[ta140604]

There have been a bunch, actually.

First one I can recall was the meritocracy scandal, where they tried to put a rug promoting meritocracy, and their in-house feminist Julie-Ann Horvath (nudged by her friends) complained in the general sense of "meritocracy is bad since it's racist and sexist". The caved in and removed the rug.

Said Julie-Ann Horvath later got in a fight with a (CEO&founder)'s wife, left the company and made another huge scandal. She accused the company of sexism and sexual harassment (independent investigator found none, and other female Github engineers said there was nothing wrong), accused a co-worker of systematically removing her code from repos since, I quote, "I wouldn't let him fuck me" (independent investigator found that he was actually fixing her errors), and that CEO's wife overstepped her boundaries and used company resources for her own projects [1] (independent investigator found that to be true, and CEO stepped down).

JAH also complained of terrible sexual harassment - that is, men looking at women spinning hula hoops. Women did not complain, but JAH got offended on their behalf anyway.

In the end, she left with a loud door slam, smeared a bunch of Github people, and in general had a huge meltdown on Twitter, as you do.

Then, as mentioned, there was a bunch of scandals where people had their repos removed (like C+=, a language satirizing the more, uh, out-there ideas expressed by the feminists; or a few repos related to GamerGate).

The latest in a series was a repo threatened with removal (or removed?) for using the word 'retarded'.

Then they added a CoC endorsing anti-white racism and anti-male sexism: "Github's new Code of Conduct says "Our open source community prioritizes marginalized people’s safety over privileged people’s comfort." and will not act on "reverse" racism, sexism, etc." [2]

Well, at least we have BitBucket, GitLab et al.

----------------------------------------

[1] That's one empowered woman! What's not to like here? - TA

[2] https://www.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/3fpnuw/githubs_...

[Lawtonfogle]

>that CEO's wife overstepped her boundaries and used company resources for her own projects [1] (independent investigator found that to be true, and CEO stepped down).

This is particularly fun to note, because it shows that these investigators were not being easy/taking the side of the CEO. In short, it gives strong evidence they really were independent investigators.

[jordigh]

Sigh... there is so much wrong with what you've posted here, but I don't want to get into a screaming match with you about it. I just wish you didn't consider enemies the women who are trying to make things better for women, and that you would not consider the majority opinion of Reddit to be correct.

I wonder how big this cultural divide really is, or if it just seems this big online. In my usual workplaces, nobody would be as systematically angry as you seem to be about a woman and a company asking other people to be nice.

[striking]

It doesn't seem to me that the user you're replying to is "systematically angry." Furthermore, the independent contractors were truly independent, and the Twitter meltdown and smearing were real. Those are real, harmful actions which should not be ignored.

Furthermore, people are attempting to hold on to their ability to speak freely, to not have to monitor their own speech. There is no way to stop other people from being offended. No matter what you do, it will be offensive to someone. So should that person have the right to police you and to take down something that's yours? And what if you disagree with that person?

[Tenhundfeld]

I'm not exactly sure what you mean by people having to "monitor their own speech." You should think about what you're saying before you say it, right? You should consider if what you're saying is offensive to other people, right? That's just part of being a decent, responsible, adult human being – in my opinion.

Honestly, saying that anything you do will be offensive is a weak evasion of personal responsibility. It's like saying that you might as well eat Big Macs for every meal since all food can be unhealthy, under certain circumstances. While the premise is technically true, the conclusion is flawed. It's a spectrum, with behavior on one end being better than behavior on the other end.

To your last point, of course some rando who's offended by my statement should haven't the right to police me or take down something I wrote. But they do have the right to respond to what I wrote, point it out to others, argue with me, criticize me for it, etc. And I have the right to argue back, ignore them, or even – as crazy as it sounds – consider if their feelings might be sincere and worth me reevaluating my statement.

Anyway, this became longer than I intended. I'm just trying to say that, to paraphrase Carl Sagan, as fellow creatures inhabiting this pale blue dot, we have an obligation to deal kindly with one another. The fact that some people are jerks doesn't obviate that.

[striking]

The repositories mentioned in the post three levels above yours were taken down. There was no arguing back or ignoring.

I am not advocating of getting rid of kindness, and I think that preventing racism is a noble idea. And I'm not obviating a responsibility to avoid offending people by commenters who want to be taken seriously. But in the end, it is nearly impossible to entirely rid yourself of offense. Freedom of speech is necessary for productive environments, and it's been proven that people behave differently and speak differently when they know they're being watched.

There's a difference between attempting to be taken seriously and being disingenuous about who you are and they way you think. I believe in freedom of speech above all.

[DanBC]

If I call you a retard it's probably not that insulting to you. But it does cause offence in a large group of other people. And those people were not my target. So the word retard is a suboptimal choice for those two reasons.

The other way to use retard as an insult is to use it against people with a learning disability. I don't think that's what you're defending -- verbal aggression by mostly rich programmers of mostly poor vulnerable people.

> I believe in freedom of speech above all.

Not right to life?

[Tenhundfeld]

Well said.

[Goronmon]

I'm not exactly sure what you mean by people having to "monitor their own speech." You should think about what you're saying before you say it, right? You should consider if what you're saying is offensive to other people, right? That's just part of being a decent, responsible, adult human being – in my opinion.

My go-to example is generally something along the lines of, religious people might be offended by atheist philosophies. Does that mean atheists should refrain from speaking about their beliefs to avoid potentially offending someone? What about the reverse, should religious people refrain from speaking about religion to avoid offending people of a different (or no) religion?

Or for an example closer to the context of the discussion, is it rude or offensive to argue that a wage gap between men and women doesn't actually exist? Or that employers shouldn't hire women purely based on a need to balance out a gender disparity in their employees?

I'm sure there are plenty of people would be offended by those arguments. Does that mean people should refrain from using them?

[Lawtonfogle]

Or a simpler example: people who believe vaccines cause autism are extremely stupid and responsible for the death of extremely high numbers of children. To the extent that is legally possible, they should be shamed and ostracized for their dangerous behavior in an attempt to save the lives of vulnerable children.

Actually, the above is two examples. One where I stop after the first sentence, one where I include both. It is extremely offensive to some people, and the second (extended) version even includes a call to action that can be considered outright harmful (but done to reduce what is viewed by those who take the call as a greater harm).

Now in some cases, such as talking to someone who holds an anti-vaxxer view point, being offensive is counter productive. But when calling those already on your side to action, using such wording can motivate and mobilize others in ways that more sanitized language cannot.

[ultramancool]

> But when calling those already on your side to action, using such wording can motivate and mobilize others in ways that more sanitized language cannot.

Well said, it's hard to convey severity without using severe language.

[zajd]

No, I can assure you "then they added a CoC endorsing anti-white racism and anti-male sexism" is a phrase that betrays his political bent.

[ultramancool]

Well, it does say they "won't act on reverse-racism or reverse-sexism", so, depending on how you interpret that I can see what he's trying to say at least. "Endorses" is strong, but "ignores" would be correct. And one could imply something about the authors of this CoC from that.

[Lawtonfogle]

If you take action to ban all things in some group A, and then make an explicit exception to not ban some subgroup B, it seems pretty close to endorsing subgroup B. If they had not called the exception, but instead just ignored reports about it, that would seem more like ignoring.

For a comparison, say you have a party at your house that gets out of hand. Too many strangers show up. So you explicitly state that all guests are required to leave. There is a difference between telling some people they can stay (or saying I won't call the cops if you stay, but I'll call the cops on anyone else who stays) and just ignoring the few people who don't leave.

[striking]

Political opinions != anger, no?

[Lawtonfogle]

That is generally what reverse racism and reverse sexism is understood to mean. People on either side of the argument, when asked to define those two terms, would give similar definitions.

If anything betrays their political bent, it is that they view this as a negative thing. But the same could be said of those who do not view this as a negative thing.

[okasaki]

Which is?

Also, why are you assuming they are a man?

[zajd]

Bahahaha I love comments like this.

Honestly I assumed it because his comments just read like a bitter MRA. But if you want, you can click his profile and confirm it for yourself like I did.

"Why do you assume a member who spouts KKK rhetoric is a white person?!?" -okasaki

[Goronmon]

Sigh... there is so much wrong with what you've posted here, but I don't want to get into a screaming match with you about it.

Seems strange to feign ambivalence while still responding to the post in question. If you really "didn't want to get into a shouting match", shouldn't you have just not responded at all?

[jordigh]

I just didn't want to get into a point-by-point rebuttal with the original author. I'd rather talk about other things, like why "meritocracy" is a problem. A lot of people are surprised by it, since it seems like a good idea on the face of it.

[jazzyk]

"women who are trying to make things better for women"

Please explain how removing a rug promoting meritocracy makes things better for women.

[jordigh]

https://modelviewculture.com/pieces/the-dehumanizing-myth-of...

Remember that the term "meritocracy" was coined in a satirical essay about a dystopian society. It was not meant to have positive connotations.

[pervycreeper]

Regardless of its origin (cf. the etymological fallacy), the term has come not to mean "rule by the adept", but rather rewarding accomplishment and efficiently using people's talents. It is a worthwhile ideal to strive towards regardless of how 'fair' things are in the real world. The complaints about the term are very far fetched, and require a huge number of ideological assumptions to even make sense.

[jordigh]

What if people cannot acquire those talents because of social disparities? How does meritocracy help them?

[pervycreeper]

>How does meritocracy help them?

I was tempted to give a perhaps too glib response that it allows them to live in a world where they might possibly be able to benefit from the advances wrought by the more talented, but that doesn't seem to get at your underlying concern.

My personal belief is that those who lacked the opportunities to develop themselves still deserve to live with dignity and full moral consideration, but that doesn't mean we should give them awards or accept their pull requests necessarily. Furthermore, if one apportions them a scarce resource at someone else's expense, I would consider that to be unjust.

[Goronmon]

>What if people cannot acquire those talents because of social disparities? How does meritocracy help them?

It doesn't, but I don't think it should. Instead we should try to correct those social disparities.

[ultramancool]

I still don't quite get it - meritocracy should invite all to participate and have their contributions considered equally, that's what open source development in this style is about. To say it's not something we should strive for seems ridiculous.

[jordigh]

It's a long article, and judging by the timestamps, you had less than five minutes to read it. Did you really read it in less than five minutes?

I suppose I need to give my slightly inaccurate summary: trying to judge people just based upon their contributions ends up only benefiting the elite who had unfair advantages to begin with, and intentionally silences any effort to compensate people who have inherent social disadvantages.

But the actual article, which I have my doubts you've read, explains this better.

[ultramancool]

> It's a long article, and by the timestamps, you had less than five minutes to read it. Did you really read it in less than five minutes?

Sorry, I had read it before. I just didn't really get an opportunity to discuss it.

> I suppose I need to give my slightly inaccurate summary: trying to judge people just based upon their contributions ends up only benefiting the elite who had unfair advantages to get those advantages, and intentionally silences any effort to compensate people who have inherent social disadvantages.

I'm not saying perfect meritocracy is something we have, but it's something we should strive for and act under at least. We shouldn't over or undervalue contributions just because someone is a certain race/gender/etc in my opinion. It's patronizing and to do so seems only to contribute to the problem further.

[pervycreeper]

I think a lot of people are opposed to sexism or racism precisely because they undermine meritocracy. If you take away fairness or meritocracy as a goal, you are left with chauvinism, supremacy, and tribalism masquerading as their opposites.

[Nadya]

Remember that the symbol for gay pride, the Pink Triangle, was branding used by Nazi Germany to denote rapists, sex offenders, and gays for gas chambers and labor camps. It was not meant to have positive connotations.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pink_triangle

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Etymological_fallacy

[jordigh]

What I meant here is that we should not lose sight of the original idea behind meritocracy. The author of The Rise of the Meritocracy was arguing that a meritocracy becomes a clique who defines what "merit" means. If you do not think there is any merit in being nice to others, you end up defending toxic behaviours under the guise of justice and equality.

[Lawtonfogle]

>I just wish you didn't consider enemies the women who are trying to make things better for women

Grandparent never said that at all. Why would you even think grandparent intended this?

>In my usual workplaces, nobody would be as systematically angry as you seem to be about a woman and a company asking other people to be nice.

Once again, grandparent isn't systematically angry as a woman and a company asking other people to be nice. Where did you get this from?

[PLCC]

I don't see any anger. Just a list of events that happened.

[WorldWideWayne]

This list is weak. There really isn't anything there. None of these were actually major fiascos and most of them have nothing to do with hosting code.

I'm actually glad that they removed the satirical language repo and the one that used the word `retarded` and I don't believe that anybody actually endorses anti-white racism or anti-male sexism. You should feel bad for spreading that around.

[nosefrog]

I'm sorry, but anti-white racism and anti-male sexism aren't real things. Sexism is clearly a thing, as shown by your very sexist comment. Stop making HN an unsafe place for women.

[toomuchtodo]

Can you point out where ta140604 was "making HN an unsafe place for women"? All I saw were facts being stated, not opinions.

[jakobegger]

The same "facts" could have been stated in a very different way. For example, I could tell the story like this:

"An employee complained about sexual harassment at Github. The confirmation of some of her accusations by an independent investigator led the CEO to step down."

Sounds different, doesn't it?

[toomuchtodo]

The only references to sexual harrasment I found in OPs post was:

> She accused the company of sexism and sexual harassment (independent investigator found none, and other female Github engineers said there was nothing wrong)

> JAH also complained of terrible sexual harassment - that is, men looking at women spinning hula hoops. Women did not complain, but JAH got offended on their behalf anyway.

Are these not facts? Were "men looking at women spinning hula hoops" and this other individual brought it to someone's attention as sexual harassment?

[ta140604]

> The article quotes JAH's email as saying, "Two women, one of whom I work with and adore,

> and a friend of hers were hula hooping to some music. I didn’t have a problem with this.

> What I did have a problem with is the line of men sitting on one bench facing the

> hoopers and gawking at them. It looked like something out of a strip club. When I

> brought this up to male coworkers, they didn’t see a problem with it. But for me it felt

> unsafe and to be honest, really embarrassing. That was the moment I decided to finally

> leave GitHub."

From the HN discussion when this happened: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7408492

Article in question: http://techcrunch.com/2014/03/15/julie-ann-horvath-describes...

[j-pb]

Yeah and also twists the truth beyond recognition.

The reason he stepped down was not due to sexual harassment complaints, but to his wife misusing resources of the company.

[tedunangst]

Sounds wrong. Your summary implies the CEO stepped down due to sexual harassment.

[nosefrog]

If you can't see the blatant sexism and disrespect for women in their comment, then there's no way I can help you. I'm not a miracle worker.

[dragonwriter]

> I'm sorry, but anti-white racism and anti-male sexism aren't real things.

Even by the narrow "power plus prejudice" definition this is false; this is pretty readily observable, in the first instance, in lots of contexts where whites are not in a position of power (even in localized contexts embedded in broader societies where whites are in a position of power.)

They may be less significant in modern American society because of the general power distribution in the overall society and therefore the most common power distribution in particular contexts embedded within that society, but that's very different than not being real things.

[pgeorgi]

There's no anti-white racial oppression going on (in the US; may differ by region). There may be instances of anti-white racial discrimination.

There's no anti-male sexist oppression going. There may be instances of anti-male sexist discrimination (eg. assuming that male kindergarten teachers are child molesters).

Two different definitions of sexism and racism.

Depending on the definition of racism and sexism, the "anti-white" and "anti-male" variants may exist or not. Please don't assume that your definition (which seems to be of the "oppression" kind) is universal.

[gbersac]

Considering the incredible amount of repository hosted by github, I consider this to be minor problems.