4 ms·

Overall a good post - but I'm not a fan of the constant off-hand jabs at codes of conduct from someone who got banned for "conduct issues." " But if everyone

Overall a good post - but I'm not a fan of the constant off-hand jabs at codes of conduct from someone who got banned for "conduct issues." " But if everyone got offended and quit a project over someone saying mean 30 years ago, all FOSS would have quickly died out. " The snowflakes are invading FOSS and trying to take it out! We must protect ourselves!

moron4hire 5y ago
My experience has been, for each toxic person you eliminate, there are ten decent people waiting in the wings to replace them. The toxic folks are actively harming the project by keeping people away.
- enriquto 5y ago
  can you point to a few concrete examples? (which are already public, please don't "out" anybody)
  - MBCook 5y ago
    Good people don’t wanna work with problematic people. Look at what’s going on at Basecamp. When it came out just how problematic they were and if they weren’t willing to fix things, they lost 30% of their employees. Reportedly it’s now up to 40-something percent.
    - refenestrator 5y ago
      'Problematic' is such a fantastic word. Labelling a person, in whole, as 'problematic' but we're the nice and inclusive ones.
      - zxzax 5y ago
        For one, problematic refers to a behavior, not a person. If you find your behavior is causing problems for people, you can change that behavior (I encourage all employees/owners with a commitment to problem-solving to do this). For two, when the word is used in the context of inclusivity, usually the problem is that someone is behaving in a way that's exclusionary -- it's not being nice to encourage them to continue that behavior.
        refenestrator 5y ago
        Labelling someone problematic is super exclusionary. Usually more so than the 'problematic' behavior. Take a step back and it's cliques all the way down.
        zxzax 5y ago
        That's putting the cart before the horse -- in that context you would only see it used when the person's behavior already is super exclusionary. It's specifically used to describe that exclusionary behavior that has already happened. Of course people can get it mixed up but that's the job of the people doing the community management to make sure that doesn't happen.
        refenestrator 5y ago
        The comment I responded to said "how problematic they were" -- not "they were being". And it was about a case where a funny names list had circulated, the founders said "yeah, don't do that" but then objected to holocaust references in the reaction to it. This was extremely 'problematic' -- not the references, the objection to them. So, exclusionary to whom? Some people might value not dragging the dead into a dumb debate about a funny names list. It's not unreasonable.
        zxzax 5y ago
        I didn't make that comment, I agree that comment could have been worded better. I'm assuming by the use of past tense they didn't mean to suggest that they are inherently problematic for life. Edit: I don't have any additional comments on this particular happening, I believe there was several other HN threads with more than 1000 comments where this was discussed extensively.
        refenestrator 5y ago
        But even the actual disagreement they had at Basecamp was small fry, angels on the head of a pin level stuff. Would you break out 'problematic' to describe that? How small is the circle of non problematic people?
      - ksec 5y ago
        Evil are created by those who felt themselves as so righteous. - Me
    - lostinquebec 5y ago
      That's not an example because: 1. Basecamp is not OSS, and the people involved were all employees. 2. As employees, if you worked with someone for years,"it came out just how problematic they were" is a stretch.

moron4hire 5y ago

My experience has been, for each toxic person you eliminate, there are ten decent people waiting in the wings to replace them. The toxic folks are actively harming the project by keeping people away.

enriquto 5y ago
can you point to a few concrete examples? (which are already public, please don't "out" anybody)
- MBCook 5y ago
  Good people don’t wanna work with problematic people. Look at what’s going on at Basecamp. When it came out just how problematic they were and if they weren’t willing to fix things, they lost 30% of their employees. Reportedly it’s now up to 40-something percent.
  - refenestrator 5y ago
    'Problematic' is such a fantastic word. Labelling a person, in whole, as 'problematic' but we're the nice and inclusive ones.
    - zxzax 5y ago
      For one, problematic refers to a behavior, not a person. If you find your behavior is causing problems for people, you can change that behavior (I encourage all employees/owners with a commitment to problem-solving to do this). For two, when the word is used in the context of inclusivity, usually the problem is that someone is behaving in a way that's exclusionary -- it's not being nice to encourage them to continue that behavior.
      - refenestrator 5y ago
        Labelling someone problematic is super exclusionary. Usually more so than the 'problematic' behavior. Take a step back and it's cliques all the way down.
        zxzax 5y ago
        That's putting the cart before the horse -- in that context you would only see it used when the person's behavior already is super exclusionary. It's specifically used to describe that exclusionary behavior that has already happened. Of course people can get it mixed up but that's the job of the people doing the community management to make sure that doesn't happen.
        refenestrator 5y ago
        The comment I responded to said "how problematic they were" -- not "they were being". And it was about a case where a funny names list had circulated, the founders said "yeah, don't do that" but then objected to holocaust references in the reaction to it. This was extremely 'problematic' -- not the references, the objection to them. So, exclusionary to whom? Some people might value not dragging the dead into a dumb debate about a funny names list. It's not unreasonable.
        zxzax 5y ago
        I didn't make that comment, I agree that comment could have been worded better. I'm assuming by the use of past tense they didn't mean to suggest that they are inherently problematic for life. Edit: I don't have any additional comments on this particular happening, I believe there was several other HN threads with more than 1000 comments where this was discussed extensively.
        refenestrator 5y ago
        But even the actual disagreement they had at Basecamp was small fry, angels on the head of a pin level stuff. Would you break out 'problematic' to describe that? How small is the circle of non problematic people?
    - ksec 5y ago
      Evil are created by those who felt themselves as so righteous. - Me
  - lostinquebec 5y ago
    That's not an example because: 1. Basecamp is not OSS, and the people involved were all employees. 2. As employees, if you worked with someone for years,"it came out just how problematic they were" is a stretch.