about observing a trend which seems wrong for various reasons, and attempting to help solve it. I don't doubt for a second that many people go completely overboard on this issue, but outright rejecting any attempt at using, say, gender-neutral language in open-source projects just seems to go completely in the other direction.
GFK_of_xmaspast 10y ago
Don't be tiresome.
allemagne 10y ago
I'm confused by your question. A lot of organizations have similar concerns. Do you believe that all discussion of diversity is equally nonsensical, or is there something about Github's stance that strikes you as especially so?

Singletoned 10y ago

I'm tempted to have a play with this, and see how many legitmate, non-offensive uses of "retard" I can get into my repos. EG The french for "I'm late" is "Je suis en retard".

kmonsen 10y ago

Why are you specifying it was a woman?

zwerdlds 10y ago
Moreover, why would he even know in the first place?
- cocotino 10y ago
  Maybe because she had a female name?
- zo1 10y ago
  Perhaps she signed-off her email/post/comment with a female name? You know, it is perfectly reasonable to assume gender when the name is obvious. E.g. the odds of a person called "Samantha" being male are miniscule compared to it being a female. Because in both cases, "it" is a person we are talking about. We can't just erase gender. People think in gender, and they consequently speak it. I don't think twice about mentioning "some guy" commented on my post, for example. Just the other day I decided to be even and refer to a hypothetical person by using "s/he", and even got called out on it.
- redbergy 10y ago
  If either of you bothered to read the thread before moving forward with your agendas you would have the answers to the questions you're asking[1]. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12232822 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12232822
FeatureRush 10y ago
[I'm not OP] Does one have to always make sure not to mention gender in English? I'm from Poland and in Polish you mention it all the time unless you specifically go out of your way not to do so. Before I've seen people criticized for translating "programistka" as "female programmer" and there was that proposal for some NLP library the other day, to drop any functionality detecting gender... And doing that to Polish (or any Slavic) NLP library would make the software useless: emperor/empress,prince/princess,sorcerer/sorceress - it may sound like fantasy to many but this is the reality for language with grammatical gender. I'm not saying there are no biases against women in Eastern Europe, but no one here would find mentioning gender offensive or inappropriate, in fact the opposite is true... I also don't remember such rule being mentioned in my English course.

seattle_lol 10y ago

I did the same with my business, personal projects, and open source stuff I worked on. Github is never getting another penny from me.

nolite 10y ago

I'm offended by her stupidity.. Can I flag her?