11 ms·

Visual Studio Code repository is open again

87 points by taspeotis 7y ago

FunSociety 7y ago
This is so fucking sad...
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- rolltiide 7y ago
  I agree because it is incongruent to target symbolism towards "Christmas" when every day of our week is a reference to Norse religions. So in this case we don't know if someone was offended by recognizing Christmas symbolism at all due to the Santa hat on the gear, or if someone that likes Christmas was offended because Santa's hat has nothing to do with their Christian God - we'll never know! But something like this happens every season leading into the end of the year, while other religious symbolism equally as prevalent in our society is completely ignored. This makes me lean towards not reacting to "random offended person" at all. > "even a single person being offended is one too many" false, in my book
- baal80spam 7y ago
  Indeed it is but I am almost sure that this guy is a troll.
  - tgv 7y ago
    His name is literally Christian...
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - Matheus28 7y ago
    Yep. And everyone is feeding the troll. Instead of closing the issue, they bend over backwards and encourage further trolling in the future.
benbristow 7y ago
The original icon: https://disrn.com/news/santa-hat-on-visual-studio-code-icon-riles-github https://disrn.com/news/santa-hat-on-visual-studio-code-icon-... How on earth is that offensive? It's literally just a Santa hat on a cog...
- Leace 7y ago
  From your linked source: > To me this is almost equally offensive as a swastika Sigh.
  - protomyth 7y ago
    Can we just start ignoring people whose sense of reality is so out of touch? I'm offended they took someone seriously with this BS. Millions dead versus a myth of someone delivering gifts, wtf? I think some folks need to watch some Steve Hughes comedy on being offended.
    - DonHopkins 7y ago
      I'm offended you took Trump's and Putin's "fake news" BS about the Washington Post so seriously that you parroted it without proof. Please answer my questions and provide proof of your accusations that the Washington Post's article about David Gelernter is inaccurate, specify exactly what those inaccuracies are, and provide proof that all the other facts and evidence that I posted are wrong, or else admit that you're wrong and spreading misinformation. Because based on what you posted, you're dead wrong, your sense of reality is totally out of touch, and you should be ignored if you can't prove what you said. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21846006 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21846006 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21849787 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21849787 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21850703 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21850703 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21851622 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21851622 Don't even bother answering if you don't have any proof.
      - protomyth 7y ago
tdons 7y ago
Original ticket: https://github.com/microsoft/vscode/issues/87268 https://github.com/microsoft/vscode/issues/87268
gwbas1c 7y ago
> "The Santa Hat on vscode insiders and pushing of religion is very offensive to me, additionally xmas has cost millions of Jews their lives over the centuries, yet even if that was not the case, pushing religious symbols as part of a product update is completely unacceptable," the user wrote. "Please remove it immediately and make it your top priority. To me this is almost equally offensive as a swastika." Santa is about as non-religious as you can get. IMO, I think Microsoft really put their foot in their mouth on this one. Edit: Because I can't let this go, it's important to point out that what we find offensive is subjective. I wonder if whoever wrote that is really just trolling Microsoft, or just has an axe to grind.
- kick 7y ago
  I think the person who posted this was a bit silly, but you can't be serious about Santa being non-religious, can you? He's literally a saint in every form of Christianity that has saints. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Nicholas https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Nicholas
  - felixfbecker 7y ago
    Are you sure Santa and Saint Nicholas are the same? In Germany we celebrate Saint Nicholas on December 6th, while Santa brings presents on December 24th (Christmas Eve).
    - tomnipotent 7y ago
      The modern mythos of Santa is based on Saint Nicholas: https://www.history.com/topics/christmas/santa-claus https://www.history.com/topics/christmas/santa-claus
    - goto11 7y ago
      Yes it is the same. Santa Claus comes from Sinterklaas which is Dutch for Saint Nicholas.
      - DonHopkins 7y ago
warpech 7y ago
> "Please remove it immediately and make it your top priority. To me this is almost equally offensive as a swastika." I don't know about their part of the world, but this person would not make it 1 meter through a shopping mall in Europe from November to January. Swa... Santas everywhere!
- zabzonk 7y ago
  Also he appears to be someone that doesn't know the difference between what people wearing red bobble-hats have done compared to people wearing swastikas.
- jwilliams 7y ago
  Equally, the swastika is a common religious symbol in East Asia.
  - Angeo34 7y ago
    Didn't know that India and Pakistan are East Asia. Always thought East Asia would be Japan Korea and the likes
    - toupeira 7y ago
      They're not, but swastikas are common as a religious symbol all over South and East Asia, and go back all the way to Mesopotamia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swastika#Historical_use https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swastika#Historical_use
      - Angeo34 7y ago
        I don't see anything about East Asia. Tibet is literally besides Pakistan and India
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
mey 7y ago
This is a very professional and level headed response by the VS Code team. I hope people reference this in the future to learn how to handle and respond openly to divisive issues.
- snazz 7y ago
  You're being downvoted, but I agree that Microsoft did the best they possibly could have in this situation: getting the off-topic (and potentially offensive on their own) threads and comments on the issue tracker out of view, making the Santa hat a configurable choice, and still maintaining a decent standard of transparency.
- NewsAware 7y ago
  I would personally love to add a response along the lines of "professional yes, but they should have..." regarding their stance, but no - you are right. This is an exceptionally professional response and the discussion regarding PC, wokeness etc belongs elsewhere.
- Aqua 7y ago
  This is not a divisive issue, the account that raised the issue is most likely fake, the person behind it intended to trigger and divide people and they succeeded at that. The world is no paradise, you will never satisfy everyone nor should you try to. Microsoft's response is cringeworthy.
  - mey 7y ago
    By us being here, that so many people objected to the removal of an easter egg in a developer channel release, to me, indicates there is a serious schism. I expect people are using this as a proxy for concerns about PC culture and "the war on christmas". This written description of what happened, and how the team is handling what happened going forward is transparent and respectful, that is what I am attempting to comment on.
- temac 7y ago
  This is a professional reaction to a shitty situation they created mostly themselves. The proper even more professional thing to do would have been to not react to the initial troll in the first place.
GiorgioG 7y ago
> we reverted the gear to something (hopefully) less controversial (a snowflake) A snowflake for all the offended snowflakes - how fitting.
- clSTophEjUdRanu 7y ago
  This snowflake abortion is more offensive than the last! My grandfather died in the great blizzard of '78!
- kyberias 7y ago
  Now I'm sure they put that snowflake there for that exact reason. Brilliant.
Whatitat90 7y ago
It seems Santa struck back the original issue author: https://github.com/Christian-Schiffer/servicelayer.chat/issues?utf8=%E2%9C%93&q=is%3Aissue+ https://github.com/Christian-Schiffer/servicelayer.chat/issu...
- jdright 7y ago
  Github should ban all these accounts and try to track the real accounts for the fakes to ban these too. These intolerant people should not have the right to use this service.
- spankalee 7y ago
  That's incredibly lame
- umvi 7y ago
  Not just on GitHub. Christian wrote up a huge response to the issue spam here: https://github.com/Christian-Schiffer/SignalRAngularMVC6/issues/6#issuecomment-567907759 https://github.com/Christian-Schiffer/SignalRAngularMVC6/iss... Basically sounds like his entire online presence is being roasted by 4chan.
  - faissaloo 7y ago
    >One would think that developers at the very least would have some deductive reasoning, so using the n and k word against me, when my profile picture and name clearly show I am neither I don't think this person understands that part of the internet...
- userbinator 7y ago
  Definitely not surprising that he is now being trolled in the same way. As the saying goes, "live by sword, die by the sword".
umvi 7y ago
> even a single person being offended is one too many Seriously?? Take a stand against extremists, that's what I say. If you cave to the demands of individual offended people, prepare to waste a lot of time catering to trolls...
- tannerwj 7y ago
  How bland and boring would this world become if we applied this opinion to everything?
jandeboevrie 7y ago
If they had balls they would tell that user to STFU and go so something useful. If you worry about such things and oppress others by pushing your feelings like a spoiled child, you have way too much time on your hands...
OskarS 7y ago
A lot of people are piling on the original complainant for a ridiculous complaint, and rightly so. But they are not the only offender here, and arguably not even the worst one: > To adhere to our values and the Code of Conduct, we had to delete a handful of comments, which is unfortunate but not uncommon. Our responses triggered more responses. Bots were being employed to create issues and comments. Temporary accounts were being created to spam the system. Offensive issues were being created. The repository was filling up with issues which, frankly, were uncalled for, and we needed to do something, fast. Every person who felt the need to comment and create github issues (and even write spam bots to do so!) about a santa hat being removed is not a person that should be trusted with any sort of responsibility or employment in the software industry. The absolutely staggering lack of maturity here boggles the mind. This is not how sane adults should act. On either side.
- kyberias 7y ago
  > Every person who felt the need to comment and create github issues (and even write spam bots to do so!) about a santa hat being removed is not a person that should be trusted with any sort of responsibility or employment in the software industry. They should be punished, shouldn't they? Put to jail?
  - xemoka 7y ago
    It's the extremes that caused this. Putting to jail, or calling for it, is just another one. They all acted poorly. That being called out is of itself the condemnation. Answers or responses don't have to be dialed to 10 to be valid.
- davidgerard 7y ago
  A sudden barrage of comments, including racist ones, smells like a chan op. Possibly including the original issue.
  - crooked-v 7y ago
    That was exactly my thought. The pattern of taking exaggerated but vaguely plausible offense to something, and then using any response (positive or negative) to that as an excuse to be hateful, is one that's repeated itself before.
kyberias 7y ago
Microsoft went full-blown Seinfeld with this. Let's just do Festivus then!
mhalle 7y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santa_suit https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santa_suit
m00dy 7y ago
Unrelated info: Saint Nicholas is originally from Turkey :)
- mikl 7y ago
  Not quite. He was greek and lived in what we now call the Byzantine Empire, several hundred years before it was invaded by arabs and turks.
RichieZed 7y ago
As a resident of the Southern Hemisphere, I am offended by the use of a snowflake. 43 degrees Celcius here yesterday...
schlipity 7y ago
I believe this was blown way out of proportion, but I am uncertain how else the visual studio code team should've responded. Where do you draw the line? Was there a way to politely respond to this person without kowtowing to them? Maybe by adding an option to disable the santa hat, where it's on by default, but you can turn it off? Google has been sprucing up their search page for years now; Many a santa hat has been present, and people were both annoyed and happy, and also apathetic. Would Google have responded similarly, if some random person had a pipeline right to their developers? It feels like even though some random person with a complaint got his wish, everyone else lost something. Like the ability to put something fun in your software without being overly concerned about offending one person.
- petepete 7y ago
  Totally agree. I wonder if he's also complained to the Unicode Consortium about the inclusion of Santa and Mrs Santa emoji.
  - faissaloo 7y ago
    This may be the only way to get rid of emoji, I say have at it.
- romellem 7y ago
  A quick search of Google Doodles that included santa: * https://www.google.com/doodles/happy-holidays-2011 https://www.google.com/doodles/happy-holidays-2011 * https://www.google.com/doodles/holidays-2018-northern-hemisphere-day-1 https://www.google.com/doodles/holidays-2018-northern-hemisp... * https://www.google.com/doodles/holidays-2018-northern-hemisphere-day-2 https://www.google.com/doodles/holidays-2018-northern-hemisp... * https://www.google.com/doodles/holidays-2018-northern-hemisphere-day-3 https://www.google.com/doodles/holidays-2018-northern-hemisp... * https://www.google.com/doodles/holidays-2018-southern-hemisphere-day-1 https://www.google.com/doodles/holidays-2018-southern-hemisp...
- faissaloo 7y ago
  >Maybe by adding an option to disable the santa hat, where it's on by default, but you can turn it off? This honestly would have been the best solution, I'm Muslim and I'd like to switch it off but I'm not going to go out of my way to complain about someone else's program that I have voluntarily placed on my computer when it's clearly a valuable part of people's traditions and I can patch it myself.
DangerousPie 7y ago
> even a single person being offended is one too many That's a disappointingly defeatist philosophy. I really like VS Code and this won't change that, but it's a shame that they let a single crazy person destroy what was a nice gesture for the vast, vast majority of their users.
- degenerate 7y ago
  Now the VS community knows how to get new features added to the product. Simly say "I'm offended that you are not adding this feature" and they will promptly add it, as not to "offend". Slippery slope, VS team.
barrkel 7y ago
Chap seems to be a troll, in all probability as Christian as his name. That is, Christian in name only, and actually interested in leveraging woke / victimhood culture and microaggressions to generate a political reaction.
kylnew 7y ago
He probably could have been equally as effective by saying "hey, let's make this icon more generic so it's more inclusive" and ended it at that. I don't think he is wrong in his request, but the necessity people feel to say "This offends me" over just using other more concrete rationale is what causes these kinds of incidents. We need to learn to use less divisive and accusatory language when making requests like this.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
nisuni 7y ago
> even a single person being offended is one too many I am offended by snowflakes. Go find something more inclusive, you insensitive clod!
phn 7y ago
The paradox of tolerance [1] is a PITA. At the end of the day a santa hat is no big deal, but by the logic of "even a single person being offended is one too many", taken to the extreme, all that is left is the lowest common denominator of what all humans tolerate (if there is such a thing). On a more practical note, I find it hard to reason on how deal with issues like this. It's like if you try to be level headed, avoid conflict, and try to see things from the other side you already lost, because there is no corresponding empathy coming from the other side. The only solution is to give in, or deal with an offended internet mob. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance
- OkGoDoIt 7y ago
  Why is someone being offended such a big deal nowadays? It seems everyone is always trying to make sure no one can ever be the slightest bit offended. Doesn’t necessarily feel like the most important metric we should be optimizing for as a society.
  - rhacker 7y ago
    It's the PC (politically correct) movement. PC definitely needed a lot of push in 2000. It has certainly helped correct a lot of language problems, problems that either reinforce stereotypes, gender and/or sexual orientation issues. Indeed it is part of the reason people stopped saying Japs or the N. word or fat person. The reality is that if you were one of the people that is sidelined, you would feel it too. It's part of the reason we need to keep at it. So while PC'ism may have changed your companies end-of-year greeting cards from "Merry Christmas and Happy New Year" to "Happy Holidays and Happy New Year", or even just "Season's Greetings", you can probably imagine that's helped 10 to 20 percent of the workforce (that are likely atheist, agnostic, jewish or muslim or whatever feel more included in the greeting.
  - goto11 7y ago
    This is nothing new though. Look at things like the Hayes Code or the Comics Code. It is business as usual trying not to offend or alienate important demographics. But as values and power structures change, the feeling you have to accommodate change. If you feel like this is getting worse compared to those times, it might be because you belong to a demographic which is losing cultural power.
alkonaut 7y ago
Christmas is not a Christian holiday. Christianity is young. The symbols and traditions surrounding the midwinter feasts (Yule etc) go back way longer. It’s not even called Christmas or anything with “Christ” e.g in Scandinavia. Because no way we’d let the church change also the name. No sir. The church just had to adopt the festive period. Santa Claus is an even later addition. And famously the red Santa is thanks to Coca Cola. So basically the red Santa hat is a symbol that Coca Cola put on top a legend of a saint that was in turn adopted onto pagan winter rites. It’s not exactly bibles all over it.
temac 7y ago
A single troll has managed to create an insanely huge drama and loss of tons of people time. I'm not optimistic about the future of Free Software. Especially with the new tendency of some projects to consider that people can be offended about pretty much anything, especially if it is completely trivial, and that the utmost priority is to attempt to not offend anybody on Earth. Because like we saw here, attempting to not offend by modifying trivialities is actually going to offend way more people. And this is exploited by trolls.
- omani 7y ago
  I commented on a similar case (on a gitlab thread) and got downvoted. I dont mind. it wont change the truth. my comment was: "because it all comes down to the root cause: the attack on an area which until now couldnt care less about politics. now in the context of "free speech" we try to brake the last known union out there in the world. developers, who have only let code speak so far." we will see more and more attacks on free speech (in the name of free speech), open source and companies and people who contribute to open source.
chrismorgan 7y ago
> we reverted the gear to something (hopefully) less controversial (a snowflake) I’m too sensible to get offended by things like this (cynical amusement is more my style), but as a southern hemispherian— People from the north hemisphere regularly seem to describe things in terms of seasons (e.g. “coming this summer”), completely disregarding the fact that such seasons don’t hold in most of the world: in the southern hemisphere they’re back to front, and nearer the equator seasons are just all-round different. Southern hemispherians don’t seem to describe scheduled things with seasons much, and only ever in local matters, not global. (Then you get things like Microsoft’s use of “Fall” in a Windows 10 release which makes it not just northern-hemisphericentric, if I may coin a term, but downright American by virtue of not using the word “autumn” that everyone else uses.) Back to the snowflakes. Australia’s on fire now, from the heat. (And a town near me was under direct threat of burning down from a bushfire last night.) Even if we ever got snow where I live (we don’t), this would not be the season for it!
- mikewhy 7y ago
  Somewhat addressed in the linked issue: > We’ve added a new setting to Insiders that lets you choose the icon. If you like the red hat, go for it! Maybe you live in the southern hemisphere or you are heading to the beach during the holidays, there’s an icon for you too.
- slenk 7y ago
  I am not saying its a good thing they do, but >85% of the population live in the northern hemisphere and thus experience the same seasons https://www.themarysue.com/world-population-latitude-longitude/ https://www.themarysue.com/world-population-latitude-longitu... Wikipedia notes it higher: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northern_Hemisphere https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northern_Hemisphere
  - chrismorgan 7y ago
    However, a great many of those live in tropical climes which do not conform to the four-season model, c.f. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Season https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Season.
tozeur 7y ago
The OP Issue Filer _has_ to be trolling...
mikl 7y ago
> even a single person being offended is one too many This is how you make things bland, soulless and ultimately inhuman.
fyp 7y ago
A lot of us process the world using rule-based algorithms. This makes us natural programmers but sorely inadequate to handle the world. For example the rule of "if religious, then don't include in product" is usually pretty sane. But near a decision boundary, you will always get disagreement. A certain portion of programmers would've arrived at the conclusion that isReligious(santa) == False while some will be dead set that the answer must be True. Both side are confident that the other side is making a fatal mistake because they are confident in their logic skills. But the real problem is that binary logic can't handle these sort of high context fuzzy situation at all.
atonse 7y ago
Even though I'm a strong atheist who always rejects the pushing of religious values in our laws, I really enjoy the Christmas/Holiday season because it's honestly just a happy time around family (and unless you go seeking it out, you hardly see Jesus mentioned.) I don't understand the idea of being offended at what is essentially a happy time for many people where they are celebrating something that matters to THEM. Again, they're not pushing it on anyone. Maybe it's my polytheistic upbringing (grew up Hindu by name in India, with many relatives that also prayed to the infant Jesus alongside their Hindu Gods). The Santa hat is about as harmless a sign of the holidays as I can imagine (it's not like they showed a cross or something). To borrow from the Reddit phrase, this is the most boring kind of dystopia where a completely harmless sign offends people.
- Ruthalas 7y ago
  Forgive me if this is a poor/rude question, but I'm curious about the inclusion of infant Jesus you mentioned. Is there some significance the infant has that another aged representation would not?
  - atonse 7y ago
    Sorry, I have no idea why. But Infant Jesus is really popular in South India. As a very curious kid, I used to ask my grandpa and others the same question but never got a satisfying answer.
    - DonHopkins 7y ago
      Do you have any good recipes? I LOVE Infant Jesus, I just can't eat a whole one.
jlengrand 7y ago
I just feel sad for the folks at Crosoft putting their time and love in the product and have to put up with this stuff. That's the offensive part to me, littering other people's work, down to having them close the repo.
Damorian 7y ago
"The snowflake on vscode insiders is very offensive to me, as people with delicate sensibilities are typically referred to as "snowflakes" as an insult. This is very politcal and has cost many Jews their lives, or something. Please remove it immediately and make it your top priority. To me this is almost equally offensive as a Santa hat." I'm sure if we continue to cave to these people they will eventually stop.
userbinator 7y ago
Every time I see things like this I always want to think that it's someone wanting to make a point of showing how mere feigning offense is enough to make a huge company bend over to your demands, and that there's some bigger lesson to be learned from this, but alas, that is probably not the case here...
blondin 7y ago
it's saddening and upsetting that such benign acts are blown way out of proportion by people, often with agenda, who simply are not happy or can't let other people go on with their life! it just seems that we can't agree on anything anymore. i mean that's okay, but it starts to become worrisome when we can't agree on civility, decency, or even science in some cases!
strictfp 7y ago
I'm offended by the removal of the hat! Check mate ;)
NicoJuicy 7y ago
I think they handled this complex situation as good as they could. Good job
ScottFree 7y ago
This is the part where I suggest everybody read Corporate Cancer[0]. It's all about how to run a business in this day and age of constant outrage. [0]: https://www.amazon.com/Corporate-Cancer-Miracles-Millions-Company-ebook/dp/B081D58P1X/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=corporate+cancer&qid=1576880622&sr=8-1 https://www.amazon.com/Corporate-Cancer-Miracles-Millions-Co...
- lxe 7y ago
  Isn't this guy extremely far-right? I wouldn't expect unbiased analysis here.
  - Lammy 7y ago
    You shouldn't expect unbiased analysis from anyone, about anything. Don't look at other peoples' viewpoints as something to either wholly adopt or wholly reject; instead as datapoints to influence your own :)
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
ksec 7y ago
May be it is about time we practise the same MIT license mentality, Dont use it if you dont like it? All these what ever religions, something -ism, politics is getting ridiculous.
LandR 7y ago
Couldn't he just not use vscode? I think the response from Microsoft should have been somethjng like "it's unfortunate to are offended by this but this absolutely wasn't our intention". If you dont wish to use vscode during the holiday season then that's up to you but the vast majority of our users saw the hat as we intended and we aren't going to have one user dictate to us how we run vscode" I mean, isn't vs code essentially open source? If the guy was so offended couldn't he just remove it and build hus own inoffensive version? Presumably if he's using vscode he is a developer... It's the request to remove it as a top priority that I find strangest. The ego of someone must have to think they can dictate to everyone else what to do just to make sure they themselves get a perfectly comfortable existence. I genuinely don't get it. It must be just an exhausting way to live? Is this sort of perpetual offence/ victimhood more prevalent in IT than other industries? Is it just a by product of the sort of people out industry attracts?
- notwhereyouare 7y ago
  even better, he could have not used the insider edition. Apparently this was only on the insider edition
throwhBUFobmGUD 7y ago
This person is obviously a troll. His GitHub name Christian-Schiffer sounds someone who "Schiffs" on Christians. Elsewhere he has been identified as DavidBenMesecke and has a history of interesting comments.
rhacker 7y ago
Just think about this for 2 seconds: What would this all have been about if the original icon was a Menorah? Just really think about that. Or heck, how about one of the few icons used for Hinduism if you want to go for popularity.
smitty1e 7y ago
I hope that Destiny weighs in harshly on the jerks who oscillate between - virtue-signaling about how diverse they are and - demanding conformity with some impossible standard of innocuousness. The Roman alphabet and English language are bastions of intolerance and H8, after all: any one employing these instruments of oppression must be. . .oh, wait. . .
johnchristopher 7y ago
> Thank you Microsoft, I am very pleased with that decision. I understand many find this strange, therefor I would like to add an article about how offensive xmas is to many so you understand why. https://www.sefaria.org/sheets/51928?lang=bi https://www.sefaria.org/sheets/51928?lang=bi I am not sure there is that many people offended by Christmas for the reasons given in that article. I am inclined to change my mind though. Is VLC next ?
etxm 7y ago
> even a single person being offended is one too many This is absurd.
rambojazz 7y ago
What was the complaint? Why was that one person so annoyed by the Santa hat? And why do projects admins need to care about him been offended from a Santa hat?
mulmen 7y ago
This is a pretty obvious risk. What value did adding a “cute” icon to VS Code provide? There’s no upside here. Just don’t do it. The snowflake is an equally bad idea.
- nojvek 7y ago
  It creates delight. Celebrating the end of year and winter season
  - mulmen 7y ago
    I know the date, why do I need a a UI element to remind me. It doesn’t make me mad but it doesn’t bring me joy either.
    - nojvek 7y ago
      We made a winter themed mixpanel with subtle changes and many customers have let us know how much they love it. So I guess it’s not for everyone. In the same theme of google changing their logo doodles. I really love and respect that.
Keverw 7y ago
I think this is a overreaction. Even Google has had Christmas Doodles. I see Christmas more of the commercialized thing, Santa, Trees, Snowman, Presents, Candy canes, Getting the family together... I'm not the most religious person, but Jesus isn't the first thing that comes to mind for me when thinking of Christmas but I'm sure if I grew up in a more religious household I'd probably have another view. However I do think cutting down a fresh tree is wasteful even though many people do it. There's someone I know who tells me Halloween offends him though, but I don't really understand why. Even some churches celebrate Halloween, passing out candy and stuff... Then Easter I'm sure offends people too, brainwashing children that a bunny comes around laying eggs.
duelingjello 7y ago
Holiday symbolic bikeshedding... either the trolls have won or the lack of sense of humor has won. Don't we have enough in-laws and existential threats to argue about?
wilt 7y ago
On one hand it is a bit of a non issue but on the other hand it is kinda funny watching a corporation strugle with trying to please everyone. My personal test for when it comes to offending people is if there was any malice. And if the person being offended is using being offended as a form of control.

87 points by taspeotis 7y ago

FunSociety 7y ago

This is so fucking sad...

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
rolltiide 7y ago
I agree because it is incongruent to target symbolism towards "Christmas" when every day of our week is a reference to Norse religions. So in this case we don't know if someone was offended by recognizing Christmas symbolism at all due to the Santa hat on the gear, or if someone that likes Christmas was offended because Santa's hat has nothing to do with their Christian God - we'll never know! But something like this happens every season leading into the end of the year, while other religious symbolism equally as prevalent in our society is completely ignored. This makes me lean towards not reacting to "random offended person" at all. > "even a single person being offended is one too many" false, in my book
baal80spam 7y ago
Indeed it is but I am almost sure that this guy is a troll.
- tgv 7y ago
  His name is literally Christian...
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- Matheus28 7y ago
  Yep. And everyone is feeding the troll. Instead of closing the issue, they bend over backwards and encourage further trolling in the future.

benbristow 7y ago

The original icon: https://disrn.com/news/santa-hat-on-visual-studio-code-icon-riles-github https://disrn.com/news/santa-hat-on-visual-studio-code-icon-... How on earth is that offensive? It's literally just a Santa hat on a cog...

Leace 7y ago
From your linked source: > To me this is almost equally offensive as a swastika Sigh.
- protomyth 7y ago
  Can we just start ignoring people whose sense of reality is so out of touch? I'm offended they took someone seriously with this BS. Millions dead versus a myth of someone delivering gifts, wtf? I think some folks need to watch some Steve Hughes comedy on being offended.
  - DonHopkins 7y ago
    I'm offended you took Trump's and Putin's "fake news" BS about the Washington Post so seriously that you parroted it without proof. Please answer my questions and provide proof of your accusations that the Washington Post's article about David Gelernter is inaccurate, specify exactly what those inaccuracies are, and provide proof that all the other facts and evidence that I posted are wrong, or else admit that you're wrong and spreading misinformation. Because based on what you posted, you're dead wrong, your sense of reality is totally out of touch, and you should be ignored if you can't prove what you said. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21846006 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21846006 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21849787 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21849787 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21850703 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21850703 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21851622 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21851622 Don't even bother answering if you don't have any proof.
    - protomyth 7y ago

tdons 7y ago

Original ticket: https://github.com/microsoft/vscode/issues/87268 https://github.com/microsoft/vscode/issues/87268

gwbas1c 7y ago

> "The Santa Hat on vscode insiders and pushing of religion is very offensive to me, additionally xmas has cost millions of Jews their lives over the centuries, yet even if that was not the case, pushing religious symbols as part of a product update is completely unacceptable," the user wrote. "Please remove it immediately and make it your top priority. To me this is almost equally offensive as a swastika." Santa is about as non-religious as you can get. IMO, I think Microsoft really put their foot in their mouth on this one. Edit: Because I can't let this go, it's important to point out that what we find offensive is subjective. I wonder if whoever wrote that is really just trolling Microsoft, or just has an axe to grind.

kick 7y ago
I think the person who posted this was a bit silly, but you can't be serious about Santa being non-religious, can you? He's literally a saint in every form of Christianity that has saints. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Nicholas https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Nicholas
- felixfbecker 7y ago
  Are you sure Santa and Saint Nicholas are the same? In Germany we celebrate Saint Nicholas on December 6th, while Santa brings presents on December 24th (Christmas Eve).
  - tomnipotent 7y ago
    The modern mythos of Santa is based on Saint Nicholas: https://www.history.com/topics/christmas/santa-claus https://www.history.com/topics/christmas/santa-claus
  - goto11 7y ago
    Yes it is the same. Santa Claus comes from Sinterklaas which is Dutch for Saint Nicholas.
    - DonHopkins 7y ago

warpech 7y ago

> "Please remove it immediately and make it your top priority. To me this is almost equally offensive as a swastika." I don't know about their part of the world, but this person would not make it 1 meter through a shopping mall in Europe from November to January. Swa... Santas everywhere!

zabzonk 7y ago
Also he appears to be someone that doesn't know the difference between what people wearing red bobble-hats have done compared to people wearing swastikas.
jwilliams 7y ago
Equally, the swastika is a common religious symbol in East Asia.
- Angeo34 7y ago
  Didn't know that India and Pakistan are East Asia. Always thought East Asia would be Japan Korea and the likes
  - toupeira 7y ago
    They're not, but swastikas are common as a religious symbol all over South and East Asia, and go back all the way to Mesopotamia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swastika#Historical_use https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swastika#Historical_use
    - Angeo34 7y ago
      I don't see anything about East Asia. Tibet is literally besides Pakistan and India
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]

mey 7y ago

This is a very professional and level headed response by the VS Code team. I hope people reference this in the future to learn how to handle and respond openly to divisive issues.

snazz 7y ago
You're being downvoted, but I agree that Microsoft did the best they possibly could have in this situation: getting the off-topic (and potentially offensive on their own) threads and comments on the issue tracker out of view, making the Santa hat a configurable choice, and still maintaining a decent standard of transparency.
NewsAware 7y ago
I would personally love to add a response along the lines of "professional yes, but they should have..." regarding their stance, but no - you are right. This is an exceptionally professional response and the discussion regarding PC, wokeness etc belongs elsewhere.
Aqua 7y ago
This is not a divisive issue, the account that raised the issue is most likely fake, the person behind it intended to trigger and divide people and they succeeded at that. The world is no paradise, you will never satisfy everyone nor should you try to. Microsoft's response is cringeworthy.
- mey 7y ago
  By us being here, that so many people objected to the removal of an easter egg in a developer channel release, to me, indicates there is a serious schism. I expect people are using this as a proxy for concerns about PC culture and "the war on christmas". This written description of what happened, and how the team is handling what happened going forward is transparent and respectful, that is what I am attempting to comment on.
temac 7y ago
This is a professional reaction to a shitty situation they created mostly themselves. The proper even more professional thing to do would have been to not react to the initial troll in the first place.

GiorgioG 7y ago

> we reverted the gear to something (hopefully) less controversial (a snowflake) A snowflake for all the offended snowflakes - how fitting.

clSTophEjUdRanu 7y ago
This snowflake abortion is more offensive than the last! My grandfather died in the great blizzard of '78!
kyberias 7y ago
Now I'm sure they put that snowflake there for that exact reason. Brilliant.

Whatitat90 7y ago

It seems Santa struck back the original issue author: https://github.com/Christian-Schiffer/servicelayer.chat/issues?utf8=%E2%9C%93&q=is%3Aissue+ https://github.com/Christian-Schiffer/servicelayer.chat/issu...

jdright 7y ago
Github should ban all these accounts and try to track the real accounts for the fakes to ban these too. These intolerant people should not have the right to use this service.
spankalee 7y ago
That's incredibly lame
umvi 7y ago
Not just on GitHub. Christian wrote up a huge response to the issue spam here: https://github.com/Christian-Schiffer/SignalRAngularMVC6/issues/6#issuecomment-567907759 https://github.com/Christian-Schiffer/SignalRAngularMVC6/iss... Basically sounds like his entire online presence is being roasted by 4chan.
- faissaloo 7y ago
  >One would think that developers at the very least would have some deductive reasoning, so using the n and k word against me, when my profile picture and name clearly show I am neither I don't think this person understands that part of the internet...
userbinator 7y ago
Definitely not surprising that he is now being trolled in the same way. As the saying goes, "live by sword, die by the sword".

umvi 7y ago

> even a single person being offended is one too many Seriously?? Take a stand against extremists, that's what I say. If you cave to the demands of individual offended people, prepare to waste a lot of time catering to trolls...

tannerwj 7y ago
How bland and boring would this world become if we applied this opinion to everything?

jandeboevrie 7y ago

If they had balls they would tell that user to STFU and go so something useful. If you worry about such things and oppress others by pushing your feelings like a spoiled child, you have way too much time on your hands...

OskarS 7y ago

A lot of people are piling on the original complainant for a ridiculous complaint, and rightly so. But they are not the only offender here, and arguably not even the worst one: > To adhere to our values and the Code of Conduct, we had to delete a handful of comments, which is unfortunate but not uncommon. Our responses triggered more responses. Bots were being employed to create issues and comments. Temporary accounts were being created to spam the system. Offensive issues were being created. The repository was filling up with issues which, frankly, were uncalled for, and we needed to do something, fast. Every person who felt the need to comment and create github issues (and even write spam bots to do so!) about a santa hat being removed is not a person that should be trusted with any sort of responsibility or employment in the software industry. The absolutely staggering lack of maturity here boggles the mind. This is not how sane adults should act. On either side.

kyberias 7y ago
> Every person who felt the need to comment and create github issues (and even write spam bots to do so!) about a santa hat being removed is not a person that should be trusted with any sort of responsibility or employment in the software industry. They should be punished, shouldn't they? Put to jail?
- xemoka 7y ago
  It's the extremes that caused this. Putting to jail, or calling for it, is just another one. They all acted poorly. That being called out is of itself the condemnation. Answers or responses don't have to be dialed to 10 to be valid.
davidgerard 7y ago
A sudden barrage of comments, including racist ones, smells like a chan op. Possibly including the original issue.
- crooked-v 7y ago
  That was exactly my thought. The pattern of taking exaggerated but vaguely plausible offense to something, and then using any response (positive or negative) to that as an excuse to be hateful, is one that's repeated itself before.

kyberias 7y ago

Microsoft went full-blown Seinfeld with this. Let's just do Festivus then!

mhalle 7y ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santa_suit https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santa_suit

m00dy 7y ago

Unrelated info: Saint Nicholas is originally from Turkey :)

mikl 7y ago
Not quite. He was greek and lived in what we now call the Byzantine Empire, several hundred years before it was invaded by arabs and turks.

RichieZed 7y ago

As a resident of the Southern Hemisphere, I am offended by the use of a snowflake. 43 degrees Celcius here yesterday...

schlipity 7y ago

I believe this was blown way out of proportion, but I am uncertain how else the visual studio code team should've responded. Where do you draw the line? Was there a way to politely respond to this person without kowtowing to them? Maybe by adding an option to disable the santa hat, where it's on by default, but you can turn it off? Google has been sprucing up their search page for years now; Many a santa hat has been present, and people were both annoyed and happy, and also apathetic. Would Google have responded similarly, if some random person had a pipeline right to their developers? It feels like even though some random person with a complaint got his wish, everyone else lost something. Like the ability to put something fun in your software without being overly concerned about offending one person.

petepete 7y ago
Totally agree. I wonder if he's also complained to the Unicode Consortium about the inclusion of Santa and Mrs Santa emoji.
- faissaloo 7y ago
  This may be the only way to get rid of emoji, I say have at it.
romellem 7y ago
A quick search of Google Doodles that included santa: * https://www.google.com/doodles/happy-holidays-2011 https://www.google.com/doodles/happy-holidays-2011 * https://www.google.com/doodles/holidays-2018-northern-hemisphere-day-1 https://www.google.com/doodles/holidays-2018-northern-hemisp... * https://www.google.com/doodles/holidays-2018-northern-hemisphere-day-2 https://www.google.com/doodles/holidays-2018-northern-hemisp... * https://www.google.com/doodles/holidays-2018-northern-hemisphere-day-3 https://www.google.com/doodles/holidays-2018-northern-hemisp... * https://www.google.com/doodles/holidays-2018-southern-hemisphere-day-1 https://www.google.com/doodles/holidays-2018-southern-hemisp...
faissaloo 7y ago
>Maybe by adding an option to disable the santa hat, where it's on by default, but you can turn it off? This honestly would have been the best solution, I'm Muslim and I'd like to switch it off but I'm not going to go out of my way to complain about someone else's program that I have voluntarily placed on my computer when it's clearly a valuable part of people's traditions and I can patch it myself.

DangerousPie 7y ago

> even a single person being offended is one too many That's a disappointingly defeatist philosophy. I really like VS Code and this won't change that, but it's a shame that they let a single crazy person destroy what was a nice gesture for the vast, vast majority of their users.

degenerate 7y ago
Now the VS community knows how to get new features added to the product. Simly say "I'm offended that you are not adding this feature" and they will promptly add it, as not to "offend". Slippery slope, VS team.

barrkel 7y ago

Chap seems to be a troll, in all probability as Christian as his name. That is, Christian in name only, and actually interested in leveraging woke / victimhood culture and microaggressions to generate a political reaction.

kylnew 7y ago

He probably could have been equally as effective by saying "hey, let's make this icon more generic so it's more inclusive" and ended it at that. I don't think he is wrong in his request, but the necessity people feel to say "This offends me" over just using other more concrete rationale is what causes these kinds of incidents. We need to learn to use less divisive and accusatory language when making requests like this.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

nisuni 7y ago

> even a single person being offended is one too many I am offended by snowflakes. Go find something more inclusive, you insensitive clod!

phn 7y ago

The paradox of tolerance [1] is a PITA. At the end of the day a santa hat is no big deal, but by the logic of "even a single person being offended is one too many", taken to the extreme, all that is left is the lowest common denominator of what all humans tolerate (if there is such a thing). On a more practical note, I find it hard to reason on how deal with issues like this. It's like if you try to be level headed, avoid conflict, and try to see things from the other side you already lost, because there is no corresponding empathy coming from the other side. The only solution is to give in, or deal with an offended internet mob. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance

OkGoDoIt 7y ago
Why is someone being offended such a big deal nowadays? It seems everyone is always trying to make sure no one can ever be the slightest bit offended. Doesn’t necessarily feel like the most important metric we should be optimizing for as a society.
- rhacker 7y ago
  It's the PC (politically correct) movement. PC definitely needed a lot of push in 2000. It has certainly helped correct a lot of language problems, problems that either reinforce stereotypes, gender and/or sexual orientation issues. Indeed it is part of the reason people stopped saying Japs or the N. word or fat person. The reality is that if you were one of the people that is sidelined, you would feel it too. It's part of the reason we need to keep at it. So while PC'ism may have changed your companies end-of-year greeting cards from "Merry Christmas and Happy New Year" to "Happy Holidays and Happy New Year", or even just "Season's Greetings", you can probably imagine that's helped 10 to 20 percent of the workforce (that are likely atheist, agnostic, jewish or muslim or whatever feel more included in the greeting.
- goto11 7y ago
  This is nothing new though. Look at things like the Hayes Code or the Comics Code. It is business as usual trying not to offend or alienate important demographics. But as values and power structures change, the feeling you have to accommodate change. If you feel like this is getting worse compared to those times, it might be because you belong to a demographic which is losing cultural power.

alkonaut 7y ago

Christmas is not a Christian holiday. Christianity is young. The symbols and traditions surrounding the midwinter feasts (Yule etc) go back way longer. It’s not even called Christmas or anything with “Christ” e.g in Scandinavia. Because no way we’d let the church change also the name. No sir. The church just had to adopt the festive period. Santa Claus is an even later addition. And famously the red Santa is thanks to Coca Cola. So basically the red Santa hat is a symbol that Coca Cola put on top a legend of a saint that was in turn adopted onto pagan winter rites. It’s not exactly bibles all over it.

temac 7y ago

A single troll has managed to create an insanely huge drama and loss of tons of people time. I'm not optimistic about the future of Free Software. Especially with the new tendency of some projects to consider that people can be offended about pretty much anything, especially if it is completely trivial, and that the utmost priority is to attempt to not offend anybody on Earth. Because like we saw here, attempting to not offend by modifying trivialities is actually going to offend way more people. And this is exploited by trolls.

omani 7y ago
I commented on a similar case (on a gitlab thread) and got downvoted. I dont mind. it wont change the truth. my comment was: "because it all comes down to the root cause: the attack on an area which until now couldnt care less about politics. now in the context of "free speech" we try to brake the last known union out there in the world. developers, who have only let code speak so far." we will see more and more attacks on free speech (in the name of free speech), open source and companies and people who contribute to open source.

chrismorgan 7y ago

> we reverted the gear to something (hopefully) less controversial (a snowflake) I’m too sensible to get offended by things like this (cynical amusement is more my style), but as a southern hemispherian— People from the north hemisphere regularly seem to describe things in terms of seasons (e.g. “coming this summer”), completely disregarding the fact that such seasons don’t hold in most of the world: in the southern hemisphere they’re back to front, and nearer the equator seasons are just all-round different. Southern hemispherians don’t seem to describe scheduled things with seasons much, and only ever in local matters, not global. (Then you get things like Microsoft’s use of “Fall” in a Windows 10 release which makes it not just northern-hemisphericentric, if I may coin a term, but downright American by virtue of not using the word “autumn” that everyone else uses.) Back to the snowflakes. Australia’s on fire now, from the heat. (And a town near me was under direct threat of burning down from a bushfire last night.) Even if we ever got snow where I live (we don’t), this would not be the season for it!

mikewhy 7y ago
Somewhat addressed in the linked issue: > We’ve added a new setting to Insiders that lets you choose the icon. If you like the red hat, go for it! Maybe you live in the southern hemisphere or you are heading to the beach during the holidays, there’s an icon for you too.
slenk 7y ago
I am not saying its a good thing they do, but >85% of the population live in the northern hemisphere and thus experience the same seasons https://www.themarysue.com/world-population-latitude-longitude/ https://www.themarysue.com/world-population-latitude-longitu... Wikipedia notes it higher: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northern_Hemisphere https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northern_Hemisphere
- chrismorgan 7y ago
  However, a great many of those live in tropical climes which do not conform to the four-season model, c.f. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Season https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Season.

tozeur 7y ago

The OP Issue Filer _has_ to be trolling...

mikl 7y ago

> even a single person being offended is one too many This is how you make things bland, soulless and ultimately inhuman.

fyp 7y ago

A lot of us process the world using rule-based algorithms. This makes us natural programmers but sorely inadequate to handle the world. For example the rule of "if religious, then don't include in product" is usually pretty sane. But near a decision boundary, you will always get disagreement. A certain portion of programmers would've arrived at the conclusion that isReligious(santa) == False while some will be dead set that the answer must be True. Both side are confident that the other side is making a fatal mistake because they are confident in their logic skills. But the real problem is that binary logic can't handle these sort of high context fuzzy situation at all.

atonse 7y ago

Even though I'm a strong atheist who always rejects the pushing of religious values in our laws, I really enjoy the Christmas/Holiday season because it's honestly just a happy time around family (and unless you go seeking it out, you hardly see Jesus mentioned.) I don't understand the idea of being offended at what is essentially a happy time for many people where they are celebrating something that matters to THEM. Again, they're not pushing it on anyone. Maybe it's my polytheistic upbringing (grew up Hindu by name in India, with many relatives that also prayed to the infant Jesus alongside their Hindu Gods). The Santa hat is about as harmless a sign of the holidays as I can imagine (it's not like they showed a cross or something). To borrow from the Reddit phrase, this is the most boring kind of dystopia where a completely harmless sign offends people.

Ruthalas 7y ago
Forgive me if this is a poor/rude question, but I'm curious about the inclusion of infant Jesus you mentioned. Is there some significance the infant has that another aged representation would not?
- atonse 7y ago
  Sorry, I have no idea why. But Infant Jesus is really popular in South India. As a very curious kid, I used to ask my grandpa and others the same question but never got a satisfying answer.
  - DonHopkins 7y ago
    Do you have any good recipes? I LOVE Infant Jesus, I just can't eat a whole one.

jlengrand 7y ago

I just feel sad for the folks at Crosoft putting their time and love in the product and have to put up with this stuff. That's the offensive part to me, littering other people's work, down to having them close the repo.

Damorian 7y ago

"The snowflake on vscode insiders is very offensive to me, as people with delicate sensibilities are typically referred to as "snowflakes" as an insult. This is very politcal and has cost many Jews their lives, or something. Please remove it immediately and make it your top priority. To me this is almost equally offensive as a Santa hat." I'm sure if we continue to cave to these people they will eventually stop.

userbinator 7y ago

Every time I see things like this I always want to think that it's someone wanting to make a point of showing how mere feigning offense is enough to make a huge company bend over to your demands, and that there's some bigger lesson to be learned from this, but alas, that is probably not the case here...

blondin 7y ago

it's saddening and upsetting that such benign acts are blown way out of proportion by people, often with agenda, who simply are not happy or can't let other people go on with their life! it just seems that we can't agree on anything anymore. i mean that's okay, but it starts to become worrisome when we can't agree on civility, decency, or even science in some cases!

strictfp 7y ago

I'm offended by the removal of the hat! Check mate ;)

NicoJuicy 7y ago

I think they handled this complex situation as good as they could. Good job

ScottFree 7y ago

This is the part where I suggest everybody read Corporate Cancer[0]. It's all about how to run a business in this day and age of constant outrage. [0]: https://www.amazon.com/Corporate-Cancer-Miracles-Millions-Company-ebook/dp/B081D58P1X/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=corporate+cancer&qid=1576880622&sr=8-1 https://www.amazon.com/Corporate-Cancer-Miracles-Millions-Co...

lxe 7y ago
Isn't this guy extremely far-right? I wouldn't expect unbiased analysis here.
- Lammy 7y ago
  You shouldn't expect unbiased analysis from anyone, about anything. Don't look at other peoples' viewpoints as something to either wholly adopt or wholly reject; instead as datapoints to influence your own :)

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

ksec 7y ago

May be it is about time we practise the same MIT license mentality, Dont use it if you dont like it? All these what ever religions, something -ism, politics is getting ridiculous.

LandR 7y ago

Couldn't he just not use vscode? I think the response from Microsoft should have been somethjng like "it's unfortunate to are offended by this but this absolutely wasn't our intention". If you dont wish to use vscode during the holiday season then that's up to you but the vast majority of our users saw the hat as we intended and we aren't going to have one user dictate to us how we run vscode" I mean, isn't vs code essentially open source? If the guy was so offended couldn't he just remove it and build hus own inoffensive version? Presumably if he's using vscode he is a developer... It's the request to remove it as a top priority that I find strangest. The ego of someone must have to think they can dictate to everyone else what to do just to make sure they themselves get a perfectly comfortable existence. I genuinely don't get it. It must be just an exhausting way to live? Is this sort of perpetual offence/ victimhood more prevalent in IT than other industries? Is it just a by product of the sort of people out industry attracts?

notwhereyouare 7y ago
even better, he could have not used the insider edition. Apparently this was only on the insider edition

throwhBUFobmGUD 7y ago

This person is obviously a troll. His GitHub name Christian-Schiffer sounds someone who "Schiffs" on Christians. Elsewhere he has been identified as DavidBenMesecke and has a history of interesting comments.

rhacker 7y ago

Just think about this for 2 seconds: What would this all have been about if the original icon was a Menorah? Just really think about that. Or heck, how about one of the few icons used for Hinduism if you want to go for popularity.

smitty1e 7y ago

I hope that Destiny weighs in harshly on the jerks who oscillate between - virtue-signaling about how diverse they are and - demanding conformity with some impossible standard of innocuousness. The Roman alphabet and English language are bastions of intolerance and H8, after all: any one employing these instruments of oppression must be. . .oh, wait. . .

johnchristopher 7y ago

> Thank you Microsoft, I am very pleased with that decision. I understand many find this strange, therefor I would like to add an article about how offensive xmas is to many so you understand why. https://www.sefaria.org/sheets/51928?lang=bi https://www.sefaria.org/sheets/51928?lang=bi I am not sure there is that many people offended by Christmas for the reasons given in that article. I am inclined to change my mind though. Is VLC next ?

etxm 7y ago

> even a single person being offended is one too many This is absurd.

rambojazz 7y ago

What was the complaint? Why was that one person so annoyed by the Santa hat? And why do projects admins need to care about him been offended from a Santa hat?

mulmen 7y ago

This is a pretty obvious risk. What value did adding a “cute” icon to VS Code provide? There’s no upside here. Just don’t do it. The snowflake is an equally bad idea.

nojvek 7y ago
It creates delight. Celebrating the end of year and winter season
- mulmen 7y ago
  I know the date, why do I need a a UI element to remind me. It doesn’t make me mad but it doesn’t bring me joy either.
  - nojvek 7y ago
    We made a winter themed mixpanel with subtle changes and many customers have let us know how much they love it. So I guess it’s not for everyone. In the same theme of google changing their logo doodles. I really love and respect that.

Keverw 7y ago

I think this is a overreaction. Even Google has had Christmas Doodles. I see Christmas more of the commercialized thing, Santa, Trees, Snowman, Presents, Candy canes, Getting the family together... I'm not the most religious person, but Jesus isn't the first thing that comes to mind for me when thinking of Christmas but I'm sure if I grew up in a more religious household I'd probably have another view. However I do think cutting down a fresh tree is wasteful even though many people do it. There's someone I know who tells me Halloween offends him though, but I don't really understand why. Even some churches celebrate Halloween, passing out candy and stuff... Then Easter I'm sure offends people too, brainwashing children that a bunny comes around laying eggs.

duelingjello 7y ago

Holiday symbolic bikeshedding... either the trolls have won or the lack of sense of humor has won. Don't we have enough in-laws and existential threats to argue about?

wilt 7y ago

On one hand it is a bit of a non issue but on the other hand it is kinda funny watching a corporation strugle with trying to please everyone. My personal test for when it comes to offending people is if there was any malice. And if the person being offended is using being offended as a form of control.