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Pre-internet, we had an informal mediation process involving the affected parties. I think it worked pretty well because it refocused people on the code. It was

Pre-internet, we had an informal mediation process involving the affected parties. I think it worked pretty well because it refocused people on the code. It was like the US Constitution with separation of church and state. Let's focus on the law and leave our religious differences out of it. I could be wrong, but it seems now people feel obligated to make a public stance on social media or email lists. Some of it is genuine outrage, some of it is virtue signaling, etc... but the effect is that the perpetrator is backed into a corner in embarrassment at public shaming. It's difficult to come back from that. I would dread being a young person now and live in terror of saying something stupid about trans issues or do some cultural appropriation I was unconscious of and be "called out" in a public manner.

bigbillheck 5y ago
> Pre-internet, we had an informal mediation process involving the affected parties. That's not the way I remember it.
- okareaman 5y ago
  YMMV - I worked at Microsoft and then at various startups in California. Maybe West Coast culture was different from yours.
nemothekid 5y ago
>It was like the US Constitution with separation of church and state. Let's focus on the law and leave our religious differences out of it. I think the pre-internet nostalgia of a proper “informal mediation process” is about as genuine as believing the US has an actual hardline between church and state. That said, it’s funny you turn to “trans” issues as some powder keg when the article is about whether a committer should be allowed to push something along the lines that says “ni—-er get a job” to CPAN. I can’t think most professional communities would have caused a stink about that on their mailing list
- okareaman 5y ago
  > believing the US has an actual hardline between church and state. Did I say "hardline"? No, that's your word. Of course there isn't a hardline. It's an ideal that we try to maintain. It's a stated goal that we can all read in black and white. We have lawyers and constitutional scholars to mediate disputes over this stated goal. > it’s funny you turn to “trans”... “ni—-er get a job” I don't know why this is funny. Or are you saying that you are offended I even brought it up?
  - some_hacker_22 5y ago
    > It's an ideal that we try to maintain. It's a stated goal that we can all read in black and white. We have lawyers and constitutional scholars to mediate disputes over this stated goal. Well you’re not trying very hard it seems. You literally have “in god we trust” printed on your money?
- makomk 5y ago
  If I'm following all this correctly, the role of the person standing behind the committer that used the n-word in commit messages was literally to purge "toxic" elements and enforce social justice orthodoxy within the Perl Foundation, until she resigned and accused the rest of the board of not caring about the safety of the community. I would honestly be unsurprised to find she'd outright been invoking trans rights to get her way in unrelated disputes; that seems to happen a lot these days. A lot of this has nothing to do with whatever oppressed groups it's meant to be helping and everything to do with the raw exercise of power.
  - lizmat 5y ago
    FWIW, she was not standing behind this committer. This committer, by the way, has been asked to resign from the Raku Steering Council over this (which he did). This committer has also been banned for 6 months over this from any Raku community activity, specifically on the IRC channels by the Raku CAT. And she has terminated her relationship with the committer. The toxic element to be "purged" from the Perl community, has now returned and will make the Perl community more to his image . Which will only get more people to leave the Perl community. But that is no different from the past 15 years that I have had the pleasure of dealing with this toxic element.
AlbertCory 5y ago
I'm not going to address the "church and state" argument. I'll refer instead to Emerson's quote that "An Institution Is The Lengthened Shadow Of One Man [sic]." (We should say "one person.") There's a simple CoC that neatly solves all these problems, and it's small enough to put on a footer for every page of every document: "If you're an asshole, I kick you out." You're asking "how do we know what asshole-ness consists of?" The answer is that you know the leader and you trust them. If you don't, you should leave.
- luckylion 5y ago
  > The answer is that you know the leader and you trust them. If you don't, you should leave. That sounds like a recipe for a cult. People like to know what is and isn't okay, and leaving it up to someone's feeling, even if you generally trust that person, makes the whole thing very fragile.
  - okareaman 5y ago
    Ye, because then you have the Bus Factor to worry about. I think the Rust language project is a good example of how to do it right. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bus_factor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bus_factor
  - AlbertCory 5y ago
    "Very fragile" and the Bus Factor: those things ignore the Lindy Effect (as modified by Taleb). Monarchy in one form or another has lasted thousands of years. It does have the succession problem (or the Bus Factor), but requiring the monarch to designate a successor is the usual solution to that.
- okareaman 5y ago
  Interesting. I just finished "The Crown" so have been meditating on the idea of one person holding the spirit and sensibility of a nation. Then there's the idea of Benevolent Dictator for Life (BDFL) like Guido van Rossum, who quit the role and then took it back up. Here's the essay: https://archive.vcu.edu/english/engweb/transcendentalism/authors/emerson/essays/selfreliance.html https://archive.vcu.edu/english/engweb/transcendentalism/aut...
throwaway6734 5y ago
>live in terror of saying something stupid about trans issues or do some cultural appropriation I think one reasonable way of "checking" statements about trans issues is to think about how similar statements about the obese would play out.
- zozbot234 5y ago
  Sadly, most trans-related issues cannot be fixed by getting on a diet.
  - throwaway6734 5y ago
    I mean from the perspective that if you think a similar statement would make an obese person feel bad then don't make that statement about a trans person

bigbillheck 5y ago

> Pre-internet, we had an informal mediation process involving the affected parties. That's not the way I remember it.

okareaman 5y ago
YMMV - I worked at Microsoft and then at various startups in California. Maybe West Coast culture was different from yours.

nemothekid 5y ago

>It was like the US Constitution with separation of church and state. Let's focus on the law and leave our religious differences out of it. I think the pre-internet nostalgia of a proper “informal mediation process” is about as genuine as believing the US has an actual hardline between church and state. That said, it’s funny you turn to “trans” issues as some powder keg when the article is about whether a committer should be allowed to push something along the lines that says “ni—-er get a job” to CPAN. I can’t think most professional communities would have caused a stink about that on their mailing list

okareaman 5y ago
> believing the US has an actual hardline between church and state. Did I say "hardline"? No, that's your word. Of course there isn't a hardline. It's an ideal that we try to maintain. It's a stated goal that we can all read in black and white. We have lawyers and constitutional scholars to mediate disputes over this stated goal. > it’s funny you turn to “trans”... “ni—-er get a job” I don't know why this is funny. Or are you saying that you are offended I even brought it up?
- some_hacker_22 5y ago
  > It's an ideal that we try to maintain. It's a stated goal that we can all read in black and white. We have lawyers and constitutional scholars to mediate disputes over this stated goal. Well you’re not trying very hard it seems. You literally have “in god we trust” printed on your money?
makomk 5y ago
If I'm following all this correctly, the role of the person standing behind the committer that used the n-word in commit messages was literally to purge "toxic" elements and enforce social justice orthodoxy within the Perl Foundation, until she resigned and accused the rest of the board of not caring about the safety of the community. I would honestly be unsurprised to find she'd outright been invoking trans rights to get her way in unrelated disputes; that seems to happen a lot these days. A lot of this has nothing to do with whatever oppressed groups it's meant to be helping and everything to do with the raw exercise of power.
- lizmat 5y ago
  FWIW, she was not standing behind this committer. This committer, by the way, has been asked to resign from the Raku Steering Council over this (which he did). This committer has also been banned for 6 months over this from any Raku community activity, specifically on the IRC channels by the Raku CAT. And she has terminated her relationship with the committer. The toxic element to be "purged" from the Perl community, has now returned and will make the Perl community more to his image . Which will only get more people to leave the Perl community. But that is no different from the past 15 years that I have had the pleasure of dealing with this toxic element.

AlbertCory 5y ago

I'm not going to address the "church and state" argument. I'll refer instead to Emerson's quote that "An Institution Is The Lengthened Shadow Of One Man [sic]." (We should say "one person.") There's a simple CoC that neatly solves all these problems, and it's small enough to put on a footer for every page of every document: "If you're an asshole, I kick you out." You're asking "how do we know what asshole-ness consists of?" The answer is that you know the leader and you trust them. If you don't, you should leave.

luckylion 5y ago
> The answer is that you know the leader and you trust them. If you don't, you should leave. That sounds like a recipe for a cult. People like to know what is and isn't okay, and leaving it up to someone's feeling, even if you generally trust that person, makes the whole thing very fragile.
- okareaman 5y ago
  Ye, because then you have the Bus Factor to worry about. I think the Rust language project is a good example of how to do it right. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bus_factor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bus_factor
- AlbertCory 5y ago
  "Very fragile" and the Bus Factor: those things ignore the Lindy Effect (as modified by Taleb). Monarchy in one form or another has lasted thousands of years. It does have the succession problem (or the Bus Factor), but requiring the monarch to designate a successor is the usual solution to that.
okareaman 5y ago
Interesting. I just finished "The Crown" so have been meditating on the idea of one person holding the spirit and sensibility of a nation. Then there's the idea of Benevolent Dictator for Life (BDFL) like Guido van Rossum, who quit the role and then took it back up. Here's the essay: https://archive.vcu.edu/english/engweb/transcendentalism/authors/emerson/essays/selfreliance.html https://archive.vcu.edu/english/engweb/transcendentalism/aut...

throwaway6734 5y ago

>live in terror of saying something stupid about trans issues or do some cultural appropriation I think one reasonable way of "checking" statements about trans issues is to think about how similar statements about the obese would play out.

zozbot234 5y ago
Sadly, most trans-related issues cannot be fixed by getting on a diet.
- throwaway6734 5y ago
  I mean from the perspective that if you think a similar statement would make an obese person feel bad then don't make that statement about a trans person