7 ms·

Proposal to delete the r/golang subreddit

37 points by Spiritus 10y ago

Spiritus 10y ago
Reddit discussion https://www.reddit.com/r/golang/comments/5eqs64/proposal_to_delete_rgolang/ https://www.reddit.com/r/golang/comments/5eqs64/proposal_to_...
4ad 10y ago
Dupe (no comments): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13035122 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13035122 Let's see which thread survives.
4ad 10y ago
Wow. I am speechless. The reddit until very recently had no involvement from the Go team whatsoever. It was founded by uriel, which then added as mods some Go developers which then never posted there. The community was thriving without any involvment from the Go team at all. More recently they decreed they owned the place. Nobody was asked. It just happened. They took over and proclaimed authority over it. They still were not involved much, so it was just a change in name. But now they want to delete it??! A place they had nothing to do with whatsoever. Wow. What arrogance.
- Sphax 10y ago
  Exactly. I'm pissed of that they treat us Reddit users that way. If they don't want to use Reddit they can just fuck off somewhere else and let us be. We don't need them to "moderate" us. I have a lot of respect for the Go team but they sure are bad at managing communities.
  - 4ad 10y ago
    Oh yeah, they totally blew it with the Plan 9 community too. I had hoped they learned their lesson, but no.
- thewhitetulip 10y ago
  As I have stated elsewhere, the Go community is split into two factions, elites (Googlers) and others. Reddit is the only place where others and elites are treated the same, post for feedback on the google group, which has sucky UI and is terrible to use, and you get small comments because they are busy and the feedback isn't at all helpful. Contrast that with Reddit, as someone had pointed to me on HN, I posted a question about AJAX and Go, I got two answers, one in vanilla JS and one in JQuery. Had I asked that in the google groups, I'd likely have not been able to post because it would have been "too simple" or I'd have been shooed away to some obscure stack overflow link. The community wants the subreddit, you can leave if you want. Just because one person screwed up doesn't mean that someone who rarely uses reddit wants to delete the subreddit WITHOUT asking the community. This is against the point of open source. Isn't Go open source?
- bradfitz 10y ago
  It was never "they", it was me. As I replied to you Reddit, the subreddit's early history (that I just learned about) is why I no longer propose deleting it. I think we should just disassociate from it and make it unofficial again.
somecallitblues 10y ago
Brad seems to be the only person who wants it closed. Sound like a bit of a dick.
- grey-area 10y ago
  The title could have been better and I think they should just make unofficial and hand it over to other mods, but he's hardly the only one unhappy with the current subreddit, because of the level of comments there and the existing lack of moderation. Brad in all likelihood wrote some of the code that served you this page and, unlike most of the denizens of reddit, he has written a lot of useful code, your insult is unwarranted.
  - randomdata 10y ago
    > but he's hardly the only one unhappy with the current subreddit, because of the level of comments there and the existing lack of moderation. It seems people forget that Reddit is a community focused on comedy. In the case of Go, if you want to tell a joke about Reddit not having generics, or poke fun at the people who tell jokes about Go not having generics, /r/golang is the place for that. While that style of comedy may not be to everyone's tastes, there is clearly a market for it and Reddit is currently serving it. If you take away that comedic forum on Reddit, it is not going to go away, it is going to go somewhere else. Hopefully not to the mailing list or other places that serve as hosts of meaningful discussion, where the noise would be a huge detractor. The CEO editing comments to point insults at pro-trump moderators is perfectly in line with what Reddit stands for. Playful and kind of funny, at least for for some definition of funny. I'm not sure what there is to gain from shutting that down? I wouldn't hold a serious discussion there, but I never would have at any point in time. That's not its purpose.
jhayward 10y ago
Brad's post was a colossally bad idea. First, it reveals a very hostile attitude within Google toward the go community - a complete lack of empathy for what his actions will do to tens of thousands of developers who have adopted his team's product. Just by posting what he did he's damaged the subreddit, which is apparently his intention. Second, it reinforces the impression that Google is very temperamental in support of their products and services. This is just another in a large stack of examples of why not to choose Google for your project or company. Third, Brad, please go talk to your PR folks. This could easily be spun as "Google attacks Reddit in support of Trump forum", "Google abandons go community", or any number of other baitings. About the only thing they will like about it is that it was at least posted on Thanksgiving holiday, which means most people who could exploit it will not notice. Last, there is a larger, more adult concept known as equity in behavior that Brad should try to adopt. Just because he has a personal ethical issue does not mean he gets to damage other people. It's one thing to say "my personal code does not permit me to continue here, how can I withdraw in the way that is least damaging to others" vs "I'm going to use my position of privilege to inflict as much harm on Reddit as I can, with no regard for damage to others". I agree with @4ad. This is a team that really has no business doing community support.
- pbhjpbhj 10y ago
  >"my personal code does not permit me to continue here, how can I withdraw in the way that is least damaging to others" vs "I'm going to use my position of privilege to inflict as much harm on Reddit as I can, with no regard for damage to others" // What I read at https://groups.google.com/forum/m/#!msg/golang-nuts/XoOhzUClDPs/jgSWxng7CAAJ https://groups.google.com/forum/m/#!msg/golang-nuts/XoOhzUCl... just now seems quite inline with the former statement. bradfitz expresses that he doesn't want to use Reddit anymore and that other mods may also not want to; that there are thus lots of possible moves - move to a reddit new reddit clone just for Golang, move to voat, etc.. It seems that if all the mods just abandon the sub without a continuation plan that the sub will be harmed more than if it's moved en bloc to a new site/forum? It seems to me, approaching this situation fresh on HN with this story, that perhaps you're being coloured by other factors?
- TheGrumpyBrit 10y ago
Udo 10y ago
Apparently the background story broke yesterday, in case anyone is as clueless about the impetus as I was: http://www.cnbc.com/2016/11/24/reddits-ceo-edited-comments-that-criticized-him.html http://www.cnbc.com/2016/11/24/reddits-ceo-edited-comments-t...
- nix0n 10y ago
  Does anyone know if u/spez edited anything in r/golang?
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
  - bradfitz 10y ago
    I was the one who proposed deleting /r/golang. That's not the point. If Github were modifying our code or Google Groups were modifying our mailing list messages or SMTP content for their own amusement we wouldn't trust them for a platform either. I don't think we should demand less of Reddit. My proposal is no longer to delete it, but to just disassociate ourselves from it, making it unofficial like it used to be.
    - burke 10y ago
      Honestly, if I had been opening thousands of issues on GitHub that called defunkt a pedophile, I would be wholly unsurprised if I got trolled back, and I certainly wouldn't expect unrelated organizations doing real code things to leave the platform in solidarity. Not to say this was okay in any way, but certain subreddits are... pretty special places.
    - drivingmenuts 10y ago
      How much were you associated with it before the story broke?

37 points by Spiritus 10y ago

Reddit discussion https://www.reddit.com/r/golang/comments/5eqs64/proposal_to_delete_rgolang/ https://www.reddit.com/r/golang/comments/5eqs64/proposal_to_...

4ad 10y ago

Dupe (no comments): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13035122 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13035122 Let's see which thread survives.

4ad 10y ago

Wow. I am speechless. The reddit until very recently had no involvement from the Go team whatsoever. It was founded by uriel, which then added as mods some Go developers which then never posted there. The community was thriving without any involvment from the Go team at all. More recently they decreed they owned the place. Nobody was asked. It just happened. They took over and proclaimed authority over it. They still were not involved much, so it was just a change in name. But now they want to delete it??! A place they had nothing to do with whatsoever. Wow. What arrogance.

Sphax 10y ago
Exactly. I'm pissed of that they treat us Reddit users that way. If they don't want to use Reddit they can just fuck off somewhere else and let us be. We don't need them to "moderate" us. I have a lot of respect for the Go team but they sure are bad at managing communities.
- 4ad 10y ago
  Oh yeah, they totally blew it with the Plan 9 community too. I had hoped they learned their lesson, but no.
thewhitetulip 10y ago
As I have stated elsewhere, the Go community is split into two factions, elites (Googlers) and others. Reddit is the only place where others and elites are treated the same, post for feedback on the google group, which has sucky UI and is terrible to use, and you get small comments because they are busy and the feedback isn't at all helpful. Contrast that with Reddit, as someone had pointed to me on HN, I posted a question about AJAX and Go, I got two answers, one in vanilla JS and one in JQuery. Had I asked that in the google groups, I'd likely have not been able to post because it would have been "too simple" or I'd have been shooed away to some obscure stack overflow link. The community wants the subreddit, you can leave if you want. Just because one person screwed up doesn't mean that someone who rarely uses reddit wants to delete the subreddit WITHOUT asking the community. This is against the point of open source. Isn't Go open source?
bradfitz 10y ago
It was never "they", it was me. As I replied to you Reddit, the subreddit's early history (that I just learned about) is why I no longer propose deleting it. I think we should just disassociate from it and make it unofficial again.

somecallitblues 10y ago

Brad seems to be the only person who wants it closed. Sound like a bit of a dick.

grey-area 10y ago
The title could have been better and I think they should just make unofficial and hand it over to other mods, but he's hardly the only one unhappy with the current subreddit, because of the level of comments there and the existing lack of moderation. Brad in all likelihood wrote some of the code that served you this page and, unlike most of the denizens of reddit, he has written a lot of useful code, your insult is unwarranted.
- randomdata 10y ago
  > but he's hardly the only one unhappy with the current subreddit, because of the level of comments there and the existing lack of moderation. It seems people forget that Reddit is a community focused on comedy. In the case of Go, if you want to tell a joke about Reddit not having generics, or poke fun at the people who tell jokes about Go not having generics, /r/golang is the place for that. While that style of comedy may not be to everyone's tastes, there is clearly a market for it and Reddit is currently serving it. If you take away that comedic forum on Reddit, it is not going to go away, it is going to go somewhere else. Hopefully not to the mailing list or other places that serve as hosts of meaningful discussion, where the noise would be a huge detractor. The CEO editing comments to point insults at pro-trump moderators is perfectly in line with what Reddit stands for. Playful and kind of funny, at least for for some definition of funny. I'm not sure what there is to gain from shutting that down? I wouldn't hold a serious discussion there, but I never would have at any point in time. That's not its purpose.

jhayward 10y ago

Brad's post was a colossally bad idea. First, it reveals a very hostile attitude within Google toward the go community - a complete lack of empathy for what his actions will do to tens of thousands of developers who have adopted his team's product. Just by posting what he did he's damaged the subreddit, which is apparently his intention. Second, it reinforces the impression that Google is very temperamental in support of their products and services. This is just another in a large stack of examples of why not to choose Google for your project or company. Third, Brad, please go talk to your PR folks. This could easily be spun as "Google attacks Reddit in support of Trump forum", "Google abandons go community", or any number of other baitings. About the only thing they will like about it is that it was at least posted on Thanksgiving holiday, which means most people who could exploit it will not notice. Last, there is a larger, more adult concept known as equity in behavior that Brad should try to adopt. Just because he has a personal ethical issue does not mean he gets to damage other people. It's one thing to say "my personal code does not permit me to continue here, how can I withdraw in the way that is least damaging to others" vs "I'm going to use my position of privilege to inflict as much harm on Reddit as I can, with no regard for damage to others". I agree with @4ad. This is a team that really has no business doing community support.

pbhjpbhj 10y ago
>"my personal code does not permit me to continue here, how can I withdraw in the way that is least damaging to others" vs "I'm going to use my position of privilege to inflict as much harm on Reddit as I can, with no regard for damage to others" // What I read at https://groups.google.com/forum/m/#!msg/golang-nuts/XoOhzUClDPs/jgSWxng7CAAJ https://groups.google.com/forum/m/#!msg/golang-nuts/XoOhzUCl... just now seems quite inline with the former statement. bradfitz expresses that he doesn't want to use Reddit anymore and that other mods may also not want to; that there are thus lots of possible moves - move to a reddit new reddit clone just for Golang, move to voat, etc.. It seems that if all the mods just abandon the sub without a continuation plan that the sub will be harmed more than if it's moved en bloc to a new site/forum? It seems to me, approaching this situation fresh on HN with this story, that perhaps you're being coloured by other factors?
TheGrumpyBrit 10y ago

Udo 10y ago

Apparently the background story broke yesterday, in case anyone is as clueless about the impetus as I was: http://www.cnbc.com/2016/11/24/reddits-ceo-edited-comments-that-criticized-him.html http://www.cnbc.com/2016/11/24/reddits-ceo-edited-comments-t...

nix0n 10y ago
Does anyone know if u/spez edited anything in r/golang?
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- bradfitz 10y ago
  I was the one who proposed deleting /r/golang. That's not the point. If Github were modifying our code or Google Groups were modifying our mailing list messages or SMTP content for their own amusement we wouldn't trust them for a platform either. I don't think we should demand less of Reddit. My proposal is no longer to delete it, but to just disassociate ourselves from it, making it unofficial like it used to be.
  - burke 10y ago
    Honestly, if I had been opening thousands of issues on GitHub that called defunkt a pedophile, I would be wholly unsurprised if I got trolled back, and I certainly wouldn't expect unrelated organizations doing real code things to leave the platform in solidarity. Not to say this was okay in any way, but certain subreddits are... pretty special places.
  - drivingmenuts 10y ago
    How much were you associated with it before the story broke?