I grew up in a time and place where many took great steps to profess that they were the "good" people and to ensure that everyone knew that they appropriately despised the "bad" people (albeit with love). I will not be a part of a return to that.
How does it harm you if someone tries to increase diversity?
LLVM is a big project; there’s surely enough space for different people.
Some people will focus on the technical bits; others will focus on legal issues, and others can focus on social issues.
What’s the problem with that? Why do so many people become defensive when a project adopts a code of conduct?
If you really only care about building a great project with smart people, why do you care about the code of conduct? Just carry on with your work!
If the code of conduct actually gets in the way of working, please speak up, but that doesn’t seem to be the case here.
That would be only one objection, but as always happens, the rules are not actually what is written, as the OP rightly pointed out.
Another recent example was the Rod Vagg drama in node.js... he became the target of ire for tweeting an article about Neurodiversity and Free Speech. Does that sound like something that should go against any code of conduct that aims to be more welcoming and create diversity? Of course not, unless you subscribe to Social Justice, where everything is a dogwhistle and an opportunity to name and shame others.
The person who was leading this charge was then discovered to have a tirade filled twitter stream full of spiteful and hateful language aimed at white people and men. Which apparently did not violate any CoC.
The hypocrisy is obvious to anyone who digs past the surface, and the fact that well-meaning bystanders are effortlessly recruited into defending this petty and destructive behavior is what makes it so pernicious.
As far as objecting to CoCs, a lot of people don't like them because they've historically opened the door to non-developers coming in an usurping actual contributing developers and shifting the project focus from something technical to something political.
Yet another thread that demonstrates the social justice movement's harmful influence is flagged into invisibility.
Time to cite Fredrik DeBoer I guess:
>“Social justice” is an awkward term for an immensely important project, perhaps the most important project, which is to make the world a more equitable, fair, and compassionate place.
>But the project for social justice has been captured by an elite strata of post-collegiate, digitally-enabled children of privilege, who do not pursue that project as an end, but rather use it as a means with which to compete, socially and professionally, with each other.
>In that use, they value not speech or actions that actually result in a better world, but rather those that result in greater social reward, which in the digital world is obvious and explicit. That means that they prefer engagement that creates a) outrage and b) jokes, rather than engagement that leads to positive change.
>In this disregard for actual political success, they reveal their own privilege, as it’s only the privileged who could ever have so little regard for actual, material progress. As long as they are allowed to co-opt the movement for social justice for their own personal aggrandizement, the world will not improve, not for women, people of color, gay and transgender people, or the poor.
Remember when node.js forked into ayo.js? Well, maybe not, because you weren't allowed to see it:
This is really sad. It shouldn't be flagged at all. It's about tech culture, the e-mail is very well written and it brings up valid things we should talk about as a community.
I've had my own posts flagged on Lobster as well, so they're not a bastion by any means.
I know it's their platform and the mods can do what they want, but it still bothers me we're silencing conversation. Meanwhile on platforms like Gab/Voat, you just get insane amounts of bat-shit crazy.
We're losing the moderate people in our society to extreme left/rightness of platforms.
This list is for technical compiler and tools discussions, lets not turn a thread about Rafael’s personal decision into a rant about CoC’s which we have been through before.
If you’d like to have a productive discussion about CoC topics, then please start a new thread and use a respectful and productive tone.
If you're being downvoted for a tendentious characterization of the thread, it looks justified.
http://lists.llvm.org/pipermail/llvm-dev/2018-May/122934.htm...
Are you saying this is authoritarian and indicative of his being triggered, or are you saying that this sort of fits in with a mental model of him you've developed based on other experiences?
I think this paragraph says more about the author of the post and his true intentions than the rest of the post.
I just want to work with smart people. I don't care what gender they associate themselves with, what color they are, whether there's an equal distribution of any of these characteristics in my department. I just want to do my job and learn from smart people. Why can't it be as simple as that?
Like it or not, the entire system is stacked against minorities in ways that aren't even obvious or noticeable from a position of privilege. I work as an engineer in an office of 120 people in the East Bay. There are three black people working in the office. One of them is the receptionist. If we assume that there are no racial differences in technical ability, then the demographics of my office should roughly mirror the demographics of the surrounding community. Oakland is 28% black (according to the 2010 census), meaning in a fair, unbiased system we should have roughly 30-35 black people working in the office. I am sure that no hiring manager has set out to exclude black people from their postings, but there are centuries of history and deeply ingrained biases that have led to a severe under-representation of African-Americans in this industry, same with every other minority.
Until we are truly operating on a level playing field, I am 100% in favour of scholarships based on giving under-represented minorities more opportunities. It is not discrimination to exclude white men from these scholarships. It is recognizing the centuries of privilege we have had and saying that we want give other people the opportunities we have be given simply by existing.
This is a big assumption. It may be true, but you are asserting it without evidence. Demographics of NBA do not mirror demographics of USA.
That you push your social issues on us as well as your armies adds insult to injury.
I dream of a day when there are no US troops on non-US soil. A day that I can advocate wealth redistribution without fear of a CIA funded coup. A day where the internet represents all of humanity.
A century ago millions of young white men were too busy dying in trenches and being gassed to death with mustard gas in a war none of them could vote on.
Children worked on the field, in factories, and in coal mines, like their fathers were expected to.
And yes, women stayed home and took care of the kids because without electricity, plumbing, appliances, refrigeration and cheap groceries, that was actually a laborious full time job, and people were poor. Not to mention that getting through child birth and infant mortality was a blessing for both mother and child.
None of them were given opportunities simply by existing. On the other hand, providing scholarships to specific ethnicities, or creating special women-only pathways to entry, that is exactly that.
What people like Damore have tried to point out is that expecting demographics and sentiment within a field to match the general population, or else the "playing field" is not level, is an unwarranted assumption. It also puts the blame for actually society wide issues on a small group of people who had nothing to do with it.
If you want more black people in tech, start by addressing the way the US school system is stratified entirely by social class. Maybe you'll see a difference, and maybe that IQ gap will shrink. Maybe it won't, and what new "leveling" policies will you want to introduce then? Don't push out or disadvantage others out of misplaced revenge, and don't cite your American tunnel vision as justification.
...I most emphatically do care about them not bringing up any of these characteristics in any context where they see fit. Just like a country with freedom of religion should support freedom from religion the same goes for freedom from politics, 'gender' issues, race discussions, political diatribe et al. There are laws against discrimination on many - but not all - of these issues which can be used to get those who insist on breaking them back in line or out of the context. If these laws are insufficient there are channels to discuss these issues and ways to get them amended.
In simple terms I think we - as in the society which I was born and raised in (in the Netherlands) and currently live in (Sweden) - have gone a long way in eradicating discrimination on many of the mentioned grounds and marginalising those who insist on violating relevant laws. Both Sweden and the Netherlands belong to the most egalitarian and open societies in the world where 'diversity' has been a mantra for many decades. Things were starting to look good, hardly anyone cared about whether the teacher at school had a different skin colour or shared her bed with a same-sex partner or prayed to whatever deity of choice. And then...
...and then...
And then identity politics suddenly raised its ugly head, driven by people who insist they 'represent' 'marginalised minorities' - without asking those supposedly marginalised minorities whether they felt the need to be represented in any way - and starting calling anyone who did not abide by their 'demands' all sorts of things - racist, xenophobe, misogynist, white cis-gender male expletive_deleted, etcetera.
What the said they wanted to do was 'end discrimination and further diversity'. What they are doing is building enclaves and segregating the population among all those characteristics which our societies previously tried to make irrelevant.
All those labels they try to stick on their opponents reflect back on what they themselves are: they are the racists by trying to split the population along (real or imaginary) 'racial' lines. They are the xenophobes by loudly denouncing anyone who does not kowtow to their all demands. They are the enemies of diversity by inciting strive between 'racialised' groups.
Is that right?
What do you think about people who say, I'm a woman, and/or I'm black, and/or I'm gay, and/or I'm trans, and/or I'm disabled, and/or I have a mental illness. I also just want to sit heads-down and code next to you and not think about what I "am", but unfortunately -- perhaps, invisibly to you -- people are doing things which prevent me from being able to do that. A code of conduct moves us a bit closer towards "equality of having to think about social justice", in that I have to think about it a bit less, in exchange for your thinking about it a bit more.
Someone who is unintentionally unkind will receive a quiet word better than a hundred codes of conduct. That's how you change hearts and minds.
What do I think about those people? I think they're insufferably bossy people who insult me by telling me what I need to think about more.
They can go F themselves.
> Since agreement [to the code of conduct] is required to take part in the conferences, I am no longer able to attend.
For reference, this is LLVM's code of conduct: https://llvm.org/docs/CodeOfConduct.html
If somebody finds any of the below to be objectionable and refuses to abide by it, I would not be comfortable attending a conference with that person or being forced to interact them for e.g. code review purposes. His departure is regrettable, but it is for the best that he's chosen to remove himself from the project if he can't bring himself to abide by it.
> Be friendly and patient.
> Be welcoming. We strive to be a community that welcomes and supports people of all backgrounds and identities. This includes, but is not limited to members of any race, ethnicity, culture, national origin, colour, immigration status, social and economic class, educational level, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity and expression, age, size, family status, political belief, religion or lack thereof, and mental and physical ability.
> Be considerate. Your work will be used by other people, and you in turn will depend on the work of others. Any decision you take will affect users and colleagues, and you should take those consequences into account. Remember that we’re a world-wide community, so you might not be communicating in someone else’s primary language.
> Be respectful. Not all of us will agree all the time, but disagreement is no excuse for poor behavior and poor manners. We might all experience some frustration now and then, but we cannot allow that frustration to turn into a personal attack. It’s important to remember that a community where people feel uncomfortable or threatened is not a productive one. Members of the LLVM community should be respectful when dealing with other members as well as with people outside the LLVM community.
> Be careful in the words that you choose and be kind to others. Do not insult or put down other participants. Harassment and other exclusionary behavior aren’t acceptable. This includes, but is not limited to:
> Violent threats or language directed against another person.
> Discriminatory jokes and language.
> Posting sexually explicit or violent material.
> Posting (or threatening to post) other people’s personally identifying information (“doxing”).
> Personal insults, especially those using racist or sexist terms.
> Unwelcome sexual attention.
> Advocating for, or encouraging, any of the above behavior.
> In general, if someone asks you to stop, then stop. Persisting in such behavior after being asked to stop is considered harassment.
> When we disagree, try to understand why. Disagreements, both social and technical, happen all the time and LLVM is no exception. It is important that we resolve disagreements and differing views constructively. Remember that we’re different. The strength of LLVM comes from its varied community, people from a wide range of backgrounds. Different people have different perspectives on issues. Being unable to understand why someone holds a viewpoint doesn’t mean that they’re wrong. Don’t forget that it is human to err and blaming each other doesn’t get us anywhere. Instead, focus on helping to resolve issues and learning from mistakes.
The fact that he cites the CoC as a main reason for leaving but is unwilling to explain why was already a red flag.
I don't see exactly what he finds objectable there ? He wishes he could make violent threats to other attendees ? Or maybe sexually harass them ? Complain that there are too many browns ones ?
LLVM will do fine without him.
Not me. I would perfectly comfortable interacting with such a person, because I'm a mature, professional adult who is not a fragile child that needs to be treated like a kindergartner. I will go out of my to not work with the adult babies who think the world should revolve around them, and have to politicize every aspect of life.
This part is meaningless:
> Posting sexually explicit or violent material.
because virtually everyone would agree that's not appropriate. You don't need a CoC for that. The entire purpose of these CoC's is to get people to do this:
> Be careful in the words that you choose
IOW, say something we don't like, and you're gone.
Not me. I would be perfectly comfortable interacting with such a person because I'm a mature, professional adult who is not a fragile child that needs to be treated like a kindergartner!
Virtually everyone, except the hordes that thought "DongML" was a laugh riot, of course.
https://web.archive.org/web/20130117043748/http://sheddingbi...
The Libertarian ideal that "people would police themselves equitably if you just leave them alone" is flat out wrong.
I present as evidence, one (1) dongle joke taken as greatly offensive.
The community change I cannot take is how the social injustice
movement has permeated it. When I joined llvm no one asked or cared
about my religion or political view. We all seemed committed to just
writing a good compiler framework.
> https://www.outreachy.org/apply/eligibility/
To which I say... really? Ok, that's too bad that you don't want to be a contributor anymore because there is a diversity scholarship... somehow I don't see that as a long term problem for LLVM though.
That's what's in the CoC that's objectionable.
> made me think that someone had disparaged them for their political beliefs
Funny how you do that in a post that disparages him for his political beliefs. But your post is nothing compared with the attacks elsewhere in this thread. Scroll down and read a bit, and you'll see plenty of that happening.
Before you say "but it's not about excluding people", let me remind you about James Damore and Brendan Eich. Those were valuable people, attacked and damaged because of their (in Damore's case PERCEIVED, not real) political beliefs. We all know that the majority of Hacker News supported those actions (although how many supported them because they were afraid to be attacked, and how many actually supported those actions is not clear).
And why do people do this ? Attack others for political reasons ? Most, of course, because they're afraid of SJWs. Because of what happened to Damore and Eich and many others. But SJWs, ostensibly, do this for tolerance of course ! THAT's why they're EXCLUDING people for their political views. For tolerance.
Alaternative view: the SJWs are just socialites looking to exclude others, that's all. Aggressive and ... not interested in the only thing that matters : technically interesting work.
I commend this person for speaking up.
Outreachy is a racist and sexist organization that excludes people based on their gender and ancestry. Anyone with a shred of self-awareness and moral fortitude should be proud to disassociate with them, and with anyone who chooses to associate with them.