6 ms·

Should we accept the status quo in all cases because somebody might speak up in upset? The diversity initiatives in the Rust community are one of the primary r

Should we accept the status quo in all cases because somebody might speak up in upset? The diversity initiatives in the Rust community are one of the primary reasons I attempt to stay part of it, file bug reports, fix code, and attend conferences, in a way that I don't in communities which appear divided over whether or not it's socially acceptable to harass me based on my gender and/or medical history. You're suggesting that it's better that we allow people to continue harassing people over things that have literally nothing to do with their ability to code, than that people feel comfortable enough to code on your project - that it's more important to make racists, sexist, and other bigots comfortable than their victims. That's your call, but to call it "uniting" is complete nonsense.

josteink 8y ago
> You're suggesting that it's better that we allow people to continue harassing people over things that have literally nothing to do with their ability to code I don't. That's you misrepresenting my point of view. I've yet to contribute to a project which holds a COC, still I've yet to see any kind of harassament or abuse based on the ethnicity, sex, religious view or age of other contributors. In fact these things have not not ever been a subject. The subject was always the code. My opinion is that we focus on the code, the commits and not who wrote them. Simple as that. Why construe that as me supporting abuse? Yes, that means that if a trans "woman of colour" (or whatever is PC to write these days) submits a bad patch I should be able openly criticize it the same way I would criticize it as if it was written by a straight, white male. And how would I know that? Why should I even be expected to know that in the first place? I'm also against using a disproportionate amount of energy on explicitly focusing on these things which we all agree should not matter. Many of these diversity initiatives do exactly this, and when they do, that's just utterly detracting to the task at hand: crafting good software together. So my opinion is that these things are counter-productive and misguided, and my point is that I've yet to see any proof that I am wrong in holding that opinion. I think that's simple and clear enough, without the need to read any ulterior motives into it. Edit: Clarifications. Examples.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- vertex-four 8y ago
  Who's writing that code? Do individuals write code and throw it over the wall, never having to talk to another soul? Or does it come from a community of people who have to interact with each other? The practice of FOSS software development is, in part, an exercise in community management. It'd be great if we could all just focus on the code - that's a significant chunk of the point of active community management, so that the developers involved don't have to worry about their safety at conferences, about harassment from other members of the community, about whether they're going to be the only POC/woman/disabled person at the meetup and how to protect themselves from everybody else there, when they just want to build software. The people who want to do more than just build software are the people who decide it'd be a great idea to use their power within the community to harass us, assault us, or more, without social consequence. As a result of FOSS software development being a community activity, figuring out how best to run that community for the benefit of all within it is a necessity. And at some point, you'll find a transphobe and a trans person, a racist and an Indian, a misogynist and a woman, in your community, and something happens - and the question is, what happens then? Do we put huge amounts of effort into trying to teach bigots not to be bigots, or at least shut up about their bigotry within the context of the community? (Yes, the communities I'm part of do this, to a significant degree.) Do we eventually kick out the people causing the trouble, or the victims of it? Do we intentionally create segregated communities so that women never have to meet misogynists and rapists, in order to avoid kicking anybody out? Do we try to avoid conflict from happening, or do we only ever react to it when it does? These are questions that need answering, and nobody will ever agree on the answers to all of them. I've been a part of several communities and suffered harassment in a few of them due to my gender, medical history, and disabilities. Most notable is the hacklab in my previous city where women and people of colour were regularly made to feel uncomfortable by one particular member, and nothing was done about it for months, directly losing us several potential new members. The building it's situated in, up a number of flights of stairs, has lost us multiple members over the years, due to its inaccessibility to people with mobility issues - a problem to be solved, not ignored. A number of friends have received sexual harassment at conferences - I'm picky enough about the conferences I go to that I'm lucky not to have suffered that. I'm also smart enough to figure out that when someone goes off on a rant in a project's IRC channel about how stylistic issues around gendered wording in documentation are going to bring the fall of mankind, I'm probably not going to be accepted there - if someone is that upset about a Bob being changed to a Barbara in the documentation, it's likely they have larger issues with women. I'm glad that you have not suffered any of this, and hope that continues. What, exactly, would you accept as proof that a community has benefited from the existence of its code of conduct and other community management tools?
magduf 8y ago
>The diversity initiatives in the Rust community are one of the primary reasons I attempt to stay part of it, file bug reports, fix code, and attend conferences, in a way that I don't in communities which appear divided over whether or not it's socially acceptable to harass me based on my gender and/or medical history. >You're suggesting that it's better that we allow people to continue harassing people over things that have literally nothing to do with their ability to code I don't know about your work situation, but I work in a pretty conservative industry as a software engineer, and many (but definitely not all) of my coworkers are probably Trump voters, and certainly conservative. But there's also women here, Muslims, one guy who's physically disabled, etc. We don't talk about politics at work here, nor have I heard much open talk about politics in my last workplace that had a bunch of conservatives. People focused on the work. I certainly haven't seen any kind of harassment of people of religious minorities, people with medical problems, or women; everyone seems (and seemed at the previous jobs) pretty happy with the workplace. But there haven't been any "diversity initiatives"; they just seem to hire the best applicants, given the conditions they have (who's applying, etc.) and their goals (wanting to hire a certain number of "fresh-outs" for instance). Why you seem to think that you need "diversity initiatives" to prevent harassment is completely beyond me. You don't need diversity initiatives to make sure people act civil towards each other and treat their coworkers with respect. In fact, most workplaces with college-educated professionals seem to have little trouble with their employees acting poorly this way. When they do, they get reprimanded or fired.
- vertex-four 8y ago
  Workplaces != voluntary organisations. You could lose your livelihood and sink into crippling debt if you were fired - not so much if you're kicked out of a community. And, of course, people generally pick communities that they'd like to be part of and which contain people they generally agree with, whereas people are often willing to put up with a hell of a lot in return for money. You do, in fact, need active community management in order to convince some minority of people to treat each other with respect if there's otherwise no downside to failing to do so.
  - magduf 8y ago

josteink 8y ago

> You're suggesting that it's better that we allow people to continue harassing people over things that have literally nothing to do with their ability to code I don't. That's you misrepresenting my point of view. I've yet to contribute to a project which holds a COC, still I've yet to see any kind of harassament or abuse based on the ethnicity, sex, religious view or age of other contributors. In fact these things have not not ever been a subject. The subject was always the code. My opinion is that we focus on the code, the commits and not who wrote them. Simple as that. Why construe that as me supporting abuse? Yes, that means that if a trans "woman of colour" (or whatever is PC to write these days) submits a bad patch I should be able openly criticize it the same way I would criticize it as if it was written by a straight, white male. And how would I know that? Why should I even be expected to know that in the first place? I'm also against using a disproportionate amount of energy on explicitly focusing on these things which we all agree should not matter. Many of these diversity initiatives do exactly this, and when they do, that's just utterly detracting to the task at hand: crafting good software together. So my opinion is that these things are counter-productive and misguided, and my point is that I've yet to see any proof that I am wrong in holding that opinion. I think that's simple and clear enough, without the need to read any ulterior motives into it. Edit: Clarifications. Examples.

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
vertex-four 8y ago
Who's writing that code? Do individuals write code and throw it over the wall, never having to talk to another soul? Or does it come from a community of people who have to interact with each other? The practice of FOSS software development is, in part, an exercise in community management. It'd be great if we could all just focus on the code - that's a significant chunk of the point of active community management, so that the developers involved don't have to worry about their safety at conferences, about harassment from other members of the community, about whether they're going to be the only POC/woman/disabled person at the meetup and how to protect themselves from everybody else there, when they just want to build software. The people who want to do more than just build software are the people who decide it'd be a great idea to use their power within the community to harass us, assault us, or more, without social consequence. As a result of FOSS software development being a community activity, figuring out how best to run that community for the benefit of all within it is a necessity. And at some point, you'll find a transphobe and a trans person, a racist and an Indian, a misogynist and a woman, in your community, and something happens - and the question is, what happens then? Do we put huge amounts of effort into trying to teach bigots not to be bigots, or at least shut up about their bigotry within the context of the community? (Yes, the communities I'm part of do this, to a significant degree.) Do we eventually kick out the people causing the trouble, or the victims of it? Do we intentionally create segregated communities so that women never have to meet misogynists and rapists, in order to avoid kicking anybody out? Do we try to avoid conflict from happening, or do we only ever react to it when it does? These are questions that need answering, and nobody will ever agree on the answers to all of them. I've been a part of several communities and suffered harassment in a few of them due to my gender, medical history, and disabilities. Most notable is the hacklab in my previous city where women and people of colour were regularly made to feel uncomfortable by one particular member, and nothing was done about it for months, directly losing us several potential new members. The building it's situated in, up a number of flights of stairs, has lost us multiple members over the years, due to its inaccessibility to people with mobility issues - a problem to be solved, not ignored. A number of friends have received sexual harassment at conferences - I'm picky enough about the conferences I go to that I'm lucky not to have suffered that. I'm also smart enough to figure out that when someone goes off on a rant in a project's IRC channel about how stylistic issues around gendered wording in documentation are going to bring the fall of mankind, I'm probably not going to be accepted there - if someone is that upset about a Bob being changed to a Barbara in the documentation, it's likely they have larger issues with women. I'm glad that you have not suffered any of this, and hope that continues. What, exactly, would you accept as proof that a community has benefited from the existence of its code of conduct and other community management tools?

magduf 8y ago

>The diversity initiatives in the Rust community are one of the primary reasons I attempt to stay part of it, file bug reports, fix code, and attend conferences, in a way that I don't in communities which appear divided over whether or not it's socially acceptable to harass me based on my gender and/or medical history. >You're suggesting that it's better that we allow people to continue harassing people over things that have literally nothing to do with their ability to code I don't know about your work situation, but I work in a pretty conservative industry as a software engineer, and many (but definitely not all) of my coworkers are probably Trump voters, and certainly conservative. But there's also women here, Muslims, one guy who's physically disabled, etc. We don't talk about politics at work here, nor have I heard much open talk about politics in my last workplace that had a bunch of conservatives. People focused on the work. I certainly haven't seen any kind of harassment of people of religious minorities, people with medical problems, or women; everyone seems (and seemed at the previous jobs) pretty happy with the workplace. But there haven't been any "diversity initiatives"; they just seem to hire the best applicants, given the conditions they have (who's applying, etc.) and their goals (wanting to hire a certain number of "fresh-outs" for instance). Why you seem to think that you need "diversity initiatives" to prevent harassment is completely beyond me. You don't need diversity initiatives to make sure people act civil towards each other and treat their coworkers with respect. In fact, most workplaces with college-educated professionals seem to have little trouble with their employees acting poorly this way. When they do, they get reprimanded or fired.

vertex-four 8y ago
Workplaces != voluntary organisations. You could lose your livelihood and sink into crippling debt if you were fired - not so much if you're kicked out of a community. And, of course, people generally pick communities that they'd like to be part of and which contain people they generally agree with, whereas people are often willing to put up with a hell of a lot in return for money. You do, in fact, need active community management in order to convince some minority of people to treat each other with respect if there's otherwise no downside to failing to do so.
- magduf 8y ago