Lift web framework bans someone from contributing a pull request

https://github.com/lift/framework/pull/1527

by cmelbye • 12 years ago

18 14 12 years ago

github.com

aidanf• 12 years ago

Some background context in this thread: https://groups.google.com/d/msg/liftweb/7vvVPmi53Kc/S0kaJ-j2...

teacup50• 12 years ago

David Pollack is known as a bit of a hothead, so take the one-sided (post-ban) explanation with a grain of salt.

wpietri• 12 years ago

Oh, that guy.

I attended a Scala unconference a few years back, and in casual conversation politely asked him about how one would do continuous deployment with his framework. He flipped out at me, considering the very notion illegitimate, and was enough of an ass about it that several people came up to me and apologized later. He didn't, though, and as far as I know nobody called him out on it.

It seemed like a classic abusive dad/enabling family thing, and definitely deflated a lot of the excitement that the unconference built up for me. Having worked for financial traders, I've been yelled at by people much better at being domineering assholes. I've also learned that my price for dealing with that nonsense is very, very high.

So yeah, I'll be using more than a grain of salt on this one.

shadowfiend• 12 years ago

The key here is that no one was banned in the OP pull request. Naftoli was banned almost a year ago for matters entirely unrelated to this particular pull request (as seen in the gp thread), and it is perfectly reasonable that a pull request be closed once a person has been banned simply because it was opened by that person. Otherwise a ban is meaningless.

As a committer, I've seen the original interactions that David refers to in that public ML thread in the private committers list, and the reactions are reasonable. Naftoli contributed good code, but bad karma. David is less tolerant of that than other maintainers might be, but every person varies in their tolerance of such things, and the result is indeed a more harmonious community.

You can see my own full response to the original ban and its reasoning as the second to last post in the thread posted by gp.

jfarmer3• 12 years ago

I don't even know what Lift is, let alone any of the people involved in this specific issue, but I have a hard time believing someone was banned "merely" for contributing a pull request. This is a silly submission designed to stir up more drama.

cmelbye• 12 years ago

Notice how the title of my submission says "from contributing", not "for contributing". Subtle difference, but has a completely different meaning.

jfarmer3• 12 years ago

I'm sorry, those two phrases aren't meaningfully different to me. Regardless, this is trivial, gossipy drama and you're making HN worse by submitting it. Please stop.

morganvachon• 12 years ago

As far as I know it's a personal gripe between the two people involved that goes back many years. Supposedly he wasn't banned for anything to do with coding, it was for harassing the maintainer. But that's all Internet gossip anyway, so who knows the real reasons behind it.

Regardless, it's a personal fight that probably doesn't belong on HN.

Edit: Sorry jfarmer, I see you said pretty much the same thing regarding HN.

Shank• 12 years ago

I mean, it's their loss I guess. They made the decision to exclude someone from the community, and a pull request is another form of communication.

I wouldn't want to be the one auditing every piece of code from someone who is "banned" either -- it only takes a few lines to insert a backdoor.

ChrisGaudreau• 12 years ago

I've contributed to Lift in 2013 and was fairly involved in their community. They're quite nice there, but admittedly David is a bit of an ass. He doesn't try to be, if that's any consolation.

Also, Naftoli won the "Happy Lift'r Prize" about a year ago:

https://groups.google.com/d/msg/liftweb/dCA89xrW01E/_dUL5KzQ...

Lift web framework bans someone from contributing a pull request

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