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Those of us who got into programming BECAUSE of the famous ‘characters’ of open source and their ranty comments find it quite repellent to have codes of conduct

Those of us who got into programming BECAUSE of the famous ‘characters’ of open source and their ranty comments find it quite repellent to have codes of conduct and women in the position of cultural politeness enforcers. Even using an emoji/joke might be wrong? Really? The idea that women are uniquely invested in this sort of stuff only damages my perception as a female programmer. Who’s going to want to joke around with me or review my code if I’m the fun police?

asdfman123 7y ago
When these sorts of issues come up people tend to argue that learning to speak respectfully is a huge imposition. It's hard to change, but it's a really, really useful skill to learn. It makes everything go more smoothly. It's totally possible to joke and have fun, just don't... attack people and their ideas. Try not to blame. It's actually very simple in practice and isn't very far reaching at all. You can still have fun, you can still joke around, but you have to realize if you attack people it's going to create a hostile environment for a lot of people, men and women included.
- SpicyLemonZest 7y ago
  The problem is that respectful speech is itself a widely varying cultural standard. For example, one problem I consistently face is with interruptions. In my native culture, interruptions are entirely normal outside of formal speech. I try to tone this down in the workplace to accommodate other people, and similarly, most people try to understand that I mean well when my lifetime of cultural baggage slips through. But I have to be incredibly careful with my speech patterns around "respect and inclusivity" people, because they always interpret my interruptions as intolerable and deliberate rudeness.
voxl 7y ago
You missed the point. The point is a person with power over you needs to be respectful of that power. Your boss is never going to be as buddy-buddy with you as a coworker, because your boss has a lot more say over your pay and whether or not you're going to be fired. The famous "characters" of open source are notorious, not famous. No one looks at a Linus rant and says "Wow I want to try my hand at adding a patch for Linux!". No, they say "Wow, I want to have that kind of power!" That's just the rub, isn't it, you don't get to decide that we have to be hazed because you want the potential to hold that power of us.
- matheusmoreira 7y ago
  > No one looks at a Linus rant and says "Wow I want to try my hand at adding a patch for Linux!". He probably just thinks the kernel itself is more important than the people hacking on it. He's probably right.
- silveroriole 7y ago
  > No one looks at a Linus rant and says "Wow I want to try my hand at adding a patch for Linux!". People who think it would be awesome to get their code past Linus, and at least very funny and instructive to have their code shat on by Linus, do :) Some of us just don’t care about or even like ‘hazing’. You know, cause once you show you can take the hazing, you’re in the group. Yeah I don’t want to be, like, epically pwned by my boss on a code review at work, but neither do I want my coworkers believing that I may find a smiley emoticon or “I don’t understand this” to constitute some sort of hostile environment.
  - gatherhunterer 7y ago
    What is the technical advantage of being intentionally abrasive? It has the drawbacks of ostracizing those who are less confident with English and would prefer direct communication, the potential of being misunderstood and intimidating those who would prefer a more professional approach. If it cannot make the code better then it is poor engineering practice.
    - XCabbage 7y ago
      It's kind of odd to ask this question in response to a comment that already specified two possible advantages. Namely: 1. It sets up a challenge that incentivizes people to try to contribute; they "think it would be awesome to get their code past Linus" 2. It serves a form of initiation ritual (a hazing) to give people a sense of belonging to the group (I'm not sure I personally buy point 2, because as far as I know Linus is nice to newbies.) Beyond that, I can list plenty more: 3. It builds trust in your sincerity. If you openly bitch about everything that pisses you off, then when you say that something is decent work, people know you mean it. 4. As a direct consequence of point 3, it makes the environment much more welcoming for people with scrupulosity complexes, who might otherwise worry that they're just being a nuisance who everyone would rather not have around (but is too polite to shoo away) 5. It drives away hyper-PC social-justicey types who would otherwise impose CoCs and disrupt everything with conflict and hatred. 6. It sets a tone in which people feel free to speak freely, which sets people at ease who would otherwise be anxious about accidentally giving offence (perhaps because they have poor English skills, perhaps because they're neuroatypical in some way that affects their social skills). Are there downsides too? Sure. But this is just the age-old set of tradeoffs between having a politically correct space and a politically incorrect space; different people will feel alienated (or be rejected by the group) in each of them. For me, anti-PC spaces are home; they're where I feel comfortable and safe and able to contribute, while PC / intersectional feminist / social justice spaces feel oppressive. I guess silveroriole feels the same way.
driverdan 7y ago
You're in the minority. Most people don't want to deal with assholes berating and mistreating them. Are you seriously saying you can't deal with people being courteous, professional, clear, and inclusive?
jrochkind1 7y ago
> find it quite repellent to have... women in the position of cultural politeness enforcers. Wait, what? I assume you mean you don't want _anyone_ to be in position of "cultural politeness enforcer"? But by literally saying you don't want women in that position (it only or especially bothers you when it's a woman?)... you seem to be kind of revealing some unappealing things about yourself.
- baumy 7y ago
  It's always fascinating to me how two people can read the same words and come to two polar opposite conclusions. My read of silveroriole's comment is that the commenter is a woman lamenting the fact that women are in the position of "politeness enforcer" far more often than men, and this causes people to treat her differently (i.e., like the "fun police") because they assume she is aligned with that world view.
bluntfang 7y ago
Hey, you know where it's appropriate to be a character and make ranty comments? Stand up comedy! Maybe you should use your love of ranty comments and characters to change careers.
- dang 7y ago
  Would you please stop posting in the flamewar style to HN? It's against the site guidelines and destroys the curiosity that this site is supposed to be for. Therefore we ban accounts that do it. Crossing into personal attack, as you've done more than once today, is particularly not ok. If you'd please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and make your substantive points thoughtfully from now on, we'd be grateful.
  - bluntfang 7y ago
    Why haven't you made this post to the people that reply to me?

asdfman123 7y ago

When these sorts of issues come up people tend to argue that learning to speak respectfully is a huge imposition. It's hard to change, but it's a really, really useful skill to learn. It makes everything go more smoothly. It's totally possible to joke and have fun, just don't... attack people and their ideas. Try not to blame. It's actually very simple in practice and isn't very far reaching at all. You can still have fun, you can still joke around, but you have to realize if you attack people it's going to create a hostile environment for a lot of people, men and women included.

SpicyLemonZest 7y ago
The problem is that respectful speech is itself a widely varying cultural standard. For example, one problem I consistently face is with interruptions. In my native culture, interruptions are entirely normal outside of formal speech. I try to tone this down in the workplace to accommodate other people, and similarly, most people try to understand that I mean well when my lifetime of cultural baggage slips through. But I have to be incredibly careful with my speech patterns around "respect and inclusivity" people, because they always interpret my interruptions as intolerable and deliberate rudeness.

voxl 7y ago

You missed the point. The point is a person with power over you needs to be respectful of that power. Your boss is never going to be as buddy-buddy with you as a coworker, because your boss has a lot more say over your pay and whether or not you're going to be fired. The famous "characters" of open source are notorious, not famous. No one looks at a Linus rant and says "Wow I want to try my hand at adding a patch for Linux!". No, they say "Wow, I want to have that kind of power!" That's just the rub, isn't it, you don't get to decide that we have to be hazed because you want the potential to hold that power of us.

matheusmoreira 7y ago
> No one looks at a Linus rant and says "Wow I want to try my hand at adding a patch for Linux!". He probably just thinks the kernel itself is more important than the people hacking on it. He's probably right.
silveroriole 7y ago
> No one looks at a Linus rant and says "Wow I want to try my hand at adding a patch for Linux!". People who think it would be awesome to get their code past Linus, and at least very funny and instructive to have their code shat on by Linus, do :) Some of us just don’t care about or even like ‘hazing’. You know, cause once you show you can take the hazing, you’re in the group. Yeah I don’t want to be, like, epically pwned by my boss on a code review at work, but neither do I want my coworkers believing that I may find a smiley emoticon or “I don’t understand this” to constitute some sort of hostile environment.
- gatherhunterer 7y ago
  What is the technical advantage of being intentionally abrasive? It has the drawbacks of ostracizing those who are less confident with English and would prefer direct communication, the potential of being misunderstood and intimidating those who would prefer a more professional approach. If it cannot make the code better then it is poor engineering practice.
  - XCabbage 7y ago
    It's kind of odd to ask this question in response to a comment that already specified two possible advantages. Namely: 1. It sets up a challenge that incentivizes people to try to contribute; they "think it would be awesome to get their code past Linus" 2. It serves a form of initiation ritual (a hazing) to give people a sense of belonging to the group (I'm not sure I personally buy point 2, because as far as I know Linus is nice to newbies.) Beyond that, I can list plenty more: 3. It builds trust in your sincerity. If you openly bitch about everything that pisses you off, then when you say that something is decent work, people know you mean it. 4. As a direct consequence of point 3, it makes the environment much more welcoming for people with scrupulosity complexes, who might otherwise worry that they're just being a nuisance who everyone would rather not have around (but is too polite to shoo away) 5. It drives away hyper-PC social-justicey types who would otherwise impose CoCs and disrupt everything with conflict and hatred. 6. It sets a tone in which people feel free to speak freely, which sets people at ease who would otherwise be anxious about accidentally giving offence (perhaps because they have poor English skills, perhaps because they're neuroatypical in some way that affects their social skills). Are there downsides too? Sure. But this is just the age-old set of tradeoffs between having a politically correct space and a politically incorrect space; different people will feel alienated (or be rejected by the group) in each of them. For me, anti-PC spaces are home; they're where I feel comfortable and safe and able to contribute, while PC / intersectional feminist / social justice spaces feel oppressive. I guess silveroriole feels the same way.

driverdan 7y ago

You're in the minority. Most people don't want to deal with assholes berating and mistreating them. Are you seriously saying you can't deal with people being courteous, professional, clear, and inclusive?

jrochkind1 7y ago

> find it quite repellent to have... women in the position of cultural politeness enforcers. Wait, what? I assume you mean you don't want _anyone_ to be in position of "cultural politeness enforcer"? But by literally saying you don't want women in that position (it only or especially bothers you when it's a woman?)... you seem to be kind of revealing some unappealing things about yourself.

baumy 7y ago
It's always fascinating to me how two people can read the same words and come to two polar opposite conclusions. My read of silveroriole's comment is that the commenter is a woman lamenting the fact that women are in the position of "politeness enforcer" far more often than men, and this causes people to treat her differently (i.e., like the "fun police") because they assume she is aligned with that world view.

bluntfang 7y ago

Hey, you know where it's appropriate to be a character and make ranty comments? Stand up comedy! Maybe you should use your love of ranty comments and characters to change careers.

dang 7y ago
Would you please stop posting in the flamewar style to HN? It's against the site guidelines and destroys the curiosity that this site is supposed to be for. Therefore we ban accounts that do it. Crossing into personal attack, as you've done more than once today, is particularly not ok. If you'd please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and make your substantive points thoughtfully from now on, we'd be grateful.
- bluntfang 7y ago
  Why haven't you made this post to the people that reply to me?