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So, funny story: I registered the "nazi" npm package. When you require it, it says "I did nazi that coming." That's it. (Though it would've been a funny name f
by shawn 9y ago
So, funny story: I registered the "nazi" npm package. When you require it, it says "I did nazi that coming." That's it. (Though it would've been a funny name for a linter.)
... Or it did. I received a harshly worded letter from npm saying they axed it. It hit all the talking points about inclusiveness and making sure no one feels even slightly annoyed.
Meh. No point to this story. Just an interesting situation with an inconsistently curated package manager. I was surprised there was an unofficial undocumented banlist.
- tzs 9y agoTry a package named Nazí, which provides a collection of the chess games of 2016 US Women's Chess Champion Nazí Paikidze [1]. At the same time also do one named Fabiano, which provides a collection of the games of Fabiano Caruana [2], the 2016 US Chess Champion. If they take that down the Nazí one but not the Fabiano one, you can then take your mischief making to the next level by accusing them of being misogynists for banning a package promoting a woman chess champion but leaving up the one for the man. [1] http://www.chessgames.com/player/nazi_paikidze.html http://www.chessgames.com/player/nazi_paikidze.html [2] http://www.chessgames.com/player/fabiano_caruana.html http://www.chessgames.com/player/fabiano_caruana.html
- caryhartline 9y agoThis isn't the Supreme Court. They don't need to be consistent and they are going to see past the pointless trolling.
- gsich 9y agoYou triggered the special snowflakes. JS community is full of them.
- shrimp_emoji 9y agoDoes "stalinist" work?
- dhzjxnbzn 9y ago"I did stalinist see that coming" doesn't have the same ring to it.
- klodolph 9y agoAre you here to get work done or are you just Stalin?
- shawn 9y agoDunno, but it's quite hard to resist childish urges. I note that "jew" is still available, and .jew is a perfectly valid extension which no program has ever claimed. I love all cultures. There's something worth learning from each of them, if you try. But emergent social dynamics are deeply interesting too: I get it (everyone does), and it makes perfect sense. Yet we've all collectively agreed that those are unwholesome. And it's doubly interesting because it's easy to think of cases that wouldn't be funny at all, even in theory. New Geometry Representation might be a fine name for a new format, but you're not going to use its acronym. So then what separates the latter case from the former? And you'll find it difficult to turn "Forget" into a file extension. Yet this is all very English-centric. I've often wondered whether foreign users ever get annoyed with some of our names that happen to acronym to something unfortunate in their native language. Do they just have to live with it, or does it never happen? What if "emacs" was a smear in Portuguese, or "vim" was an unspeakable slur in India? "Coq" was named Coq partly so the dev would be able to unironically give conference talks about Coq. Was that only allowed because its author is French? All kinds of interesting questions! I don't know. Just pointless thoughts. Personally I'm happy npm values quality; complete anarchy might not necessarily work. Or maybe it would. I've always wondered what would happen if we develop clones of popular systems but with zero controls. Even 4chan has moderators. But HN user "baby" recently made a blockchain based image board that was theoretically impossible to control. How would people behave in such a situation? Who would you even punsh? It's so fun to think about.
- tzs 9y ago> What if "emacs" was a smear in Portuguese, or "vim" was an unspeakable slur in India? You can even get this kind of problem without involving a different language, because words can have different meaning in different fields. There is a (probably) urban legend about a mathematics grad student working in algebraic geometry returning from a conference, who finds he is sharing the security line at the airport with another conference attendee and they start chatting about algebraic geometry, talking about "blowing up points on a plane". It does not go over well with the non-mathematicians in line or with the TSA agents. Efim Zelmanov, a noted algebraist, tells of being stopped by the KGB on the way to a conference and being questioned at length because he had books with him about "free groups" and "radicals".
- maxerickson 9y agoThey document that they curate package names here: https://www.npmjs.com/policies/conduct https://www.npmjs.com/policies/conduct I guess lots of people will think that a policy like Avoid using offensive or harassing package names, nicknames, or other identifiers that might detract from a friendly, safe, and welcoming environment for all. stifles their inner something or other though.
- notatoad 9y agoseems like a good reflection of the current social climate: they have a policy to prevent mildly offensive package names, and they enforce it, but they don't have a solution to packages randomly disappearing and being replaced with malicious versions.
- barneygale 9y agoIt's a shame there are enough edgy teenagers making npm packages that such a policy is warranted
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- Kudos 9y agoThe term "nazi" is not simply mildly offensive, there are likely legal implications if you want to serve users in Germany.