Discuss concerns about potential intolerance as a result of political correctness

[juliepagano]

I've seen the topic come up a few times on other issues. Creating this thread for interested parties to discuss, so that other threads can be kept on topic. Posters seemed to find Slavoj Žižek to be a particularly compelling authority on the topic.

[HiPhish]

Here is the video mentioned: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0OzL0tGygso

I don't consider him a particular authority, he is just saying what I would have said, but in better terms. I don't have anything to add anymore, so make of it what you want.

[nonnymaus]

Throwaway because I want to discuss difficult personal stuff pseudonymously.

I'm a leader of a team of 30+ developers. Our employer continues to invest a lot of money in Node and encourages us to contribute bugs/fixes/testing resources upstream. I mention this solely to establish context that I self-identify as part of the Node engineering community.

I also struggle with crippling social anxiety and an extremely punitive super ego. Long term therapy, psych meds, etc., etc. It's a freaking miracle I'm able to operate successfully as an engineer and sometimes I think it's my only viable skill in life. I mention this solely to establish context that I self-identify as a person who is mentally ill.

I would like to participate in the Node engineering community socially (eg, in threads like this) but I'm terrified of the potential repercussions (hence the throwaway). Here's a specific example I found problematic:

In https://github.com/nodejs/node/issues/3721, @rennat made what seemed to be a joke about seppuku. As someone who has struggled with suicide this made me LOL and was much appreciated.

Later in the thread @emilyrose, @ashleygwilliams, and @evilpacket seemed to bully @rennat with threats of banning in response.

Similarly to Žižek's point in the video, it seems that policing language doesn't resolve the underlying concern and in fact seems to solidify it: I now have another example of not being able to talk about mental health issues in public for fear of recrimination.

Most often in this kind of situation I opt out of the conversation, but for some reason couldn't sleep last night for worrying about this exchange. I would like to discuss. Please let me know if there's a more appropriate place to have this conversation.

[ravi]

1. Please define "political correctness" in a non question-begging manner before you rush to judgement.
2. Second, on the rush itself: I fail to see what justifies this casual inversion of the equation, which perhaps is an excellent demonstration of the sophistry of Zizek (who, by the way, once called vegetarians "monkeys", but it's all good fun right?). The demand seems to be that we must be tolerant of intolerance, inclusive of exclusivity. May I suggest then that we should also be reading and quoting Orwell, not just Zizek.
3. How is it that punning about suicide prevents anyone from having a serious discussion about mental health issues?
4. I think it would help if empirical evidence is presented to show that discouraging intolerant language use produces the opposite effect of solidifying such usage, as claimed above. Please post more than a link to Zizek who is a provocative philosopher, not a social scientist (or at least more so the former than the latter). Minimally, I urge you to summarise the data if he presents any, and how the conclusions are warranted from the data.

[nonnymaus]

Re. 3: Strong +1. Punning and joking makes it easier. A sense of humor is one of the healthiest defence mechanisms. Seems to run counter to "Node is fun!" too.

[ravi]

Sorry, my #3 was confusing and you will probably withdraw your +1. What I meant is: "how is discouraging punning going to prevent a serious discussion?". I truly do not get that point.

[isaacs]

@nonnymaus Thanks for sharing your point of view. I can definitely appreciate that humor can lighten a heavy situation. However, adding levity can also come across as dismissive. Humor is all about context. When someone is asking for something, especially about something emotional or personal, they're in a position of vulnerability.

Recall, that was not a "serious conversation about mental illness". It was a serious conversation about the word choice for API's in Node. The point being made was that "suicide" is a distracting term because it's connected to powerful emotions. Suggesting "seppuku" as an alternative, in that context, is dismissive and inappropriate. It's lovely that it made you laugh. But the fact that you enjoyed it doesn't change the fact that it was inappropriate. Inappropriate things are usually funny for at least one person.

We could probably clarify a policy for how to call out inappropriate behavior in a way that's productive and doesn't feel like bullying or make anyone else feel unsafe participating.

[nodeanon]

As someone who is mentally ill (BorderlinePD, GeneralizedAD, Anorexia, AutismSD... is that enough name drops to gain me a merit badge? And no I am not kidding, I've been [professionally] diagnosed with all of these), has trans history, is perceived as female, has been sexually assaulted and abused, I am basically a trump in this conversation.

I think people need to get their panties out of a wad. Is suicide a nice term? Of course not. Does it affect the quality of software? Fuck no.

Rather than wringing (y)our hands over whether your code is PC enough (All of my whats), write more / better code. It is idiotic to worry about what variables are called and is an enormous waste of time and brain power.

In terms of community, I think being accepting is a good idea but coddling and essentially worshiping neuro / gender / sexuality diverse people is fucked as well. It creates a climate where people have to walk on eggshells so not to offend people who enforce being PC (Who typically are offended on the "offensee"'s behalf).

Seriously, people with mental diversity (including illness and 'disorders') can typically take a lot more 'punishment' than you people give us credit for. Stop acting like people with ASD are suddenly going to break down crying because you told us something we didn't want to hear. Stop acting like people with mental illness are infants who can't handle themselves.

Creating a space where 'diverse' people can feel comfortable and accepted is great. Creating a climate where it is okay for someone to take a step back and disappear for a while is great. Basically: Create a climate where 'diverse' people can be themselves without creating a climate where they are seen as outcasts or someone to 'tip-toe' around.

By codifying how diverse people should be treated and creating arbitrary and rash punishments, you are creating a hostile climate, just on the other side. Just stop. I'm a big kid and can handle being offended on my own behalf so stop being offended for me.

[isaacs]

@nodeanon Your argument (and @nonnymaus's) amounts to: "I'm in the class you're claiming to protect. I'm not offended by this. Therefor, it shouldn't be against the rules."

I'm not being offended "for" anyone. I'm offended plenty for myself, and that's where I'm coming from.

The fact that you don't find it problematic doesn't change the fact that many others do. While you ask us to stop being offended for you, perhaps you should take your own advice and stop being un-offended for us.

For example:

I think people need to get their panties out of a wad.

I personally find this offensive and disrespectful. Me. You have offended me, personally. It has reduced my willingness to extend you the benefit of the doubt and take you seriously. Was that your goal?

Is suicide a nice term? Of course not. Does it affect the quality of software? Fuck no.

It does affect the quality of the software if it reduces our ability to take advantage of the skills and abilities of people in our community. That's one of the underlying goals of inclusion: to gain access to additional brains that we would otherwise not be able to put to use on making the project better.

[nodeanon]

If someone is triggered by reading the word 'suicide', they likely aren't going to be of sound mind and won't really be able to communicate their ideas clearly or interact with other contributors, both of which are important parts of OSS.

At my worst, I couldn't even think straight let alone program. Making 'padded rooms' isn't going to suddenly unlock a trove of people. I understand wanting to create a better space (which I think is a fair thing to pursue) but I just don't see the purpose in wringing hands over making everything the most safest (and yes, I am butchering English on purpose) you can.

Make rules, make and publicly publish rational and reasonable punishments and enforce the rules fairly (including against marginalized individuals). Don't nitpick over little things like "this variable is triggering". Worry about making rules like "Don't put rape jokes as comments" or something.

Trying to sanitize code of any and all triggering references only obfuscates code more by making people write unclear statements rather than cutting to the point in the most succinct words possible.

[KarbonDallas]

This thread has had 3 mentions of the word 'punishment' so far, which is concerning, and makes me think we might not all be talking about the same issue:

Punishment is completely irrelevant to the goal of moderation and inclusivity. It's not about the individual, it's about the sustained health of the community.

I believe discussion of punishment (whether described as 'rash', 'arbitrary', or 'reasonable') to be out of scope for this repository.

[oiime]

I agree with @nodeanon to a degree, I understand the value in making the community more inclusive ,but word policing, especially when it's relatively benign words that are quite commonly used in software and are not clearly targeting a group, feels a bit like arbitrary exercise of force.

There should be some wiggle room for contributers to have a little fun with naming conventions and not worry about offending someone, especially when it's just an innocent verb not targeting anyone in particular. I think once you start policing into that depth you're actively seeking offense to justify control over a community rather than trying to actually better it.

Just take a step back, relax, reflect and think "is this really the problem, is this really a problem?", maybe we should just take a long breath and draw a less confrontational line defining what's reasonable conduct.

[950c]

I feel that enforcing political hyper-correctness will only serve to make people afraid to contribute lest they subject themselves to project-endursed bullying for something as stupid as using an innocuous word in a comment, and the end result is being less inclusive. I for one don't feel that one should need a degree in social justice to be allowed to safely contribute.

Just my two cents.

[andrewdeandrade]

@emilyrose "This thread has had 3 mentions of the word 'punishment' so far, which is concerning, and makes me think we might not all be talking about the same issue".... IIRC, it was you that talked about sanctioning another user in a related thread, so I'm wondering why you're surprised that people are talking about punishment. Furthermore, there are more ways to be "punished" besides an official banning from contributing to node, such as people taking to twitter to harass and contacting someone's employer and making trumped claims of offense.

[KarbonDallas]

@malandrew I'm not at all surprised. I just wanted to make sure we're all on the same page with regards to the issue at hand, and the scope of this repository. :smile_cat:

[junosuarez]

some wiggle room for contributers to have a little fun with naming conventions and not worry about offending someone

The purpose of code review is to subject new contributions to a certain level of scrutiny to ensure they enhance the project and to provide feedback to the contributor about what might improve this and their future contributions. I see this as relatively uniform for things like performance regressions, introducing dependencies with unfavorable licensing restrictions, code with logical errors, and naming or other text readable by humans which is unnecessarily harmful.

This thread is about discussing potential negative effects of protecting the health of the project by screening out contributions with harmful language, but I don't see how this is any different than screening out contributions which could introduce serious performance regressions. In both cases, it's not about punishing the contributor, but catching the error before shipping it to production.

[andrewdeandrade]

99 times out of 100 the determination of what is and is not "harmful language" is going to be highly subjective with little consensus. For those 99 times out of 100, you're inviting and promoting a strong culture of bikeshedding in a way that is also detrimental to the health of the project.

[MylesBorins]

I don't think anyone ever was discussing documenting language or making any lists. The consensus in my opinion was to handle this on a case by case basis as part of the code review.

[isaacs]

I'd like to address some other points being raised here by @nodeanon.

1. That "suicide" was the best word in this case: (It wasn't. If anything it was awkward, even from a strictly linguistic pov. See my "pedant" comment in the thread under discussion.)
2. That it's a "standard" unix term for that sort of event: (It isn't. Node is the only platform that uses this term. Again, see the OP you're objecting to, where everyone said it's fine to use standard unix terms.)
3. That no valuable node contributor objected to it, or that those who object to such terms are not valuable: (I'm right here, I'm objecting, and it's safe to say that modules, streams, fs, zlib, and npm were all "valuable contributions" to Node.)

It wasn't a "nitpick" until the anti-PC arguments came. It was a suggestion for an improvement that was widely supported by a majority of contributors, and many community members. Dozens of people spoke up to publicly thank us for even caring about this. In fact, the originator of that term in the code was in favor of changing it, and didn't seem to feel chastised by the event at all.

So are you all opposed to moderating language as such? Why? This is what I am genuinely curious about. We moderate language all the time for this reason, like every project does.

The only threat of "punishment" that one faces if they are a well-meaning contributor who uses an offensive term accidentally is that their PR requires some revision prior to landing it. That's all. Someone might say to them "Hey, that word is kind of offensive, so let's pick another one to use instead." It's literally like the most gentle sort of thing imaginable.

Actually getting banned from the project (or other sanctions) can only happen if you are actively trying to circumvent our process of shipping the project. For example, if you post a pull request full of aubergines and insults. Sorry, this isn't your free speech platform.

But observe the argument here: someone who objects to offensive terminology is too sensitive, but someone who objects to being kindly told to use a different variable name is not "too sensitive", and is being "abused" by this. I remain unconvinced, and would still really love to see some kind of evidence that we are heading into a bad place by enforcing moderation. Experience on our IRC channel and mailing list seem to indicate that there is a very strong positive correlation between strict moderation and user success, not the opposite.

@malandrew Can you actually provide 99 examples? Are any of them applicable to node? I think that you're trying to make a point with hyperbole, and that the threats you are imagining are not actually how node works.

[oiime]

enhance the project and to provide feedback to the contributor about what might improve this and their future contributions

This is an investment of energy and requires justification, I am not saying some terms should not be removed, I am saying a lot of the terms I've seen discussed are just silly and seem to be enforced just for the sake of enforcement just so people enforcing this conduct could justify their role.

In both cases, it's not about punishing the contributor, but catching the error before shipping it to production.

This relies on a proper definition of what constitutes an error, we're in disagreement and I think any excessive rejections of contributions based on arbitrary definitions of what an "error" is would alienate users and move a project from the realm of functional software development into an idealogical crusade.

this is first and foremost a software project, it is good to help it be inclusive of different contributors, there should be low tolerate for hate speech and bullying, but allowing it to be hijacked to promote a political ideology is a real risk and people should be wary of how far they're taking it.

[andrewdeandrade]

This looks like a list to me: https://github.com/nodejs/inclusivity/issues/9#issuecomment-156554098

Some of those I'm shocked at are even being pointed out. It's like people are trying to get "offended" on behalf of things in the code base that no one has even raised offense to.

If we want to talk about semantics of words and being hurt by them, how about we talk about the semantics of the npm postinstall script, which was down right harmful and tripped up many many developers. I've seen more attention paid by the maintainers to the semantics of the word suicide than the semantics of something that actually caused production bugs for many. I am still shocked that it's going to take until npm like version 5 before the postinstall issue is fully addressed. (I know npm is not node, but the two are essentially married to one another and many of the same people contribute to and maintain both)

"That no valuable node contributor objected to it"

Actually, IMHO you have indirectly objected to such changes in several comments about the threshold necessary for making breaking changes to the API. It seems that the moment something in the interest of being PC pops up, all the other processes and considerations seem to go out the door. The use of the words we're debating IMHO falls into the category of "it's ugly" (your words), which you don't consider a good reason for changing a shipped API.

https://github.com/nodejs/node/issues/1854#issuecomment-107242008

I'm actually not opposed to moderating language at all. What I'm opposed to is the intolerance we increasingly welcome by entertaining all these PC conversations. This community is increasingly less tolerant than it used to be.

FWIW, I have no idea what your eggplant reference is to.

"someone who objects to being kindly told to use a different variable name is not "too sensitive""

I'm not objecting to being told to kindly being told to use a different variable name. What I'm objecting to is the number of people piling into these conversations and using political correctness as a stick for bullying people actually contributing to how NodeJS works via issues and pull requests. This has happened in the past, in very high profile ways, and I still haven't seen anything proposed that would have helped stopped those runaway changes. Was BN told nicely that he should have used slightly different language? Someone, who had never committed to libuv, comes in, submits a PR for a trivial changes (i.e. few characters changed, didn't affect code, reduced clarity), and everyone went apeshit. We increasingly welcome people who have shown themselves willing to bully those actually making significant contributions. Even the primary committer/maintainer to a project isn't safe from these intolerance shenanigans.

This is what I'm objecting to. I'm all in favor of making the community inclusive to people (regardless of identity) who actually want to submit detailed issues and pull requests containing bug fixes and features, but when people who who have never contributed code (and probably don't intend to) feel welcome showing up and using this as their forum for their social cause that breeds intolerance.

I'd much prefer a community that actively avoids being political and is exclusive of people trying to use to use open source projects as a soap box any agenda that isn't related to improvements to code. I'd also like to see a community that generally is supportive of those who have contributed (via detailed code issues and pull requests containing code) over those who have not.

Maybe make a bot that whitelists users who have already filed detailed issues and pull requests and allows them to participate in any political discussion. If you haven't ever tried to contribute meaningfully to the code, a political discussion should not be something you're allowed to participate in. I'm honestly curious how many people objecting to some of these words have actually encountered them in practice because they are actually reading the NodeJS source code.

[jasnell]

@malandrew ... that was the sample output of a one off test run of a tool that was being suggested for use. If anything, that comment you reference shows that the use of the tool in question is not necessary in any way because of all of the false positives shown in that comment.

[ravi]

Please stop using the term "PC" if you are at all interested in a rational debate. It is (a) question-begging, and (b) poorly defined and used and consequently ad hominem. I encourage @juliepagano to retitle this issue if she is really interested in a productive discussion. Even "language policing", loaded as it too is, is better defined and closer to the truth than "political correctness".

[jasnell]

To be certain @malandrew: at no point in any of these discussions has anyone suggested that there was or should be a list of "banned words" to be avoided and any attempt to create such a list would, I quite certain, be rejected quite quickly.

[MylesBorins]

@juliepagano I took the liberty of changing the thread title based on @ravi's suggestion. Please feel free to replace it with anything you find appropriate

[andrewdeandrade]

Not sure the new title captures the original concern. It's not intolerance from policy that I'm worried about, but intolerance promoted by people who use NodeJS as a venue for promoting personal agendas that are tangential to the purpose of NodeJS. I have nothing against some of those agendas, and I support many of them. I just want those agendas to stay out of space that is about software engineering, not politics. There are a million other forums out there for such discussions and agenda furthering. This should not be one of them.

[MylesBorins]

@malandrew many people, myself included, believe that software is made of people. Making certain things such as language an important part of what makes good software. There was no attempt by anyone within this organization to promote any political agenda. As far as I can tell everyone just wants to improve node.

[jasnell]

@malandrew ... btw, note that at this step in the lifecycle process the "inclusivity working group" is not officially chartered. It is perfectly valid to provide feedback that you do not believe that it should be chartered.

[ravi]

@malandrew you are missing the central point of such efforts by thinking that these spaces can be so compartmentalised. The very point is that permitting such language disadvantages people in participating in the software development. It is the language that, therefore, politicises, just via status quo, the software development activity. Additionally, if we are to reach other, we have to argue in good faith, and IMHO, avoid motive-mongering.

(@TheAlphaNerd, thank you for the quick title change... I agree with @malandrew though that "policy" makes the concern too generic, but I'll leave it to you and @juliepagano)

[andrewdeandrade]

@jasnell I'm actually totally in favor of an inclusivity working work. I'm very concerned that there isn't anything in place to protect contributors from being attacked by a mob just like BN was due to gross intolerance and agenda promoting bullies. I don't know any maintainer of an open source project that wouldn't have made the same "mistake" BN did. I put "mistake" in quotes because BN's use of the world trivial had nothing to do with trivializing the agenda being promoted by the pull request in question, but because in the context of libuv and making libuv function better, it was a trivial change. It was misinterpretation of what was meant by "trivial" by an angry mob that lead to that scandal. A culture of tolerance would have sought out clarity.

The primary "citizen" we're trying to be inclusive of are people who submit detailed issues and pull requests that improve NodeJS. If someone isn't in that group and or doesn't have a track record of being such a person (perhaps via commits to other projects), then I see zero reason of being inclusive to them.

Right now, we're being inclusive of everyone, including those who have little to no intent of contributing meaningfully to the code and documentation of NodeJS.

@TheAlphaNerd I agree that software is made of people, but it's only made of people who write code, write documentation, submit valuable detailed issues and publish content about the software in a meaningful way (tutorials for example). For all the other people in the world that aren't part of that group? No, software is not made by those people.

Some people actually contribute more to the software than others (for pretty much every open source project, one to three people are typically responsible for 90% if not more of commits to a project. It's a power law distribution). I've haven't made many contributions to nodejs and npm, but I have submitted pull requests on both projects and detailed issues for both. I have also been attacked by people in prior discussions for whom I could find not one filed issue or pull request. This is one of the primary reasons I generally don't participate more. If inclusivity isn't considering those deterred by this politicization of NodeJS then is it achieving the goal of being inclusive?

I can only be in favor of inclusivity working group that is able to have a concrete idea of how they would have supported a key contributor like BN, who at the end of the day took leave (i.e. self excluded himself from participating) after he was subjected to hostilities, mostly from people who just used that issue as their soap box.

[jasnell]

@malandrew ... ok awesome. The charter is still being worked out here: https://github.com/nodejs/inclusivity/pull/21 and is, by no stretch of the imagination, "complete". I would encourage you (and others) to weigh in with constructive suggestions on how that charter needs to be shaped in order to avoid the types of issues you're concerned about. Or, alternatively, it may be worthwhile to have an alternative pull request with a different charter draft that we can use to compare side-by-side.

[MylesBorins]

I changed the title back to what it was originally and I'll leave it to @juliepagano

sorry for the fliip flop

[juliepagano]

As a note, the title was my attempt to capture the concerns of posters on other issues, so they could move their discussions to an issue focused on the topic they were trying to discuss instead of derailing those issues. I used the term "political correctness" because that seemed to be their focus. Personally, I don't agree with anything they were saying and find the term "political correctness" to be disingenuous.

[andrewdeandrade]

"Personally, I don't agree with anything they were saying"

Was that really necessary? How is that in the least bit welcoming or meant to make someone feel included?

My issue isn't on political correctness, but on desiring an atmosphere of tolerance. It just so happens that the former serves to reduce the latter, but it is only one of many factors that reduces tolerance.

[juliepagano]

I'm clarifying my participation since people were attributing the use of "political correctness" to me. I'm happy they have a place to discuss their concerns. I am not obligated to agree with them.

[andrewdeandrade]

@juliepagano so I grepped all previous related issues to this one. Where did anyone previously use "political correctness" or derivative term in those other threads? Are you sure you're not just putting words in people's mouth in order to more easily dismiss their viewpoint since you disagree with them and find that term disingenuous?

[juliepagano]

@malandrew It was the title of the youtube videos about Slavoj Žižek that were linked a few times in the discussions that prompted creating this thread. If you feel it's a bad way to highlight the topic, let me know a title you'd prefer, and I'll be happy to adjust the issue name.

[junosuarez]

Right now, we're being inclusive of everyone, including those who have little to no intent of contributing meaningfully to the code and documentation of NodeJS.

One of the primary goals in creating an inclusive environment around the node project is to strengthen the community around node as a platform. The network effects of doing so mean that making node a welcoming place for users increases the value of node for everyone, even if those users don't contribute directly to node core. The atmosphere, attitude, and policies of node core affect the community at large. Therefore, I disagree that development around node core (and see #26, I believe this issue goes beyond the nodejs/nodejs repo) should ignore the concerns of users who do not actively contribute patches to node core.

[andrewdeandrade]

"The network effects of doing so mean that making node a welcoming place for users"

So a serious question. If the goal is to make node a welcoming place, why hasn't anyone taken note that multiple people have only felt comfortable contributing to some of these discussions anonymously? What conditions could we foster that would allow these people to more likely feel comfortable contributing under their true identity?

Clearly, something about the new "inclusive" environment makes some people feel excluded or feel like they need to self-exclude their true self. Is anyone asking why this is the case and trying to mitigate this?

[juliepagano]

It seems like the majority of the people participating anonymously have done so because they are disclosing private personal details (e.g. mental health issues) that they do not want to be attached to their professional github profile. Based on that, it seems likely people are choosing to be anonymous because of concerns about stigma associated with mental health and/or disclosing private information.

These seem like larger cultural issues, not the specific environment created by this WG. However, it would be great if we can work towards making this a more comfortable place for people to discuss these types of concerns.

[andrewdeandrade]

"It seems like the majority of the people participating anonymously..."

so not all of the people participating anonymously, right?

[juliepagano]

@malandrew Well, there were also several anonymous posters that were sent here from external sites with the express intent of disrupting discussions.

[nonnymaus]

@juliepagano re: the larger culture issue -- there seems to be a perniciously reinforcing stigma around mental health because speech about it, of different psychological valences, remains unsafe.

From this point it seems I should be reading the various social policies and submitting PRs if I would like to participate with my public-facing identity.

(And thanks @issacs your points are very well made and well taken. Loved your point in https://github.com/nodejs/node/issues/3721#issuecomment-155537424 about relative cost.)

[ashleygwilliams]

@whyisthistheworld due to the harrassing nature of your post it is being deleted. if you'd like to restate your comment with less harrassing language, please do. thanks.

[ravi]

If people are going to bring up the old "merit only" argument, I suggest that once you are all done reading Zizek, give a quick read of @garann's brilliant and short piece on Meritocracy: http://garann.com/dev/2012/you-keep-using-that-word/.

[andrewdeandrade]

There is no reason to post links to bigoted racist content, @ravi.

I think it's awesome that the author of that post has the freedom of speech to write that post and put it on the internet, but that post has absolutely no reason to be part of the discussion in a community with a Code of Conduct that doesn't tolerate racism. If you want to find a post that makes some of the same points without the overt racism, by all means please link to that instead.

[nodeanon]

@juliepagano

Based on that, it seems likely people are choosing to be anonymous because of concerns about stigma associated with mental health and/or disclosing private information.

This isn't meant as any offense to anyone here but I use anon accounts to discuss social justice issues because I've been banned and harassed repeatedly on different platforms for voicing "anti-PC" opinions.

And I really just don't want to sully my account with any kind of arguments or having to delete my account (especially considering my account specifically points to my real name).

Although! I'd rather not have colleagues knowing about my medical history regardless of whether it is societally okay to disclose. But that is just my personal opinions about my medical history.

[ravi]

@malandrew Well I don't agree at all that is bigoted any more than Zizek is (in fact, if you think her calling out discrimination and prejudice that arises from privilege is itself an act of bigotry, then I think that meta issue, in itself, is highly relevant to this discussion -- discrimination is not about words, it's about systemic effects). However, I will add a trigger warning if/when I post future links.

[HiPhish]

@ravi Let me paraphrase that article for you:

If someone tells you that there is no problem of racism/sexism don't believe them, believe me telling you that there is a problem of racism/sexism.

That is simply wrong. You cannot prove a negative, it is the accuser (the writer of your article) who has to provide the proof that there is a problem.

It is fashionable to hate on white man (unless they are gay), if that guy (assuming) had written this about black people he would have been branded a racist. If you want to see predominantly black people working in an industry you have to go to Africa. Europe and North America are continents with a majority white population, if would be weird if tech was not dominated by white people, just as much as it would be weird if tech in Asia was not dominated by Asians. Where are all those non-white people supposed to come from?

The same applies to women. If women do not chose to go into tech, where is the industry supposed to get them from? The only way to get more women into tech is to lower the standards and let everyone in.

And don't talk about privilege. Life is not a game of D&D where you look up your stats in a table and roll the dice accordingly. People are not hive minds that somehow sense other people of their own race/sex and automatically run to their help. You know who does have privilege? Rich people. You think when I go into a job interview anyone gives a crap what I look like? No, but if my father is scratching the CEOs back, then it doesn't matter what I look like either. Your concept of "privilege" is just something you use conveniently so you can hate on people without repercussion. "We don't need to listen to you because you are a white male, everything you say is invalid because privilege."

[HiPhish]

@ashleygwilliams There was literally nothing wrong with what @whyisthistheworld wrote; I have the email notification with his post.

This is exactly what I am talking about. Someone joining the discussion now has no idea what he wrote. It could have been the most vile disgusting thing. It could have been a threat to the participants of this discussion. It could have been just spam. Or it could have been an inconvenient truth you don't want us to see. I know what it was, but an outside observer doesn't and will most likely conclude that it was one of the formers.

We are not children anymore, we know how to be rational and cope with something we disagree with. One of the most important parts of being an adult is being able to take opposing viewpoints and asses them, challenge my own ideas. If there is a merit to that viewpoint I will be more knowledgable than before, and if there isn't I will be more certain of my viewpoint. Either way I win.

PC is setting up a filter, it is treating people like children: This is the content you are allowed to consume, these are the viewpoints you are allowed to have. I see the post with the caricature has been deleted as well, and it's a shame because it was spot on. Was it provocative and disrespectful? Of course, that's the entire point and an adult should have no problem dealing with that.

But what about the people who cannot deal with it? I say they lack a fundamental part of being a grown-up and do you really want people who are mentally still children working on a project that is used by businesses? If you cannot cope with having your viewpoints challenged, how could I possibly trust you to that your code is not the same? Imagine an engineer working on an airplane throwing a temper trantrum every time someone criticised his or her engineering.

EDIT: Archive for people in case my post gets deleted https://archive.is/0yw3G

[MylesBorins]

please delete my post if deemed appropriate

I don't want to work with some idiot who got a bunch of scholarships solely becatiatuse of their race or gender.

That doesn't sound off to you? The deleted message was offering zero to the conversation and only served to initiate emotional reactionary responses.

Here are some quotes of your own that are questionable

It is fashionable to hate on white man (unless they are gay),

If you want to see predominantly black people working in an industry you have to go to Africa

if would be weird if tech was not dominated by white people

Where are all those non-white people supposed to come from?

@HiPhish

I am going to choose to not engage with your rhetoric, but I will leave you with a thought. We made an issue to discuss a change. We made a thread on how to handle such things in the future. I'm sorry that it has upset you but I promise that everyone involved has the best intentions for node.js.

Honestly examine the above quotes and see how your argument looks. If you genuinely want to be involved in node, and see it succeed, take a couple days to let thing die down and please take part in the open and honest discussions we will have