The Truth About Rod Vagg

https://medium.com/@rvagg/the-truth-about-rod-vagg-f063f6a53557

by maxharris • 9 years ago

41 11 9 years ago

nailer3• 9 years ago

Half the case here has been assisted by the removal of details for the thread. Unless you read the archived version with working links (available online but also reproduced in this article) you'd have no idea what Rod actually tweeted.

Linking to a Quilette article and screen capping abuse you receive doesn't mean you're a 'known hostile' and all the various hyperbole that's been around in the last couple of days.

wolco• 9 years ago

"It is evidence to others that Node.js may not be serious about its commitment to community and inclusivity."

When a project focuses on other things unrelated to the core reason why they exist things like this happen.

To the outside world these issues seem unrelated to why they use the language.

Inclusivity seems more like creating documentation in different languages rather than kick someone out over a retweet with an acceptable message to the average node user.

curtisblaine3• 9 years ago

Does Node need to be inclusive anyways? We're taking for granted that inclusivity is good for a technical project just because it feels "right", and because they told us that it is right. But does it help or does it harm? Does it really help to take people onboard who are less technically and more politically oriented? Does it really help to hold down criticism to not offend anyone, risking a situations where points are never made and emphasis is never placed? We have an example of a successful and long lived open source project - Linux - which is famous for being exclusive and "snarky". Yet, it has taken over the server and embedded world. Would it have been the same if it had a committee kicking out and reprimanding people for not adhering to a Code of Conduct where everyone has to be kind and mindful and avoid criticizing the way things are done? Because people, when they're working, will eventually be not nice to each other. They will write snarky comments and they will be rough and they will always prefer qualities related to the work they're doing (technical / architectural proficiency) to qualities related to the social and politics sphere. Technical projects are technical, deal with it.

nailer3• 9 years ago

CoCs are good in that they allow someone to say 'hey, we told you no booth babes / sexual slides / persistent unwanted sexual attention' - it takes some courage for a woman to walk into a room full of dudes and (assuming she's straight) it's not nice to have something which assumes you're interested in women (both babes / sexual slides), or that makes you feel like she might get sexually assaulted (or just takes away from the fact that she's there for tech, not men).

CoCs are bad in that they're often used as ideological purges - for joking about 'dongles' or, in this case, retweeting an article http://quillette.com/2017/07/18/neurodiversity-case-free-spe... that was on the front page of HN a few days ago. Women aren't children and won't be harmed by seeing something they may potentially disagree with, nor do they all hold the same opinions.

zimpenfish2• 9 years ago

Yet, [Linux] has taken over the server and embedded world

I would posit that this is nothing to do with Linus being a dickbag to people and everything to do with a) they focused on "getting shit working" over "purity", b) were (as best I can tell) much more open to contributions and partnerships than the BSDs, and c) expanded rapidly to cover just about every little niche there was.

Any of the BSDs (or other OSs, I guess) could have had the same viral trajectory if they'd focused on the same things instead of their ideological purity, code stability, et al.

But does it help or does it harm?

I believe there are several studies that show increasing diversity can improve technical projects because this reduces "situations where points are never made".

Does it really help to take people onboard who are less technically and more politically oriented?

That depends - does your project exist in a world that contains politics? Is it meant to solve problems for human beings? Both of those benefit from diversity because, and this will shock you, a very small percentage of the world is comprised of privileged white dudes.

lord_jim• 9 years ago

(after reading through https://github.com/nodejs/board/issues/58 and other issues related to this situation)

The Github comment revision needs to stop. It makes it impossible for people who were not involved in the original conversation to understand what actually happened. Without a full archive of all revisions, you cannot even judge if the edits were made in good faith or if the current text represents the author's original intent. It casts doubt on everything.

The whole mess is even worse on long threads like the ones linked to. Editing a comment that other users responded to can make the responding comments look silly or stupid, or completely change the meaning of their response.

This is mostly a process thing but Github also needs to improve how edits are handled.

zaphirplane• 9 years ago

This story is everywhere, i don't feel you are drumming up support by this. The options of the responses seem negative to the ppl behind the fork

nailer3• 9 years ago

Is 'you' Rod, Max or the people behind the fork? Having trouble parsing your comment.

The Truth About Rod Vagg

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