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I'm super late to this thread and not that anyone cares what my opinion is, but why are so many folks against this new policy and are quitting Basecamp (as empl

by nickjj 6y ago

I'm super late to this thread and not that anyone cares what my opinion is, but why are so many folks against this new policy and are quitting Basecamp (as employees) over this? From the looks of it you can still openly talk about whatever you want on your personal Twitter and other social media accounts. It seems reasonable IMO to not talk country politics at work on a work account with other employees, especially on a medium where it's posted online, persisted and mixed in with other work related things as opposed to a private casual conversation in the parking lot or in a break room with no one else there. I didn't look into this beyond Jason and DHH's blog posts but I saw Sam Stephenson quit Basecamp[0] a few hours ago over this change. He mentioned working there for 15 years and it's his life work. I don't get it, why would someone quit over this alone? [0]: https://twitter.com/sstephenson/status/1388146129284603906 https://twitter.com/sstephenson/status/1388146129284603906

nemothekid 6y ago
"No politics at work" to me is a crazy rule. It will almost always boil down to "Don't discuss what makes management unhappy". There are no clear rules at all. For example - let's say I don't like how Amazon treats open source and I say we should use more AGPL. Is that political? I would think so - copyright law and the DMCA have been political issues for years for many creators. Obviously I would think most people on this forum wouldn't consider AGPL vs MIT "political" even though the very subject of the matter is how the government should respect copyright law. So for most, AGPL vs MIT would fly under the political radar. What is really being said is "don't discuss the issues pertaining to minorities" and how people don't view that as insane is worrisome. There was an uproar last year about how Zoom would shutdown your stream if you talked about uyghur muslims. Can you imagine how different the reaction to this news would be if DHH implemented a no politics rule after some employees were discussing uyghur muslims?

by nickjj 6y ago

nemothekid 6y ago

"No politics at work" to me is a crazy rule. It will almost always boil down to "Don't discuss what makes management unhappy". There are no clear rules at all. For example - let's say I don't like how Amazon treats open source and I say we should use more AGPL. Is that political? I would think so - copyright law and the DMCA have been political issues for years for many creators. Obviously I would think most people on this forum wouldn't consider AGPL vs MIT "political" even though the very subject of the matter is how the government should respect copyright law. So for most, AGPL vs MIT would fly under the political radar. What is really being said is "don't discuss the issues pertaining to minorities" and how people don't view that as insane is worrisome. There was an uproar last year about how Zoom would shutdown your stream if you talked about uyghur muslims. Can you imagine how different the reaction to this news would be if DHH implemented a no politics rule after some employees were discussing uyghur muslims?