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You can be autistic, not good in social situations, and still not abuse, harass, or discriminate against people. Associating abuse and harassment with being a f

You can be autistic, not good in social situations, and still not abuse, harass, or discriminate against people. Associating abuse and harassment with being a fundamental part of autism is not ok. Autistic people can fully understand "do not perform this behaviour again" - they can also understand consequences of their behaviour, including both positive ("people like to talk to me more and are more accepting of my ideas if I do X") and negative ("I will be removed from this community if I do X"). If anything, a clear, structured description of what behaviour is and is not acceptable - such as described in a code of conduct - is incredibly useful for many autistic people. Please do not make the argument that autistic people cannot learn to control their behaviour again. In the incredibly rare cases where a person, autistic or not, cannot learn how not to abuse people, they need a full-time carer, who will be able to help them interact with the world in a way which doesn't harm other people. It is not the responsibility of people involved in an arbitrary software community to suffer abuse just to make an abuser happy. Finally - if you allow abusive people to exist within a community, you by definition exclude everybody who they would abuse. You exclude a number of people who may have greater merit, whether individually or collectively. You just can't see that because you're supporting an abusive person over and above anybody else who might wish to contribute. You're supporting them even while they drive out countless contributors, who you can't see the "merit" of because they're no longer contributing. All you can really see is the merit of abusive people, and you ignore the merit of those they abuse.

roenxi 8y ago
I suppose you are arguing that meritocratic communities aren't the best setup for a community - which is a pretty reasonable one. I mean, the big successful countries aren't meritocracies, they are democracies. So fair enough. > Finally - if you allow abusive people to exist within a community, you by definition exclude everybody who they would abuse. You are going directly to how a meritocratic society might fail. Meritocratic communities can fail, but so can communities with any ideological underpinning. Sometimes you have a choice between someone who knows exactly what they are doing but has questionable behaviors vs. someone who doesn't know quite as much but is better behaved. A meritocracy gives power to the first person. We can have long conversations about whether that person should strive to improve themselves over time (pretty easy to answer that question), but change is slow and in the interim a choice has to be made.
- vertex-four 8y ago
  I’m suggesting that your meritocracy doesn’t exist - if your organisation is structured to exclude people who may (and likely do) have contributions of merit, it is not a meritocracy. Then, the question is simple - who do you exclude? People who abuse others, or the people they abuse? Note that this is a community issue, not a code issue. If somebody wants to sit on their own, publish patches to their own website, and somebody else wants to import those patches into a community project, fine - there’s no non-technical interaction needed there, and little actual reason to exclude their code. It’s excluding them from the community that we’re talking about here.
  - roenxi 8y ago
    > I’m suggesting that your meritocracy doesn’t exist Nothing ideologically pure exists - technically there are no democracies in the world either, because, eg, places like the US dilute the will of the masses with the court system (which is not democratic). It is still a pretty democratic country. > if your organisation is structured to exclude people who may (and likely do) have contributions of merit, it is not a meritocracy Sure it is. That is like saying you can't have a democracy in Australia if people in Tanzania who aren't Australian citizens, because a a palce ruled-by-people is excluding people. It is reasonable to argue that excluding people who have great potential is a bad idea, which it is, but you can still have a meritocracy. > Then the question is simple - who do you exclude? People who abuse others, or the people they abuse? No, that isn't the question at all. The question is simple and it is "how do we support the people making the greatest technical contributions?". In an extreme case, that might mean putting up with some off-color characters who happen to be inspired technical experts. It isn't perfect. What is? But that is what meritocracies do.

roenxi 8y ago

I suppose you are arguing that meritocratic communities aren't the best setup for a community - which is a pretty reasonable one. I mean, the big successful countries aren't meritocracies, they are democracies. So fair enough. > Finally - if you allow abusive people to exist within a community, you by definition exclude everybody who they would abuse. You are going directly to how a meritocratic society might fail. Meritocratic communities can fail, but so can communities with any ideological underpinning. Sometimes you have a choice between someone who knows exactly what they are doing but has questionable behaviors vs. someone who doesn't know quite as much but is better behaved. A meritocracy gives power to the first person. We can have long conversations about whether that person should strive to improve themselves over time (pretty easy to answer that question), but change is slow and in the interim a choice has to be made.

vertex-four 8y ago
I’m suggesting that your meritocracy doesn’t exist - if your organisation is structured to exclude people who may (and likely do) have contributions of merit, it is not a meritocracy. Then, the question is simple - who do you exclude? People who abuse others, or the people they abuse? Note that this is a community issue, not a code issue. If somebody wants to sit on their own, publish patches to their own website, and somebody else wants to import those patches into a community project, fine - there’s no non-technical interaction needed there, and little actual reason to exclude their code. It’s excluding them from the community that we’re talking about here.
- roenxi 8y ago
  > I’m suggesting that your meritocracy doesn’t exist Nothing ideologically pure exists - technically there are no democracies in the world either, because, eg, places like the US dilute the will of the masses with the court system (which is not democratic). It is still a pretty democratic country. > if your organisation is structured to exclude people who may (and likely do) have contributions of merit, it is not a meritocracy Sure it is. That is like saying you can't have a democracy in Australia if people in Tanzania who aren't Australian citizens, because a a palce ruled-by-people is excluding people. It is reasonable to argue that excluding people who have great potential is a bad idea, which it is, but you can still have a meritocracy. > Then the question is simple - who do you exclude? People who abuse others, or the people they abuse? No, that isn't the question at all. The question is simple and it is "how do we support the people making the greatest technical contributions?". In an extreme case, that might mean putting up with some off-color characters who happen to be inspired technical experts. It isn't perfect. What is? But that is what meritocracies do.