7 ms·

Diversity and Discrimination in Open Source

57 points by jdkoeck 8y ago

poster123 8y ago
The author rightly objects to hiring interns based on their race or professed sexual orientation: "This time around, however, the LLVM foundation decided to pay for an internship themselves, and agreed a partnership with an organization called Outreachy. This collaboration saw LLVM adopt interesting new eligibility criteria. Outreachy’s rules state that an applicant must “meet one of the following criteria”: You live any where in the world and you identify as a woman (cis or trans), trans man, or genderqueer person (including genderfluid or genderfree). You live in the United States or you are a U.S. national or permanent resident living aboard, AND you are a person of any gender who is Black/African American, Hispanic/Latin@ [sic], Native American/American Indian, Alaska Native, Native Hawaiian, or Pacific Islander"
- titanix2 8y ago
  How the hell are you supposed to prove that you "identify as woman" if asked? If they follow the ideology at work here, everyone can identify as any gender, so basically everyone can apply by pretending to be a woman. Then they can make a fuss about being discriminated if Outreachy doesn’t acknowledge they are indeed indentifying as a woman. This whole minory/discrimination is a double edged sword.
  - nooron 8y ago
    But how common is it actually to pretend to be a gender you are not for something like this? Displaying yourself as trans brings huge social opprobrium in most places. I can’t imagine anyone I know pretending to be a trans woman to get a job. Do you have any evidence this is a common problem?
    - rainbowmverse 8y ago
      Someone willing to take on the stigma and dangers for an opportunity instead of go for one of the already abundant opportunities available for them may not be entirely cis anyway.
      - horseLOGIC 8y ago
        There's actually not that many opportunities for internships on C/C++ compilers. I mean, maybe the GCC people will take you, but... yeah.
        jonhendry18 8y ago
        "There's actually not that many opportunities for internships on C/C++ compilers." It seems like there are a lot of llvm-related projects outside of llvm itself, which might mean there are C/C++ compiler-adjacent internships out there.
      - mantas 8y ago
        Lying for the sake of getting $$$ is OK in many parts of the world. Especially if you stick it up a dumb fat westerners'. Source: born & raised in (ex-)USSR
    - prepend 8y ago
      I suppose I’m fortunate that displaying oneself as trans in my country and state (US south) does not bring huge social opprobrium. Interestingly, you’d be surprised who is trans and who is cis as it’s not like people have a sign over their head “I’m trans opprobriate me.” So, in my city at least, it would be as simple as checking a box identifying as trans and no social stigma would even be possible. Unless the potential employer “outed” the applicant somehow. But that seems not only unethical but illegal (again, at least in my state). Since I live in a prett backwoods area, I assume there are many other areas that are much better.
      - rainbowmverse 8y ago
        The south is weird like this. Some places it's great, some places you'd never know it was further in the future than 1959.
        horseLOGIC 8y ago
        To be fair, in many rural places you don't want to fall out of the norm on any spectrum and there's no opportunity for practically anything. That's why you move out.
        deleted 8y ago
        [deleted]
    - beaconstudios 8y ago
      You don't have to display as a gender in order to identify as it though. Supposedly gender is about self-identification now, not outward characteristics, so if LLVM are up on the progressive playbook they know they can't reject you for not "passing" as female if you claim to identify as female.
    - horseLOGIC 8y ago
      > But how common is it actually to pretend to be a gender you are not for something like this? Who says it's a problem? It's not up to anyone else to judge my motivation for changing my gender. If I want to change my gender for 10% discount on a pair of sneakers, that should be my right. Otherwise, where do you draw the line and how do you verify it?
    - Joeboy 8y ago
      Not very common. But if people incentivize it it's obviously going to become more common. Vaguely relevant recent events: https://amp.theguardian.com/world/2018/jun/22/mexico-elections-fake-transgender-candidates-disqualified https://amp.theguardian.com/world/2018/jun/22/mexico-electio... https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/dec/23/two-heterosexual-irish-men-marry-to-avoid-inheritance-tax-on-house https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/dec/23/two-heterosexu... https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/05/22/labour-allows-male-activist-stand-womens-officer-identifies/ https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/05/22/labour-allows-ma...
  - horseLOGIC 8y ago
    Just put your preferred pronoun on your twitter page, and as long as it's not male and the gender you were assigned at birth, you should be good to go. As soon as that internship is over, you can just change back. That's what genderfluidity is about, right?
- tdb7893 8y ago
  By the way the @ in "Latin@" is a gender neutral form in Spanish that some people use.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- superflit 8y ago
  I identify my gender as "Helicopter." Mostly when I am exercising my "gender rights" I stand with my arms wide and start circling in happiness. Now If you downvote me you are a heliphobic. And nobody can say I am wrong because gender is a social construct and if you imply that I am wrong, you lack empathy, and you must be those hateful white males everybody talks about, or you know... that person who voted for the "guy"... That should be sarcasm, but I am not sure anymore. I have three races in my bloodline but nowadays hating white males is a virtue signaling.
  - sctb 8y ago
    If you have a point please make it more substantively than by helicopter. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- anothergoogler 8y ago
  Can a biological man identify as a trans man? Asking for a friend.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
rainbowmverse 8y ago
Summary: "I can't tell the difference between discriminatory hiring [rejecting based on identity] and targeted hiring [seeking people out based on identity]." Author even acknowledges the previous policy (which does sound discriminatory based on their framing) is no longer in place at LLVM, which is the focus of the article. This is not really about "open source." It's about LLVM, and springs off randomly at "open source" using poor-quality non-citations, weasel words (of the species "some people say"), and other hallmarks of bad, ideologically-tilted writing.
- sydd 8y ago
  ... please read the article, its not about hiring. Its about internships.
  - jonhendry18 8y ago
    That's arguably a kind of hiring.
- taxonomy 8y ago
  Speaking of weasel words, it's hard to think of a better example than using the word "targeted" in place of "discriminatory".
- stillkicking 8y ago
  If anything is a hallmark of bad ideology, it's making a mock summary of other people's thoughts so you can valiantly take it down from a distance without ever engaging with it.
- LyndsySimon 8y ago
  > Summary: "I can't tell the difference between discriminatory hiring [rejecting based on identity] and targeted hiring [seeking people out based on identity]." Educate me - does this mean that an ad that says "blacks and women need not apply" is discriminatory, but an ad featuring that says "applicants must be white, male, or both" would be "targeted hiring"?
horseLOGIC 8y ago
I'm disappointed with their race-based criteria, in my perception Arabs/Middle-Easterners ("looks like a Muslim") rank far higher on the oppression scale than Hispanics.
cup-of-tea 8y ago
Has this been silently hidden from the front page? I saw it on the front page, switched computers and now can't find it listed anywhere.
- horseLOGIC 8y ago
  Yes it has.
- yalue 8y ago
  Looks like it, yes. Just refreshed the front page in the past ~30 seconds. This got dozens of new comments in that time frame, but the link is no longer present at all.
- taxonomy 8y ago
  This article was on the front page when I first discovered it 10 minutes ago. Now it's not even in the first five pages.
- makepanic 8y ago
  See http://hnrankings.info/17399895/ http://hnrankings.info/17399895/ for a history of this submission rank.
- stillkicking 8y ago
  This happens every time when a post or thread exposes the social justice orthodoxy for the pernicious and self-centered bullies that they are. The original announcement about Rafael leaving LLVM was flagged off the front page too: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16982837 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16982837 Remember LambdaConf? Those posts also ended up several hundred items off the front-page, without being visibly flagged. https://archive.is/iI5NA https://archive.is/iI5NA HN maintains plausible deniability and claims that it wants to keep ideological warfare and flamewars out, but the pattern is too obvious for that to be believable, because only one side of the argument consistently gets flagged away.
  - sctb 8y ago
    This story was flagged by users and received a mild penalty for being a follow-up post (to the original announcement to which you've linked) without significant new information. Everyone sees the pattern that represents the “other side” as having an unfair and total advantage. From where we sit, it's an obvious bias that perpetuates this kind of indignant sense of persecution which leaks meta all over the discussions—except it's even-steven. How can a site be both a Church of SJWs and an alt-right shithole? Your lead moderator on the subject recently: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15310213 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15310213 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14913312 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14913312 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14539802 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14539802 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14284053 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14284053
MarkMc 8y ago
Isn't it illegal in the US to offer internships based on race or gender?
- ubernostrum 8y ago
  There are quite a few groups that place people into internships, and which work to promote people of demographics whose presence in tech is currently below what would be expected from the same demographics' share of the overall population. I suppose if you want to argue that should be illegal, or that it should be illegal to use one of those places to source your interns, you can. But if you do that, you take away the "pipeline problem" response so many companies like to use to explain why they hire few/no female, black or hispanic people. In other words, to argue against this, you must also make the case that the "pipeline" feeding a particular company is a matter of that company's choices and that the company can be held responsible for the demographics coming out of that "pipeline". Which, if you really want to make that argument, go for it. But I think the average person who is upset by the idea of places like Outreachy or Code2040 will not want to follow all the way to that logical conclusion.

57 points by jdkoeck 8y ago

The author rightly objects to hiring interns based on their race or professed sexual orientation: "This time around, however, the LLVM foundation decided to pay for an internship themselves, and agreed a partnership with an organization called Outreachy. This collaboration saw LLVM adopt interesting new eligibility criteria. Outreachy’s rules state that an applicant must “meet one of the following criteria”: You live any where in the world and you identify as a woman (cis or trans), trans man, or genderqueer person (including genderfluid or genderfree). You live in the United States or you are a U.S. national or permanent resident living aboard, AND you are a person of any gender who is Black/African American, Hispanic/Latin@ [sic], Native American/American Indian, Alaska Native, Native Hawaiian, or Pacific Islander"

titanix2 8y ago
How the hell are you supposed to prove that you "identify as woman" if asked? If they follow the ideology at work here, everyone can identify as any gender, so basically everyone can apply by pretending to be a woman. Then they can make a fuss about being discriminated if Outreachy doesn’t acknowledge they are indeed indentifying as a woman. This whole minory/discrimination is a double edged sword.
- nooron 8y ago
  But how common is it actually to pretend to be a gender you are not for something like this? Displaying yourself as trans brings huge social opprobrium in most places. I can’t imagine anyone I know pretending to be a trans woman to get a job. Do you have any evidence this is a common problem?
  - rainbowmverse 8y ago
    Someone willing to take on the stigma and dangers for an opportunity instead of go for one of the already abundant opportunities available for them may not be entirely cis anyway.
    - horseLOGIC 8y ago
      There's actually not that many opportunities for internships on C/C++ compilers. I mean, maybe the GCC people will take you, but... yeah.
      - jonhendry18 8y ago
        "There's actually not that many opportunities for internships on C/C++ compilers." It seems like there are a lot of llvm-related projects outside of llvm itself, which might mean there are C/C++ compiler-adjacent internships out there.
    - mantas 8y ago
      Lying for the sake of getting $$$ is OK in many parts of the world. Especially if you stick it up a dumb fat westerners'. Source: born & raised in (ex-)USSR
  - prepend 8y ago
    I suppose I’m fortunate that displaying oneself as trans in my country and state (US south) does not bring huge social opprobrium. Interestingly, you’d be surprised who is trans and who is cis as it’s not like people have a sign over their head “I’m trans opprobriate me.” So, in my city at least, it would be as simple as checking a box identifying as trans and no social stigma would even be possible. Unless the potential employer “outed” the applicant somehow. But that seems not only unethical but illegal (again, at least in my state). Since I live in a prett backwoods area, I assume there are many other areas that are much better.
    - rainbowmverse 8y ago
      The south is weird like this. Some places it's great, some places you'd never know it was further in the future than 1959.
      - horseLOGIC 8y ago
        To be fair, in many rural places you don't want to fall out of the norm on any spectrum and there's no opportunity for practically anything. That's why you move out.
        deleted 8y ago
        [deleted]
  - beaconstudios 8y ago
    You don't have to display as a gender in order to identify as it though. Supposedly gender is about self-identification now, not outward characteristics, so if LLVM are up on the progressive playbook they know they can't reject you for not "passing" as female if you claim to identify as female.
  - horseLOGIC 8y ago
    > But how common is it actually to pretend to be a gender you are not for something like this? Who says it's a problem? It's not up to anyone else to judge my motivation for changing my gender. If I want to change my gender for 10% discount on a pair of sneakers, that should be my right. Otherwise, where do you draw the line and how do you verify it?
  - Joeboy 8y ago
    Not very common. But if people incentivize it it's obviously going to become more common. Vaguely relevant recent events: https://amp.theguardian.com/world/2018/jun/22/mexico-elections-fake-transgender-candidates-disqualified https://amp.theguardian.com/world/2018/jun/22/mexico-electio... https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/dec/23/two-heterosexual-irish-men-marry-to-avoid-inheritance-tax-on-house https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/dec/23/two-heterosexu... https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/05/22/labour-allows-male-activist-stand-womens-officer-identifies/ https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/05/22/labour-allows-ma...
- horseLOGIC 8y ago
  Just put your preferred pronoun on your twitter page, and as long as it's not male and the gender you were assigned at birth, you should be good to go. As soon as that internship is over, you can just change back. That's what genderfluidity is about, right?
tdb7893 8y ago
By the way the @ in "Latin@" is a gender neutral form in Spanish that some people use.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
superflit 8y ago
I identify my gender as "Helicopter." Mostly when I am exercising my "gender rights" I stand with my arms wide and start circling in happiness. Now If you downvote me you are a heliphobic. And nobody can say I am wrong because gender is a social construct and if you imply that I am wrong, you lack empathy, and you must be those hateful white males everybody talks about, or you know... that person who voted for the "guy"... That should be sarcasm, but I am not sure anymore. I have three races in my bloodline but nowadays hating white males is a virtue signaling.
- sctb 8y ago
  If you have a point please make it more substantively than by helicopter. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
anothergoogler 8y ago
Can a biological man identify as a trans man? Asking for a friend.

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

rainbowmverse 8y ago

Summary: "I can't tell the difference between discriminatory hiring [rejecting based on identity] and targeted hiring [seeking people out based on identity]." Author even acknowledges the previous policy (which does sound discriminatory based on their framing) is no longer in place at LLVM, which is the focus of the article. This is not really about "open source." It's about LLVM, and springs off randomly at "open source" using poor-quality non-citations, weasel words (of the species "some people say"), and other hallmarks of bad, ideologically-tilted writing.

sydd 8y ago
... please read the article, its not about hiring. Its about internships.
- jonhendry18 8y ago
  That's arguably a kind of hiring.
taxonomy 8y ago
Speaking of weasel words, it's hard to think of a better example than using the word "targeted" in place of "discriminatory".
stillkicking 8y ago
If anything is a hallmark of bad ideology, it's making a mock summary of other people's thoughts so you can valiantly take it down from a distance without ever engaging with it.
LyndsySimon 8y ago
> Summary: "I can't tell the difference between discriminatory hiring [rejecting based on identity] and targeted hiring [seeking people out based on identity]." Educate me - does this mean that an ad that says "blacks and women need not apply" is discriminatory, but an ad featuring that says "applicants must be white, male, or both" would be "targeted hiring"?

horseLOGIC 8y ago

I'm disappointed with their race-based criteria, in my perception Arabs/Middle-Easterners ("looks like a Muslim") rank far higher on the oppression scale than Hispanics.

cup-of-tea 8y ago

Has this been silently hidden from the front page? I saw it on the front page, switched computers and now can't find it listed anywhere.

horseLOGIC 8y ago
Yes it has.
yalue 8y ago
Looks like it, yes. Just refreshed the front page in the past ~30 seconds. This got dozens of new comments in that time frame, but the link is no longer present at all.
taxonomy 8y ago
This article was on the front page when I first discovered it 10 minutes ago. Now it's not even in the first five pages.
makepanic 8y ago
See http://hnrankings.info/17399895/ http://hnrankings.info/17399895/ for a history of this submission rank.
stillkicking 8y ago
This happens every time when a post or thread exposes the social justice orthodoxy for the pernicious and self-centered bullies that they are. The original announcement about Rafael leaving LLVM was flagged off the front page too: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16982837 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16982837 Remember LambdaConf? Those posts also ended up several hundred items off the front-page, without being visibly flagged. https://archive.is/iI5NA https://archive.is/iI5NA HN maintains plausible deniability and claims that it wants to keep ideological warfare and flamewars out, but the pattern is too obvious for that to be believable, because only one side of the argument consistently gets flagged away.
- sctb 8y ago
  This story was flagged by users and received a mild penalty for being a follow-up post (to the original announcement to which you've linked) without significant new information. Everyone sees the pattern that represents the “other side” as having an unfair and total advantage. From where we sit, it's an obvious bias that perpetuates this kind of indignant sense of persecution which leaks meta all over the discussions—except it's even-steven. How can a site be both a Church of SJWs and an alt-right shithole? Your lead moderator on the subject recently: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15310213 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15310213 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14913312 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14913312 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14539802 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14539802 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14284053 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14284053

MarkMc 8y ago

Isn't it illegal in the US to offer internships based on race or gender?

ubernostrum 8y ago
There are quite a few groups that place people into internships, and which work to promote people of demographics whose presence in tech is currently below what would be expected from the same demographics' share of the overall population. I suppose if you want to argue that should be illegal, or that it should be illegal to use one of those places to source your interns, you can. But if you do that, you take away the "pipeline problem" response so many companies like to use to explain why they hire few/no female, black or hispanic people. In other words, to argue against this, you must also make the case that the "pipeline" feeding a particular company is a matter of that company's choices and that the company can be held responsible for the demographics coming out of that "pipeline". Which, if you really want to make that argument, go for it. But I think the average person who is upset by the idea of places like Outreachy or Code2040 will not want to follow all the way to that logical conclusion.