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Suspending Tim Peters for 3 months on bogus claims of misbehavior was harmful for the whole Python community. He's the guy who wrote the Zen of Python. If nothi

by MaKey 2y ago

Suspending Tim Peters for 3 months on bogus claims of misbehavior was harmful for the whole Python community. He's the guy who wrote the Zen of Python. If nothing is changed I fear that the Python community will continue to suffer. This is also another data point that confirms my dislike of Code of Conducts. At first glance they seem like a good idea, but in practice they are often used as a tool to oust people disliked by the ones with the power to enfore them. Afterwards they are used as shield from criticism.

mjburgess 2y ago
The issue isn't Tim, and I'd imagine that was his intention. The issue is what Tim's reasonable criticism (of PSF policy changes) provoked, ie., a list of accusations from the CoC group that were obscenely defamatory (grounds for a civil suit) and nakedly self-serving. A list of accusations with no references, no quotes, no examples to evidence them -- just a list of the most extreme kind of bigotry that no reasonable person would tolerate. Tim, and others, I'd say have given pitch-perfect good faith criticisms of the PSF carefully given with unfalting good-faith to perform the truth of these criticisms. Namely, he induced a group bullies in the middle of defining their own power to abuse others, to bully and abuse him. It is in these actions that we see, immediately, that his criticisms are accurate. The PSF may presently believe they can conduct themselves this way, and the powergrab will eventually be permitted and so on -- but they've severely underestimated the relevant power dynamic: which is not between the PSF and powerless former critics, but between the community and the PSF itself.
at_a_remove 2y ago
What I cannot seem to find is a comprehensive list of similar events, Code of Conduct takeovers. Otherwise, concerns can be dismissed with "Well, that was a one-off situation," whereas a long history of such things would be more convincing to those in the middle. Perhaps one could even honeypot the code to find out if the CoC types might be looking at you next. Include terms like blacklist and master and whatever else triggers them, see if you get some requests to change them, and there you go.
- mjburgess 2y ago
  I kind think we've arrived in this moment to be honest. I think it's fairly mainstream (in discursive environments) that the most recent moral panic has been hijacked by mostly WASPish elites to capture positions of power in across communities seen to have some cultural influence (hence, esp., tech). What I imagine is also now clear is: how little these people really understand about the politics they profess (eg., in this case, saying emjois are some sort of communicative violence); how little they care about the communities they've tried to hijack; and how mistaken they are about the nature of the power that exists within them. A bit like a dog chasing a car that finally bites it, I doubt any of them are very happy. Consider how many WASPish elite journalist types have flooded into various media journalism and criticism, and how repulsed their own audiences are at them, and likewise. It's pretty obvious that many critics in these areas despise their audiences, and the enviroments they are in. One imagines a similar wave of realisation is hitting these groups who've tried to take over technical organisations. In the end, these are incredibly meritocratic communities whose advancement is just "someone does something". You can't really argue with volunteers of this sort, you might as well argue with the sea. If you defame them, humiliate them, marginalise them, the people left won't be the ones who do any work. You cannot browbeat people into volunteering, only out of it. This is the asymmetry at work that these obnoxious power-chasing elites are starting to realise: their obnoxiousness and abusiveness can only alienate, it cannot include. And so, no one watches their movies, tv programs, plays their games, reads their articles, or.. volunteers for their open source projects. But we have to be very clear here: this has nothing to do with injustice. The people who are active fighting to reduce sexism, working in domestic violence shelters; fighting racism, working with police to reduce community violence; and so on -- these people are not out there on twitter posting slurs against perceived enemies. This group had found out that you could use this issues to defame people online, worm your way into positions of power, and somehow gain some status and credibility. Now they are discovering how self-destructive and pointless such a strategy has been .
  - woodruffw 2y ago
    I've seen a lot of groups unfairly tarred, but I'll be honest: you've thrown me with "Python is being ruined by WASPs."
amy-petrik-214 2y ago
Father Ted opined on the concept quite extensively. It's hard to say whether the python "leaders" responsible for this are sociopaths or well-intentioned. If well intentioned the concept is to mold the community into an image of what is good and pure and right, to clip out impurities. Totally from the line of road to hell paved with good intentions. We see how this type of thinking goes - Pol Pot, Germany in the 1940s, and so on - the lesson is that it is wrong to try to mold a person or a society so forcefully, no matter how sweet the ideal. Secondly along the lines of Father Ted, it's increased likelihood at higher levels of seniorities that these are simply sociopaths who use the veil of "good" and kudgel of white guilt to leverage as much power as possible for themselves. Knocking out a scapegoat or two helps establish their power to grant or deny the future of absolutely anyone, basically a low key reign of terror. Sad to see any organization go that way but especially sad in an organization thinking itself to be for the common good.

by MaKey 2y ago

mjburgess 2y ago

The issue isn't Tim, and I'd imagine that was his intention. The issue is what Tim's reasonable criticism (of PSF policy changes) provoked, ie., a list of accusations from the CoC group that were obscenely defamatory (grounds for a civil suit) and nakedly self-serving. A list of accusations with no references, no quotes, no examples to evidence them -- just a list of the most extreme kind of bigotry that no reasonable person would tolerate. Tim, and others, I'd say have given pitch-perfect good faith criticisms of the PSF carefully given with unfalting good-faith to perform the truth of these criticisms. Namely, he induced a group bullies in the middle of defining their own power to abuse others, to bully and abuse him. It is in these actions that we see, immediately, that his criticisms are accurate. The PSF may presently believe they can conduct themselves this way, and the powergrab will eventually be permitted and so on -- but they've severely underestimated the relevant power dynamic: which is not between the PSF and powerless former critics, but between the community and the PSF itself.

at_a_remove 2y ago

What I cannot seem to find is a comprehensive list of similar events, Code of Conduct takeovers. Otherwise, concerns can be dismissed with "Well, that was a one-off situation," whereas a long history of such things would be more convincing to those in the middle. Perhaps one could even honeypot the code to find out if the CoC types might be looking at you next. Include terms like blacklist and master and whatever else triggers them, see if you get some requests to change them, and there you go.

mjburgess 2y ago
I kind think we've arrived in this moment to be honest. I think it's fairly mainstream (in discursive environments) that the most recent moral panic has been hijacked by mostly WASPish elites to capture positions of power in across communities seen to have some cultural influence (hence, esp., tech). What I imagine is also now clear is: how little these people really understand about the politics they profess (eg., in this case, saying emjois are some sort of communicative violence); how little they care about the communities they've tried to hijack; and how mistaken they are about the nature of the power that exists within them. A bit like a dog chasing a car that finally bites it, I doubt any of them are very happy. Consider how many WASPish elite journalist types have flooded into various media journalism and criticism, and how repulsed their own audiences are at them, and likewise. It's pretty obvious that many critics in these areas despise their audiences, and the enviroments they are in. One imagines a similar wave of realisation is hitting these groups who've tried to take over technical organisations. In the end, these are incredibly meritocratic communities whose advancement is just "someone does something". You can't really argue with volunteers of this sort, you might as well argue with the sea. If you defame them, humiliate them, marginalise them, the people left won't be the ones who do any work. You cannot browbeat people into volunteering, only out of it. This is the asymmetry at work that these obnoxious power-chasing elites are starting to realise: their obnoxiousness and abusiveness can only alienate, it cannot include. And so, no one watches their movies, tv programs, plays their games, reads their articles, or.. volunteers for their open source projects. But we have to be very clear here: this has nothing to do with injustice. The people who are active fighting to reduce sexism, working in domestic violence shelters; fighting racism, working with police to reduce community violence; and so on -- these people are not out there on twitter posting slurs against perceived enemies. This group had found out that you could use this issues to defame people online, worm your way into positions of power, and somehow gain some status and credibility. Now they are discovering how self-destructive and pointless such a strategy has been .
- woodruffw 2y ago
  I've seen a lot of groups unfairly tarred, but I'll be honest: you've thrown me with "Python is being ruined by WASPs."

amy-petrik-214 2y ago

Father Ted opined on the concept quite extensively. It's hard to say whether the python "leaders" responsible for this are sociopaths or well-intentioned. If well intentioned the concept is to mold the community into an image of what is good and pure and right, to clip out impurities. Totally from the line of road to hell paved with good intentions. We see how this type of thinking goes - Pol Pot, Germany in the 1940s, and so on - the lesson is that it is wrong to try to mold a person or a society so forcefully, no matter how sweet the ideal. Secondly along the lines of Father Ted, it's increased likelihood at higher levels of seniorities that these are simply sociopaths who use the veil of "good" and kudgel of white guilt to leverage as much power as possible for themselves. Knocking out a scapegoat or two helps establish their power to grant or deny the future of absolutely anyone, basically a low key reign of terror. Sad to see any organization go that way but especially sad in an organization thinking itself to be for the common good.