6 ms·

We are all in this together

41 points by craiglockwood 13y ago

noir_lord 13y ago
I thought the idea sounded vaguely familiar then I realised where from. It's the starting point of something that could look a lot like the medieval guild system (something that I've often thought might work pretty well for programmers).
- dabrowski 13y ago
  > (something that I've often thought might work pretty well for programmers) As long as it's voluntary of course.
  - ZeroGravitas 13y ago
    I'm not a history expert, but I think non-voluntary guild might be an oxymoron, and that stopping non-guild members from practicing the craft was part of what a guild did.
    - noir_lord 13y ago
      To some extent that is true (though guilds and the various powers varied widely across Europe) which is why I said "like a guild" and not a guild. I doubt that many programmers would agree to 7 years of service under a master either ;).
  - noir_lord 13y ago
    Oh absolutely. One of the reasons why calling it a Guild rather than a Union is that Union has a lot of negative connotations in a lot of countries (here in the UK for example the Unions have a bad reputation for been difficult to work with and older people remember their role in the late 70's). Also Union has connotations of "Union Shop" which is definitely something that a lot of people regard as negative. --- I'm thinking more of an organisation that exists to protect programmers, represent our interests publicly, has internal standards and recommendations as par for the course, I doubt the old master/apprentice relationship would translate or for that matter the journeymen systems. Here in the UK we have the British Computer Society which (theoretically) does something similar but in practice I'm not really sure that they actually do (and as an aside the two people I did know who had paid to join I wouldn't have employed to sweep up). I'm not sure how well it would work out though since it strikes me as something with a high degree of cat herding built in :).
    - oneeyedpigeon 13y ago
      "here in the UK for example the Unions have a bad reputation for been difficult to work with and older people remember their role in the late 70's" Of course, that depends on your political persuasion: a lot of us have sympathy for the union workers who were brutally crushed by Thatcher's government in the 80's. Speaking as a programmer who has been a union member in a previous job, I would be supportive of a programmer's union.
      - noir_lord 13y ago
        Without rehashing the old arguments Thatcher's destruction of the Unions would have been far harder to achieve had they not ground the entire economy to a halt frequently in the late 70's, I'm neither left or right wing in my politics (as much as possible since those labels are crude and inaccurate at best) but the blame is as much the Union's as Thatcher's in this instance. I personally think that Union's on the whole are probably a good thing (something has to exist to balance the power of capital) but that the UK model was fundamentally broken (I actually like the German model.
    - freshhawk 13y ago
      ... and a Guild doesn't have negative connotations? Is this a cultural thing? Because for me (west coast of Canada, in my 30's), the only connotation that comes with the term "Guild" is a historical protectionist organization that ensures only those in the Guild are allowed to practice that craft, membership is non-voluntary. It carries a connotation of extreme corruption as well. Am I just not exposed to the modern usage of the term?
- Xophmeister 13y ago
  A coder's guild has certainly crossed my mind, in the past, rather than a union. However, to a certain extent, we already have these in non-official forms, facilitated by the web. Groups of websites (e.g., HN, r/programming and StackOverflow) have core users and, although transient and unwritten, that's effectively the same deal; just a modern, open reimplementation.
  - mattgreenrocks 13y ago
    But it's not at all the same. Discussion is chaotic and unstructured, there's very little collective action, and it's not a community, it's just a bunch of people congregating in the same place.
- malka 13y ago
  we have something similar to the guild system in France : the 'Compagnons du Tour de France'[0]. It is for artisans such as bakers, builders, etc). [0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compagnons_du_Tour_de_France http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compagnons_du_Tour_de_France
- mitchtbaum 13y ago
  This is an area where Drupal's community shines, eg (0) & (1). A number of its users and associated "shops" have worked very hard to outline, start, and work on a suite of enabling software for this idea. OP et al, if you are interested in pursuing this, I humbly suggest you reach out to those people. Drupal's roots are in __social__ software, because it has long been unique in its multi-user capabilities; thus it drew people who were apt to work together. [0] http://aaronwinborn.com/blogs/aaron/bylaws-open-drupal-guilds-version-09 http://aaronwinborn.com/blogs/aaron/bylaws-open-drupal-guild... [1] https://groups.drupal.org/guilds https://groups.drupal.org/guilds
  - noir_lord 13y ago
    I can attest to the goodwill of the Drupal community circa 2010 my employer at the time was using Drupal for everything and the community where fantastic. I'm not a big Drupal fan (as a product I find it had a lot of downsides though I've read that 7 and 8 have fixed many of those).
    - mitchtbaum 13y ago
      I agree completely. The motto is, "Come for the software, stay for the community." That perfectly sums up my experience. I no longer use the software, but I'm confident that the years of work that channeled through it can be put to good use with better tools.
Joeboy 13y ago
I think sending a card or flowers, and providing financial assistance, are two very different kettles of fish. If you want to do the former, just go ahead and do so. If they're sent personally it will mean more than if they've come from an organisation whose remit is to send cards and flowers. If you want to provide meaningful financial assistance, IMO that's a good and noble socialist goal, but involves a really large amount of work and politics. It would be great if you could make it work though.
doesnt_know 13y ago
You are quick to point out how you don't want a union, but what you are describing are pretty much the first steps to creating a union. Most are born out of the desire to provide financial and emotional support to those within your industry. That's not to say that they are always all sunshine and lollipops, but I guess it's too difficult for some people to accept that unions can actually also be a positive thing too.
- Joeboy 13y ago
  I guess the bit of a union that's not wanted is the collective bargaining bit, which probably seems unappealing or pointless while web developers are generally in demand.
  - michaelochurch 13y ago
    I guess the bit of a union that's not wanted is the collective bargaining bit, which probably seems unappealing or pointless while web developers are generally in demand. Sorry, but collective bargaining is a real need, even if wages are high. As programmers, we should have: * readily available legal support when faced with non-paying clients. * recourse against clients and employers who use reputation threats to justify nonpayment or bad behavior (i.e. "if you don't accept our unfunded scope creep, we'll call other clients.") * (for employees) representation when in trouble with management. The right to have a representative *in the room* (mostly, because if you negotiate on your own behalf, you're at risk of getting emotional and saying something stupid) when dealing with management or HR. * defense against negative references and back-channel reference checks in general. * transparency in compensation. * negotiation of terms that are embarrassing for an individual to formally address, such as severance, health accommodations and workplace privacy. These are things that "collective bargaining" can get. Hollywood actors have a union, even though they're clearly in high demand. In a celebrity economy, you need unions and agents just to deal with the reputation-management issues that quickly become a full-time job in their own right (and that are typically ill-handled by creative specialists like actors or computer programmers). As white-collar employment becomes increasingly reputation-driven, we need this infrastructure yesterday. Let's say that you find out that an ex-boss from 4 years ago is bad-mouthing you and costing you gigs. If you hire a nasty fucker like me, I can make him shut the fuck up. I'd find a plausible health problem, either one you have and don't mind sharing, or one that would work. Then I'd ask you to communicate to him that you had disclosed that health problem during your employment, his error if he forgot, and that negative communication about you or your performance will be judged discriminatory, so it's best not to say anything at all. Then I'd call that reference for you, about a month later, getting everything on tape and if he was still giving you problems, I'd refer you to a lawyer (but, unlike a union, I can't afford to pay for that). Chances are, you wouldn't know how to handle that. Most people don't. A competent union will.
chrisdevereux 13y ago
OT, but I'm now concerned that David Cameron might have stolen his 2010 election slogan ("We're all in this together") from High School Musical.
- Joeboy 13y ago
  More likely from the film "Brazil". Where interestingly it is used both by the dystopian government and by Robert de Niro's renegade heating engineer.
  - cema 13y ago
    But de Niro's character is using it mockingly. Which, I think, is the proper usage of slogans in general.
EnderMB 13y ago
I'm kinda ashamed to admit that I don't really know a lot about what a union does for its workers, since outside of the odd retail job when I was a teenager I've always worked as a developer, and I've never known anyone in an agency or startup setting that has been a part of a union. In some professions and industries, everyone is in a union without question. Why does there seem to be no such thing as a Software Developers union in the UK, and why are so many people against having a union for those that work on the web?
- craiglockwood 13y ago
  I think people may be a little worried that a union may be the first step towards regulating an industry.
  - ryandvm 13y ago
    I think the bigger issue is that many see unions as institutionalized mediocrity. I've been in union factories where guys literally sleep at their machines after they've hit their quota. I've watched inferior employees linger at jobs for years simply because making a case for firing them is more trouble than it's worth. People in our industry tend to be self-reliant autodidacts. I suspect this is because the information technology landscape changes so rapidly that the traits are required to be successful. A lot of us therefore appreciate the meritocracy of tech. We like the fact that better skills mean higher pay, regardless of seniority. The last thing we want is to have "tenured" engineers that don't contribute and can't be fired.
    - arethuza 13y ago
      Maybe it's because I'm from the UK but when I think of unions and industry I think of two things: - How bad the situation was with the unions in the UK in the 1970s - How good the situation is in Germany where unions there have a lot of power and seem to use it constructively e.g. I just found this Forbes article: "How Germany Builds Twice As Many Cars As The U.S. While Paying Its Workers Twice As Much": http://www.forbes.com/sites/frederickallen/2011/12/21/germany-builds-twice-as-many-cars-as-the-u-s-while-paying-its-auto-workers-twice-as-much/ http://www.forbes.com/sites/frederickallen/2011/12/21/german...
mitchtbaum 13y ago
What comes to mind for me of a community that helps its fellow members is a Church, Synagogue, Temple, Mosque, Ashram, Wat, etc. These styles of community have purposefully enabled collaboration for thousands of years, EDIT: and lifted their members up along the way. I think what they have in common is that their members share a common vision for the future of Humanity, trust each other to help fulfill it, and regularly meet face to face. A possible vision that could unite web workers today is Engelbart's revelation of the need for tools to solve complex problems.
- mattgreenrocks 13y ago
  These often serve as 'third places' and are a valuable tool for socialization that Western society has nixed in favor of cheap substitutes like Facebook and Reddit. It's not a community unless there's also accountability; which entails clear standards of behavior and being held to them. In a professional context, this would be a minimum bar of skills, along with resources for continuing your training.
bigpool 13y ago
I saw this a while ago, it sounds like what you're talking about. It is for Bike Messengers who are injured on the job. http://www.bicyclemessenger.org/ http://www.bicyclemessenger.org/
mccolin 13y ago
Union groups for freelancers and independent workers do exist, with a focus on providing things like insurance coverage and other benefits many indies forgo or have to overpay for at group rates. Freelancers' Union is a good example: https://www.freelancersunion.org/ https://www.freelancersunion.org/
alexarno 13y ago
For anyone working in the creative industries in the UK there is http://nabs.org.uk/ http://nabs.org.uk/ They offer exactly this kind of support. From grants, to advice and help, they are a body supported mostly by the big agencies AFAIK that has been around for over 100 years. They even run a nursing home for retired media workers!
chrisjlee84 13y ago
Looks down now. Google cache link here: http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http://www.craiglockwood.co.uk/blog/we-are-all-in-this-together http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http://...
amy_dev 13y ago
What about something like this http://www.patreon.com/ http://www.patreon.com/ except with the focus you describe in your blog post?
kostandin 13y ago
I'm struggling with the same problems for couple of years now. And not a few people around me have the same problem. That's why I started a project called Togetherise (http://www.togetherise.com http://www.togetherise.com) couple of months ago. The main idea is to bring people together when fulfilling some work/idea/project or just to help each other. Portal will offer both knowledge and tools. It is in a development phase right now. I believe it will fill the gap we're all talking about. It is not meant to be used only by developers or designer. It targets all project and people that need help or can offer help through mentoring or coaching. A good team of professionals is already behind this project, so I hope we'll enter beta phase by the end of spring.

41 points by craiglockwood 13y ago

I thought the idea sounded vaguely familiar then I realised where from. It's the starting point of something that could look a lot like the medieval guild system (something that I've often thought might work pretty well for programmers).

dabrowski 13y ago
> (something that I've often thought might work pretty well for programmers) As long as it's voluntary of course.
- ZeroGravitas 13y ago
  I'm not a history expert, but I think non-voluntary guild might be an oxymoron, and that stopping non-guild members from practicing the craft was part of what a guild did.
  - noir_lord 13y ago
    To some extent that is true (though guilds and the various powers varied widely across Europe) which is why I said "like a guild" and not a guild. I doubt that many programmers would agree to 7 years of service under a master either ;).
- noir_lord 13y ago
  Oh absolutely. One of the reasons why calling it a Guild rather than a Union is that Union has a lot of negative connotations in a lot of countries (here in the UK for example the Unions have a bad reputation for been difficult to work with and older people remember their role in the late 70's). Also Union has connotations of "Union Shop" which is definitely something that a lot of people regard as negative. --- I'm thinking more of an organisation that exists to protect programmers, represent our interests publicly, has internal standards and recommendations as par for the course, I doubt the old master/apprentice relationship would translate or for that matter the journeymen systems. Here in the UK we have the British Computer Society which (theoretically) does something similar but in practice I'm not really sure that they actually do (and as an aside the two people I did know who had paid to join I wouldn't have employed to sweep up). I'm not sure how well it would work out though since it strikes me as something with a high degree of cat herding built in :).
  - oneeyedpigeon 13y ago
    "here in the UK for example the Unions have a bad reputation for been difficult to work with and older people remember their role in the late 70's" Of course, that depends on your political persuasion: a lot of us have sympathy for the union workers who were brutally crushed by Thatcher's government in the 80's. Speaking as a programmer who has been a union member in a previous job, I would be supportive of a programmer's union.
    - noir_lord 13y ago
      Without rehashing the old arguments Thatcher's destruction of the Unions would have been far harder to achieve had they not ground the entire economy to a halt frequently in the late 70's, I'm neither left or right wing in my politics (as much as possible since those labels are crude and inaccurate at best) but the blame is as much the Union's as Thatcher's in this instance. I personally think that Union's on the whole are probably a good thing (something has to exist to balance the power of capital) but that the UK model was fundamentally broken (I actually like the German model.
  - freshhawk 13y ago
    ... and a Guild doesn't have negative connotations? Is this a cultural thing? Because for me (west coast of Canada, in my 30's), the only connotation that comes with the term "Guild" is a historical protectionist organization that ensures only those in the Guild are allowed to practice that craft, membership is non-voluntary. It carries a connotation of extreme corruption as well. Am I just not exposed to the modern usage of the term?
Xophmeister 13y ago
A coder's guild has certainly crossed my mind, in the past, rather than a union. However, to a certain extent, we already have these in non-official forms, facilitated by the web. Groups of websites (e.g., HN, r/programming and StackOverflow) have core users and, although transient and unwritten, that's effectively the same deal; just a modern, open reimplementation.
- mattgreenrocks 13y ago
  But it's not at all the same. Discussion is chaotic and unstructured, there's very little collective action, and it's not a community, it's just a bunch of people congregating in the same place.
malka 13y ago
we have something similar to the guild system in France : the 'Compagnons du Tour de France'[0]. It is for artisans such as bakers, builders, etc). [0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compagnons_du_Tour_de_France http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compagnons_du_Tour_de_France
mitchtbaum 13y ago
This is an area where Drupal's community shines, eg (0) & (1). A number of its users and associated "shops" have worked very hard to outline, start, and work on a suite of enabling software for this idea. OP et al, if you are interested in pursuing this, I humbly suggest you reach out to those people. Drupal's roots are in __social__ software, because it has long been unique in its multi-user capabilities; thus it drew people who were apt to work together. [0] http://aaronwinborn.com/blogs/aaron/bylaws-open-drupal-guilds-version-09 http://aaronwinborn.com/blogs/aaron/bylaws-open-drupal-guild... [1] https://groups.drupal.org/guilds https://groups.drupal.org/guilds
- noir_lord 13y ago
  I can attest to the goodwill of the Drupal community circa 2010 my employer at the time was using Drupal for everything and the community where fantastic. I'm not a big Drupal fan (as a product I find it had a lot of downsides though I've read that 7 and 8 have fixed many of those).
  - mitchtbaum 13y ago
    I agree completely. The motto is, "Come for the software, stay for the community." That perfectly sums up my experience. I no longer use the software, but I'm confident that the years of work that channeled through it can be put to good use with better tools.

Joeboy 13y ago

I think sending a card or flowers, and providing financial assistance, are two very different kettles of fish. If you want to do the former, just go ahead and do so. If they're sent personally it will mean more than if they've come from an organisation whose remit is to send cards and flowers. If you want to provide meaningful financial assistance, IMO that's a good and noble socialist goal, but involves a really large amount of work and politics. It would be great if you could make it work though.

doesnt_know 13y ago

You are quick to point out how you don't want a union, but what you are describing are pretty much the first steps to creating a union. Most are born out of the desire to provide financial and emotional support to those within your industry. That's not to say that they are always all sunshine and lollipops, but I guess it's too difficult for some people to accept that unions can actually also be a positive thing too.

Joeboy 13y ago
I guess the bit of a union that's not wanted is the collective bargaining bit, which probably seems unappealing or pointless while web developers are generally in demand.
- michaelochurch 13y ago
  I guess the bit of a union that's not wanted is the collective bargaining bit, which probably seems unappealing or pointless while web developers are generally in demand. Sorry, but collective bargaining is a real need, even if wages are high. As programmers, we should have: * readily available legal support when faced with non-paying clients. * recourse against clients and employers who use reputation threats to justify nonpayment or bad behavior (i.e. "if you don't accept our unfunded scope creep, we'll call other clients.") * (for employees) representation when in trouble with management. The right to have a representative *in the room* (mostly, because if you negotiate on your own behalf, you're at risk of getting emotional and saying something stupid) when dealing with management or HR. * defense against negative references and back-channel reference checks in general. * transparency in compensation. * negotiation of terms that are embarrassing for an individual to formally address, such as severance, health accommodations and workplace privacy. These are things that "collective bargaining" can get. Hollywood actors have a union, even though they're clearly in high demand. In a celebrity economy, you need unions and agents just to deal with the reputation-management issues that quickly become a full-time job in their own right (and that are typically ill-handled by creative specialists like actors or computer programmers). As white-collar employment becomes increasingly reputation-driven, we need this infrastructure yesterday. Let's say that you find out that an ex-boss from 4 years ago is bad-mouthing you and costing you gigs. If you hire a nasty fucker like me, I can make him shut the fuck up. I'd find a plausible health problem, either one you have and don't mind sharing, or one that would work. Then I'd ask you to communicate to him that you had disclosed that health problem during your employment, his error if he forgot, and that negative communication about you or your performance will be judged discriminatory, so it's best not to say anything at all. Then I'd call that reference for you, about a month later, getting everything on tape and if he was still giving you problems, I'd refer you to a lawyer (but, unlike a union, I can't afford to pay for that). Chances are, you wouldn't know how to handle that. Most people don't. A competent union will.

chrisdevereux 13y ago

OT, but I'm now concerned that David Cameron might have stolen his 2010 election slogan ("We're all in this together") from High School Musical.

Joeboy 13y ago
More likely from the film "Brazil". Where interestingly it is used both by the dystopian government and by Robert de Niro's renegade heating engineer.
- cema 13y ago
  But de Niro's character is using it mockingly. Which, I think, is the proper usage of slogans in general.

EnderMB 13y ago

I'm kinda ashamed to admit that I don't really know a lot about what a union does for its workers, since outside of the odd retail job when I was a teenager I've always worked as a developer, and I've never known anyone in an agency or startup setting that has been a part of a union. In some professions and industries, everyone is in a union without question. Why does there seem to be no such thing as a Software Developers union in the UK, and why are so many people against having a union for those that work on the web?

craiglockwood 13y ago
I think people may be a little worried that a union may be the first step towards regulating an industry.
- ryandvm 13y ago
  I think the bigger issue is that many see unions as institutionalized mediocrity. I've been in union factories where guys literally sleep at their machines after they've hit their quota. I've watched inferior employees linger at jobs for years simply because making a case for firing them is more trouble than it's worth. People in our industry tend to be self-reliant autodidacts. I suspect this is because the information technology landscape changes so rapidly that the traits are required to be successful. A lot of us therefore appreciate the meritocracy of tech. We like the fact that better skills mean higher pay, regardless of seniority. The last thing we want is to have "tenured" engineers that don't contribute and can't be fired.
  - arethuza 13y ago
    Maybe it's because I'm from the UK but when I think of unions and industry I think of two things: - How bad the situation was with the unions in the UK in the 1970s - How good the situation is in Germany where unions there have a lot of power and seem to use it constructively e.g. I just found this Forbes article: "How Germany Builds Twice As Many Cars As The U.S. While Paying Its Workers Twice As Much": http://www.forbes.com/sites/frederickallen/2011/12/21/germany-builds-twice-as-many-cars-as-the-u-s-while-paying-its-auto-workers-twice-as-much/ http://www.forbes.com/sites/frederickallen/2011/12/21/german...

mitchtbaum 13y ago

What comes to mind for me of a community that helps its fellow members is a Church, Synagogue, Temple, Mosque, Ashram, Wat, etc. These styles of community have purposefully enabled collaboration for thousands of years, EDIT: and lifted their members up along the way. I think what they have in common is that their members share a common vision for the future of Humanity, trust each other to help fulfill it, and regularly meet face to face. A possible vision that could unite web workers today is Engelbart's revelation of the need for tools to solve complex problems.

mattgreenrocks 13y ago
These often serve as 'third places' and are a valuable tool for socialization that Western society has nixed in favor of cheap substitutes like Facebook and Reddit. It's not a community unless there's also accountability; which entails clear standards of behavior and being held to them. In a professional context, this would be a minimum bar of skills, along with resources for continuing your training.

bigpool 13y ago

I saw this a while ago, it sounds like what you're talking about. It is for Bike Messengers who are injured on the job. http://www.bicyclemessenger.org/ http://www.bicyclemessenger.org/

mccolin 13y ago

Union groups for freelancers and independent workers do exist, with a focus on providing things like insurance coverage and other benefits many indies forgo or have to overpay for at group rates. Freelancers' Union is a good example: https://www.freelancersunion.org/ https://www.freelancersunion.org/

alexarno 13y ago

For anyone working in the creative industries in the UK there is http://nabs.org.uk/ http://nabs.org.uk/ They offer exactly this kind of support. From grants, to advice and help, they are a body supported mostly by the big agencies AFAIK that has been around for over 100 years. They even run a nursing home for retired media workers!

chrisjlee84 13y ago

Looks down now. Google cache link here: http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http://www.craiglockwood.co.uk/blog/we-are-all-in-this-together http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http://...

amy_dev 13y ago

What about something like this http://www.patreon.com/ http://www.patreon.com/ except with the focus you describe in your blog post?

kostandin 13y ago

I'm struggling with the same problems for couple of years now. And not a few people around me have the same problem. That's why I started a project called Togetherise (http://www.togetherise.com http://www.togetherise.com) couple of months ago. The main idea is to bring people together when fulfilling some work/idea/project or just to help each other. Portal will offer both knowledge and tools. It is in a development phase right now. I believe it will fill the gap we're all talking about. It is not meant to be used only by developers or designer. It targets all project and people that need help or can offer help through mentoring or coaching. A good team of professionals is already behind this project, so I hope we'll enter beta phase by the end of spring.