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Yeah fwiw I am strongly opposed to the proposal, and Russ Cox acknowledged that they considered many of the posts against telemetry or for opt in only as valid

Yeah fwiw I am strongly opposed to the proposal, and Russ Cox acknowledged that they considered many of the posts against telemetry or for opt in only as valid discussion, and gave examples of some of the inappropriate comments they referred to as being in "bad faith". I appreciated his clarity there in answering about what he considered bad faith posts. There were definitely comments that got quite heated and probably fell outside good discourse practices, largely because people are very passionate about privacy and also tend to get very upset when they feel betrayed.

lqrtr 4y ago
If a ruling class or inner circle has already decided on a course of action, you rarely change anything with good discourse practices. CoCs are always protecting the inner circle and their opinions. In the early days of open source, flame wars were considered a legitimate way for voicing opinions. Now, in corporate controlled "open" source, the dominance hierarchy must be protected.
- gtirloni 4y ago
  > If a ruling class or inner circle has already decided on a course of action, you rarely change anything with good discourse practices. Quite true. Especially in the worksplace where RFC/design meetings are only done to validate what has already been decided. > CoCs are always protecting the inner circle and their opinions CoC are 99% not doing that. Of course people can abuse it but I don't see it in practice most of the time. It's just that the abuse/drama gets more attention. > In the early days of open source, flame wars were considered a legitimate way for voicing opinions Flame wars have always been discouraged. As soon as one starts, mods usually step in and shut it down. > Now, in corporate controlled "open" source, the dominance hierarchy must be protected. Yes, very few corporate-backed open source projects are truly open to collaboration, especially when it changes the feature set. If you want to submit bug reports, help users or a PR for a tiny bug, that's all good. In their defense, the employees of those companies do the most work so they get to decide. But they do benefit enormously from having the code open (something they very often forget).
- acdha 4y ago
  None of that is true in the absolute terms you used. Flame wars also drove away potential contributors and even if you weren’t personally involved they could sap your desire to participate or set negative reputations for an entire community. Similarly, codes of conduct are set by many groups as a way to be welcoming, letting prospective participants know that they’re not going to get flamed or hit on for trying to participate. Yes, some corporations might use moderation for ulterior reasons but that happens anyway – it’s like arguing that we shouldn’t have cars because people will use them to commit crime.
- bitwize 4y ago
  Every Hundred Flowers Campaign is followed by an Anti-Rightist Campaign. Chairman Mao instituted the Hundred Flowers Campaign purportedly as a way to solicit community participation in building China's new communist society. The CCP assured everybody, hey, we're totally open to criticism, feel free to be open and honest, we could use your ideas for how to improve. The reality was made clear in the Anti-Rightist Campaign, in which critics of Mao's plan or regime were put on a list of those to be arrested as "rightists" and imprisoned or killed.
arp242 4y ago
> There were definitely comments that got quite heated and probably fell outside good discourse practices, largely because people are very passionate about privacy and also tend to get very upset when they feel betrayed. We're supposed to be adults, not 13 year olds. I'm not perfect either and a jerk at times – most people are – and that's okay, but I'm not making excuses for it. Have some standards. Most of the hidden comments were hugely disrespectful and provided no argument or anything of value. If you start comparing opt-out telemetry to rape then you're simply a jerk (yes, really: https://i.imgur.com/eLVs9ev.png https://i.imgur.com/eLVs9ev.png) I don't care about "yeah but people have strong feelings". I'm tired of excuses for jerkery; I find this enabling of it even more egregious than the jerkery itself. I have strong feelings about a lot of things, but I also manage to keep them in check most of the time on account of being an adult with some standards. Nowhere is this as easy as in online discussions, because you can literally step away from the computer at any time and come back to it an hour or day later.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- jeroenhd 4y ago
  Personally, I found the link between sexual assault and tracking to be expected: they're the two scenarios in which consent even gets mentioned or discussed in daily life. When it comes to sex, it's critical and mentioned all the time in media and internet posts; in tracking, it's in the forms of "I consent" buttons on every other badly designed web page. In how many other places will you find a consent form? Medical procedures, perhaps? Obviously, Google's data hunger is worlds less harmful than sexual assault, but I think the difference in how consent is treated is actually relevant for the discussion. When it comes to sex, it has taken many decades (or even centuries) of hard work, but at this point society is finally starting to get the message across: you don't have consent if it's not given explicitly. Society is still in the process of getting everyone on the same page here (sadly) but progress is being made. While compiler data collection isn't as important, the idea that consent means "you haven't tried saying no enough" is completely absurd. This means is no good comparison for consent because every comparison where a normal person deals with consent will make the suggestion opt-out seem horrible. Most actions happening to a person without consent are or should be illegal, with perhaps lawful arrests and the judicial system being the exception. If we, as a society, really do value explicit consent, we shouldn't mix and match what is and isn't consent based on what serves us. Consent is important in software too, even if some companies or developers don't see it that way. Google devs especially should know this. People I know have felt a real sense of violation when they found out how intensely Google tracks its users. I've seen people get creeped and grossed out by their phones because they were asked to review a restaurant they were near, realising that Google knew exactly where they were and how long, and that the tracking had gone on for much longer before that. I, myself, felt a little violated when I found out how much data Microsoft's dotnet tool has been sending out after getting "consent" during an automated install and first use, despite knowing the data can't track me down as a person. The impact may be incomparable, but developers seem to severely underestimate the emotional impact their blatant disregard for other people's privacy can really have just because they don't feel the same way. Perhaps another way the comparison is more apt than it would seem at first glance.

lqrtr 4y ago

If a ruling class or inner circle has already decided on a course of action, you rarely change anything with good discourse practices. CoCs are always protecting the inner circle and their opinions. In the early days of open source, flame wars were considered a legitimate way for voicing opinions. Now, in corporate controlled "open" source, the dominance hierarchy must be protected.

gtirloni 4y ago
> If a ruling class or inner circle has already decided on a course of action, you rarely change anything with good discourse practices. Quite true. Especially in the worksplace where RFC/design meetings are only done to validate what has already been decided. > CoCs are always protecting the inner circle and their opinions CoC are 99% not doing that. Of course people can abuse it but I don't see it in practice most of the time. It's just that the abuse/drama gets more attention. > In the early days of open source, flame wars were considered a legitimate way for voicing opinions Flame wars have always been discouraged. As soon as one starts, mods usually step in and shut it down. > Now, in corporate controlled "open" source, the dominance hierarchy must be protected. Yes, very few corporate-backed open source projects are truly open to collaboration, especially when it changes the feature set. If you want to submit bug reports, help users or a PR for a tiny bug, that's all good. In their defense, the employees of those companies do the most work so they get to decide. But they do benefit enormously from having the code open (something they very often forget).
acdha 4y ago
None of that is true in the absolute terms you used. Flame wars also drove away potential contributors and even if you weren’t personally involved they could sap your desire to participate or set negative reputations for an entire community. Similarly, codes of conduct are set by many groups as a way to be welcoming, letting prospective participants know that they’re not going to get flamed or hit on for trying to participate. Yes, some corporations might use moderation for ulterior reasons but that happens anyway – it’s like arguing that we shouldn’t have cars because people will use them to commit crime.
bitwize 4y ago
Every Hundred Flowers Campaign is followed by an Anti-Rightist Campaign. Chairman Mao instituted the Hundred Flowers Campaign purportedly as a way to solicit community participation in building China's new communist society. The CCP assured everybody, hey, we're totally open to criticism, feel free to be open and honest, we could use your ideas for how to improve. The reality was made clear in the Anti-Rightist Campaign, in which critics of Mao's plan or regime were put on a list of those to be arrested as "rightists" and imprisoned or killed.

arp242 4y ago

> There were definitely comments that got quite heated and probably fell outside good discourse practices, largely because people are very passionate about privacy and also tend to get very upset when they feel betrayed. We're supposed to be adults, not 13 year olds. I'm not perfect either and a jerk at times – most people are – and that's okay, but I'm not making excuses for it. Have some standards. Most of the hidden comments were hugely disrespectful and provided no argument or anything of value. If you start comparing opt-out telemetry to rape then you're simply a jerk (yes, really: https://i.imgur.com/eLVs9ev.png https://i.imgur.com/eLVs9ev.png) I don't care about "yeah but people have strong feelings". I'm tired of excuses for jerkery; I find this enabling of it even more egregious than the jerkery itself. I have strong feelings about a lot of things, but I also manage to keep them in check most of the time on account of being an adult with some standards. Nowhere is this as easy as in online discussions, because you can literally step away from the computer at any time and come back to it an hour or day later.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
jeroenhd 4y ago
Personally, I found the link between sexual assault and tracking to be expected: they're the two scenarios in which consent even gets mentioned or discussed in daily life. When it comes to sex, it's critical and mentioned all the time in media and internet posts; in tracking, it's in the forms of "I consent" buttons on every other badly designed web page. In how many other places will you find a consent form? Medical procedures, perhaps? Obviously, Google's data hunger is worlds less harmful than sexual assault, but I think the difference in how consent is treated is actually relevant for the discussion. When it comes to sex, it has taken many decades (or even centuries) of hard work, but at this point society is finally starting to get the message across: you don't have consent if it's not given explicitly. Society is still in the process of getting everyone on the same page here (sadly) but progress is being made. While compiler data collection isn't as important, the idea that consent means "you haven't tried saying no enough" is completely absurd. This means is no good comparison for consent because every comparison where a normal person deals with consent will make the suggestion opt-out seem horrible. Most actions happening to a person without consent are or should be illegal, with perhaps lawful arrests and the judicial system being the exception. If we, as a society, really do value explicit consent, we shouldn't mix and match what is and isn't consent based on what serves us. Consent is important in software too, even if some companies or developers don't see it that way. Google devs especially should know this. People I know have felt a real sense of violation when they found out how intensely Google tracks its users. I've seen people get creeped and grossed out by their phones because they were asked to review a restaurant they were near, realising that Google knew exactly where they were and how long, and that the tracking had gone on for much longer before that. I, myself, felt a little violated when I found out how much data Microsoft's dotnet tool has been sending out after getting "consent" during an automated install and first use, despite knowing the data can't track me down as a person. The impact may be incomparable, but developers seem to severely underestimate the emotional impact their blatant disregard for other people's privacy can really have just because they don't feel the same way. Perhaps another way the comparison is more apt than it would seem at first glance.