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Ethical Code – Let's Clean Up GitHub

19 points by RossPenman 13y ago

walshemj 13y ago
Given whats been happening what github needs is a major clear-out at the top and some proper adult supervision.
- rjknight 13y ago
  What has been happening?
- nefasti 13y ago
  Only one side speaking. I would wait for both parties to speak before drawing my conclusions.
  - walshemj 13y ago
    Really I have a lot of experience in hr/ir it's a complete CF
- jaredsohn 13y ago
  This post is about open source rather than github the company. It just so happens that a lot of open source can be found on github and the site makes it easy to search across projects.
neurobro 13y ago
Somebody, give that scrollbar a sandwich.
jonnybgood 13y ago
> Okay, that’s great and all, but who decides what is right and what is wrong? > We the people. No, it's the brigade that decides. So, a GitHub Ethical Brigade who will harass repos because an individual in the brigade decided to take offense?
- sigzero 13y ago
  Doesn't the repo owner still have to accept the change? And what if the owner ignores it?
  - jonnybgood 13y ago
    It's harassment, regardless.
- BESebastian 13y ago
  Won't somebody think of the racists and homophobes!
  - opless 13y ago
    Yes, let's bully another group of people in the name of "oppressed minorities" because two lefts make a right, two wrongs must make one. Right? Right?
    - BESebastian 13y ago
      Hi there, as a member of the LGBT community I fully support this endeavour because, hey, I don't want my sexuality marginalised when all I'm trying to do is read some code on github! Please tell me more about how feeling insulted and marginalised is a good thing.
opless 13y ago
Let's not pander to the radical "politically correct" folk. "people publicly posting code with comments that could make so many people feel awful, unwanted, and excluded" Really? REALLY? Let's call this for what it really is shall we? A group of vigilantes being dicks to people who they feel are being dicks, because of something as intangible as "hurt feelings". Oh please, are they feeling privileged enough? In my day bullies left bruises and broke bones, not offended and hurt feelings. I'm offended at your offence to being offended by the word "fuck" in a comment someone else wrote. If you really want to do something, write some code. Make some art. Build something. Don't bully some other guy/girl/furry/etc into sanitising their code for the newspeak of the day. Will Wheatons law applies here - "DON'T BE A DICK"
- k1kingy 13y ago
  > I'm offended at your offence to being offended by the word "fuck" in a comment someone else wrote. I think you missed the entire point of this article. While I agree with you that it shouldn't be up to a group of people to decide what should and shouldn't be allowed, the entire idea of this campaign isn't to rid github of swearwords. What they're wanting to achieve is to clean up the blatant/pointless derogatory terms. I mean why does someone think a commit message "What kind of massive faggot tries to use gayQuery with node" is acceptable.
  - dictum 13y ago
    The problem with iniciatives like these is that they make it hard for me to know that someone is the kind of person who would write "faggot" and "gayQuery" unironically. When toxic or just obnoxious people are instructed to hide behind crisp language, you only find out about their toxicity or obnoxiousness in person.
    - opless 13y ago
      That's a very good point. +1
  - opless 13y ago
    No, I think you missed my point. We now how a set of people who think they're judge, jury and executioner on terms they don't think other people shouldn't use. Not only that, they are hiding behind the political correctness flag. Let's call it for what it is shall we? Bullying. Plain and simple.
crassus 13y ago
Ok, you win. You're holier than me. I must confess, I never thought of searching people's repos for crimethink comments and variable names. Take me to the inquisitor. I'd take it as a mark of pride to be assaulted by this group of idiots.
- BESebastian 13y ago
  Just for clarification, are you stating that you're proud to be a bigot? Because your comment kinda comes off like that.
  - opless 13y ago
    No, I think it comes off as sarcasm.
ggreer 13y ago
I personally don't care if some repos with one watcher are full of idiocy, but I think opening pull requests is the wrong way to go about this. The old advice is, "Praise in public, criticize in private." If someone doesn't understand that they're offending others, a short e-mail will probably solve the problem. Pull requests and public "discussion" will just feed trolls.
dictum 13y ago
It's good that people will use their freedom of speech to voice their dissatisfaction with what other people wrote. I just hope those who join this project don't eventually make it a them vs. us thing: "look at these disgusting dudebros who refuse to change these words!"
DanBC 13y ago
What's the book where one character is dating an artist and she decides that binary - the phalic 1 and the yonic 0 - is symbolic of the patriarchy and so she has a team re-write software to invert the digits? I think it was Neal Stephenson? Because while I am in favour of carefuy chosing your language when picking names for stuff and leaving messages I worry that this kind of thing in the wrong hands can go too far. I'm not sure what the research says about effective methods of asking people to make a change. I'm going to need something substantial to persuade me that this is a good method.
dmishe 13y ago
Imagine all of this energy directed to actually fixing bugs in popular libs, huh.
a_bonobo 13y ago
I think this is a good thing - searching for the n-word on Github reveals a lot of static swear-word lists for filters (which are OK) [1] but also lots of rather strange choices for tests (what's up with weboob's test.py?). We as a community of open source developers have to stop and think about how the outside world perceives us. There's already lots and lots of negative flak in regards to sexism about Silicon Valley and IT-culture, which doesn't help when the "normal" non-IT population already sees IT-people as a bunch of hateful nerds with absolutely zero social skills. This is a good action in that it's an open signal to change things - it might not achieve much, but it's a signal. [1] https://github.com/search?l=python&p=1&q=nigger&ref=searchresults&type=Code https://github.com/search?l=python&p=1&q=nigger&ref=searchre... link from http://tommorris.org/posts/8053 http://tommorris.org/posts/8053

19 points by RossPenman 13y ago

walshemj 13y ago

Given whats been happening what github needs is a major clear-out at the top and some proper adult supervision.

rjknight 13y ago
What has been happening?
nefasti 13y ago
Only one side speaking. I would wait for both parties to speak before drawing my conclusions.
- walshemj 13y ago
  Really I have a lot of experience in hr/ir it's a complete CF
jaredsohn 13y ago
This post is about open source rather than github the company. It just so happens that a lot of open source can be found on github and the site makes it easy to search across projects.

neurobro 13y ago

Somebody, give that scrollbar a sandwich.

jonnybgood 13y ago

> Okay, that’s great and all, but who decides what is right and what is wrong? > We the people. No, it's the brigade that decides. So, a GitHub Ethical Brigade who will harass repos because an individual in the brigade decided to take offense?

sigzero 13y ago
Doesn't the repo owner still have to accept the change? And what if the owner ignores it?
- jonnybgood 13y ago
  It's harassment, regardless.
BESebastian 13y ago
Won't somebody think of the racists and homophobes!
- opless 13y ago
  Yes, let's bully another group of people in the name of "oppressed minorities" because two lefts make a right, two wrongs must make one. Right? Right?
  - BESebastian 13y ago
    Hi there, as a member of the LGBT community I fully support this endeavour because, hey, I don't want my sexuality marginalised when all I'm trying to do is read some code on github! Please tell me more about how feeling insulted and marginalised is a good thing.

opless 13y ago

Let's not pander to the radical "politically correct" folk. "people publicly posting code with comments that could make so many people feel awful, unwanted, and excluded" Really? REALLY? Let's call this for what it really is shall we? A group of vigilantes being dicks to people who they feel are being dicks, because of something as intangible as "hurt feelings". Oh please, are they feeling privileged enough? In my day bullies left bruises and broke bones, not offended and hurt feelings. I'm offended at your offence to being offended by the word "fuck" in a comment someone else wrote. If you really want to do something, write some code. Make some art. Build something. Don't bully some other guy/girl/furry/etc into sanitising their code for the newspeak of the day. Will Wheatons law applies here - "DON'T BE A DICK"

k1kingy 13y ago
> I'm offended at your offence to being offended by the word "fuck" in a comment someone else wrote. I think you missed the entire point of this article. While I agree with you that it shouldn't be up to a group of people to decide what should and shouldn't be allowed, the entire idea of this campaign isn't to rid github of swearwords. What they're wanting to achieve is to clean up the blatant/pointless derogatory terms. I mean why does someone think a commit message "What kind of massive faggot tries to use gayQuery with node" is acceptable.
- dictum 13y ago
  The problem with iniciatives like these is that they make it hard for me to know that someone is the kind of person who would write "faggot" and "gayQuery" unironically. When toxic or just obnoxious people are instructed to hide behind crisp language, you only find out about their toxicity or obnoxiousness in person.
  - opless 13y ago
    That's a very good point. +1
- opless 13y ago
  No, I think you missed my point. We now how a set of people who think they're judge, jury and executioner on terms they don't think other people shouldn't use. Not only that, they are hiding behind the political correctness flag. Let's call it for what it is shall we? Bullying. Plain and simple.

crassus 13y ago

Ok, you win. You're holier than me. I must confess, I never thought of searching people's repos for crimethink comments and variable names. Take me to the inquisitor. I'd take it as a mark of pride to be assaulted by this group of idiots.

BESebastian 13y ago
Just for clarification, are you stating that you're proud to be a bigot? Because your comment kinda comes off like that.
- opless 13y ago
  No, I think it comes off as sarcasm.

ggreer 13y ago

I personally don't care if some repos with one watcher are full of idiocy, but I think opening pull requests is the wrong way to go about this. The old advice is, "Praise in public, criticize in private." If someone doesn't understand that they're offending others, a short e-mail will probably solve the problem. Pull requests and public "discussion" will just feed trolls.

dictum 13y ago

It's good that people will use their freedom of speech to voice their dissatisfaction with what other people wrote. I just hope those who join this project don't eventually make it a them vs. us thing: "look at these disgusting dudebros who refuse to change these words!"

DanBC 13y ago

What's the book where one character is dating an artist and she decides that binary - the phalic 1 and the yonic 0 - is symbolic of the patriarchy and so she has a team re-write software to invert the digits? I think it was Neal Stephenson? Because while I am in favour of carefuy chosing your language when picking names for stuff and leaving messages I worry that this kind of thing in the wrong hands can go too far. I'm not sure what the research says about effective methods of asking people to make a change. I'm going to need something substantial to persuade me that this is a good method.

dmishe 13y ago

Imagine all of this energy directed to actually fixing bugs in popular libs, huh.

a_bonobo 13y ago

I think this is a good thing - searching for the n-word on Github reveals a lot of static swear-word lists for filters (which are OK) [1] but also lots of rather strange choices for tests (what's up with weboob's test.py?). We as a community of open source developers have to stop and think about how the outside world perceives us. There's already lots and lots of negative flak in regards to sexism about Silicon Valley and IT-culture, which doesn't help when the "normal" non-IT population already sees IT-people as a bunch of hateful nerds with absolutely zero social skills. This is a good action in that it's an open signal to change things - it might not achieve much, but it's a signal. [1] https://github.com/search?l=python&p=1&q=nigger&ref=searchresults&type=Code https://github.com/search?l=python&p=1&q=nigger&ref=searchre... link from http://tommorris.org/posts/8053 http://tommorris.org/posts/8053