I am also a bit dismayed to see how he falls into the whole trap of how on the internet nobody cares who you are and only your code matters, while simultaneously being blind to the fact that this attitude seems to have resulted in DConf being almost all a bunch of dudes:
Your biases are there, and you are unintentionally encouraging only certain kind of people to participate, and when you say you don’t care about anything about code you are making statements that scare certain kinds of contributors away, despite your best intentions.
Yeah, he is missing out on some potential contributors. So, maybe a Code of Merit with some be civil clauses on top of it. Then, promotional activities geared towards getting minority members into the project based on what worked in the past. That maximizes focus on code, minimizes the ability for political groups to obtain leverage, and aims to be inclusive. How about that?
Suggestions for what? How to fight your biases? Just be aware that you have them. Everyone does. Denying your biases is like saying you don’t speak with an accent or you don’t have any politics. Or that you don’t have any opinions, which like assholes, everyone has.
Trying to come up with a code of merit that says people should not express their identity is more or less the same thing as saying that only the identity of the ones who framed the code of merit matters. It seems well-intentioned but it just results in reinforcing the biased status quo.
It’s more like a project was created for the purposes of code by a number of people, a person shows up demanding it focus on specific people enforcing specific politics of small part of nation, and someone responds in an apolitical way. The Code of Merit was specifically designed to block what you were doing. I back them since people pushing politics into FOSS projects or forum discussions are rarely honest about what their policies would achieve. I’ll give you credit personally for being clear instead of sneaky on your views in these discussions, though.
Far as All Lives Matter, the BLM slogan was one of the dumbest things I’ve ever seen happen from a marketing perspective. When creating a campaign message, you tie the ideas and language to the target audience you’re trying to convert. The target audience were presumably white people who saw media with a mix of people leaning toward white. They also didn’t spend all day thinking about specific areas with cops shooting black people. A quick message from black people in their feed of mostly white people specifically saying “Black Lives Matter” will be hastily interpreted as “only black lives matter.” I mean, it’s black people saying ignore everything but black people for a moment despite other minority races, esp natives, having big problems. The reaction I saw coming a mile away was for them to dismiss it saying, “All lives matter! Stop thinking only of yourselves.” And you just did it again personally by assuming I’d agree with your mockery of white reaction instead of being an activist thinking it was a failed campaign by design that wasted countless peoples’ worth of potential to actually improve the situation. Hey, at least all those shouting felt important and got spotlight for a while. I guess that’s better, eh?
Interestingly, the black folks supporting that missed a perfect opportunity to attempt to team up with right-leaning whites. The gun nuts especially are highly concerned about “police militarization” where they’re ignoring civil rights, loading up on military hardware, civil forfeiture, and doing stuff like Waco. A multi-race campaign showing police stormtrooping on everyone from whites to blacks with a focus on decent people, not thugs, being victimized might have gotten something done. Especially if it came with mandates ending civil forfeiture, having body cams, and police standards from better outfits not doing so much damage. It would have both left and right supporting it. That’s the kind of thing I promote with lots of agreement in-person from every kind of person except occasional authoritarian right-wingers.
Instead, they wanted a black thing focused only on black people with all non-black people just getting in line behind them saying or signing whatever they demanded. A power play. Yeah, that doesn’t ever work no matter what the group or political idea is. Should’ve tried a message tied to the audience instead of mocking them. There was one person that did heavily tie his message and campaigns to those people’s concerns instead of mocking or subordinating them. He’s President now. (sighs)
Most projects are about writing software. The goal of those projects, along with articles about them, is to get people using the software, improving the software, etc. They’re mainly focused on getting the code, it working, and using it.
Some groups goals are to advance specific forms of politics, get it mandated in every project/forum, pull in more like them, and push out those that aren’t via moderation. These can include the core contributors of a project which dies without them. Political compliance > useful code that works.
This thread is example of No 2: a post about creating a language gets a first comment talking about number of white people involved. Comment calls for political/cultural changes in project. The resulting discussion had 7 out of 7 comments not about goal of the post. Just political maneuvering.
Those focusing on software creation and maintenance over politics often want to block that. The Code of Merit is specifically designed for that. If D adopted it, only D-related comments would be allowed. Those wanting more minority members could teach them D, help them write useful apps in it, write libraries, improve compiler, and so on. Their respect and status goes up with their D-related contributions. Everything else outside the scope of the project is blocked.
That’s the theory anyway. My version modifies it where I disagree a bit. ;)
The most exciting thing I learned about this post is that Walter is a wargamer:
http://classicempire.com/
I am also a bit dismayed to see how he falls into the whole trap of how on the internet nobody cares who you are and only your code matters, while simultaneously being blind to the fact that this attitude seems to have resulted in DConf being almost all a bunch of dudes:
https://cdn-az.allevents.in/banners/ccc4c15561ade2964b0206b8ab4ad707-rimg-w2048-h1516-gmir.jpg
Your biases are there, and you are unintentionally encouraging only certain kind of people to participate, and when you say you don’t care about anything about code you are making statements that scare certain kinds of contributors away, despite your best intentions.
Yeah, he is missing out on some potential contributors. So, maybe a Code of Merit with some be civil clauses on top of it. Then, promotional activities geared towards getting minority members into the project based on what worked in the past. That maximizes focus on code, minimizes the ability for political groups to obtain leverage, and aims to be inclusive. How about that?
Sigh, it’s the same sort of shit. It’s like responding to “Black Lives Matter” with “All Lives Matter”.
You seem very quick to shoot down other’s methods. What are you suggestions?
Suggestions for what? How to fight your biases? Just be aware that you have them. Everyone does. Denying your biases is like saying you don’t speak with an accent or you don’t have any politics. Or that you don’t have any opinions, which like assholes, everyone has.
Trying to come up with a code of merit that says people should not express their identity is more or less the same thing as saying that only the identity of the ones who framed the code of merit matters. It seems well-intentioned but it just results in reinforcing the biased status quo.
It’s more like a project was created for the purposes of code by a number of people, a person shows up demanding it focus on specific people enforcing specific politics of small part of nation, and someone responds in an apolitical way. The Code of Merit was specifically designed to block what you were doing. I back them since people pushing politics into FOSS projects or forum discussions are rarely honest about what their policies would achieve. I’ll give you credit personally for being clear instead of sneaky on your views in these discussions, though.
Far as All Lives Matter, the BLM slogan was one of the dumbest things I’ve ever seen happen from a marketing perspective. When creating a campaign message, you tie the ideas and language to the target audience you’re trying to convert. The target audience were presumably white people who saw media with a mix of people leaning toward white. They also didn’t spend all day thinking about specific areas with cops shooting black people. A quick message from black people in their feed of mostly white people specifically saying “Black Lives Matter” will be hastily interpreted as “only black lives matter.” I mean, it’s black people saying ignore everything but black people for a moment despite other minority races, esp natives, having big problems. The reaction I saw coming a mile away was for them to dismiss it saying, “All lives matter! Stop thinking only of yourselves.” And you just did it again personally by assuming I’d agree with your mockery of white reaction instead of being an activist thinking it was a failed campaign by design that wasted countless peoples’ worth of potential to actually improve the situation. Hey, at least all those shouting felt important and got spotlight for a while. I guess that’s better, eh?
Interestingly, the black folks supporting that missed a perfect opportunity to attempt to team up with right-leaning whites. The gun nuts especially are highly concerned about “police militarization” where they’re ignoring civil rights, loading up on military hardware, civil forfeiture, and doing stuff like Waco. A multi-race campaign showing police stormtrooping on everyone from whites to blacks with a focus on decent people, not thugs, being victimized might have gotten something done. Especially if it came with mandates ending civil forfeiture, having body cams, and police standards from better outfits not doing so much damage. It would have both left and right supporting it. That’s the kind of thing I promote with lots of agreement in-person from every kind of person except occasional authoritarian right-wingers.
Instead, they wanted a black thing focused only on black people with all non-black people just getting in line behind them saying or signing whatever they demanded. A power play. Yeah, that doesn’t ever work no matter what the group or political idea is. Should’ve tried a message tied to the audience instead of mocking them. There was one person that did heavily tie his message and campaigns to those people’s concerns instead of mocking or subordinating them. He’s President now. (sighs)
Can you rephrase this in a shorter way?
Most projects are about writing software. The goal of those projects, along with articles about them, is to get people using the software, improving the software, etc. They’re mainly focused on getting the code, it working, and using it.
Some groups goals are to advance specific forms of politics, get it mandated in every project/forum, pull in more like them, and push out those that aren’t via moderation. These can include the core contributors of a project which dies without them. Political compliance > useful code that works.
This thread is example of No 2: a post about creating a language gets a first comment talking about number of white people involved. Comment calls for political/cultural changes in project. The resulting discussion had 7 out of 7 comments not about goal of the post. Just political maneuvering.
Those focusing on software creation and maintenance over politics often want to block that. The Code of Merit is specifically designed for that. If D adopted it, only D-related comments would be allowed. Those wanting more minority members could teach them D, help them write useful apps in it, write libraries, improve compiler, and so on. Their respect and status goes up with their D-related contributions. Everything else outside the scope of the project is blocked.
That’s the theory anyway. My version modifies it where I disagree a bit. ;)