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by jsprogrammer 3737 days ago
>> People close to NPM keep making this argument. Others have reported that some of those claims actually turned out to be lies.

>I'd love to hear more about that, but I hope you'll forgive me for distrusting your memory seeing as you seem to have misremembered Bob saying he doesn't mean to be a dick as Bob calling Azer a pussy [0].

The thread I linked to was in response to the above ^. There (in the link) is more about it. I believe the claims were made on Twitter and the Tweets have likely since been deleted.

>> Your claim of misremembering is vacuous. I never claimed Bob called Azer a pussy.

>It's strongly implied by:

>> How does one non-NPM user [...] get to harass an actual NPM user [...], in violation NPM policy [...]? Is it OK to start referring to people as pussies in emails to them if they don't give up their names?

>Was that just a non-sequitor?

No, it is not a non-sequitor. The problem is with Bob's language. The language violates the Code of Conduct, but was tolerated by NPM. If NPM tolerates that language, they should also tolerate the word 'pussy', or a derivative, being used, however, my guess would be that NPM would backpedal on their tolerance if a Dispute ever arose containing that word.

>But I really don't care what you didn't say. I'm trying to understand what you ARE saying. I'm trying to understand your notion of harassment. If someone illegally fucks you over, and you email them asking them to stop, and they ask you not to email them again (about them fucking you over), is it harassment to try one last time to reason with them, and CC them when escalating the situation?

My notion of harassment isn't really pertinent. Further, we are talking about a synthetic hypothetical (where it is already accepted that "someone [is illegally fucking you over]" [honestly not sure what this means]), which makes the discussion rather moot.

Bob never tried to reason with Azer. When Azer finally responded to Bob about "is there something we could do for you in compensation", Bob never responded, but kept whining to NPM.

Bob was completely disingenuous the entire time. Note his second email to Azer after Azer asked to not be e-mailed again:

> I don’t know why you think that makes us a dick.

Bob can't even comprehend his own text. Bob literally opened his second email with:

>We don’t mean to be a dick about it, but

Then Azer called him out for being a Dick and Bob has no idea why Azer could possibly think him and kik Interactive are dicks? The guy is a top troll.

> kik can't produce a Trademark.

>What leads you to believe this? Because they haven't yet? Neither NPM nor Azer asked them to, why would they?

That and I have looked up all Trademarks for "kik" and none of them would apply in this situation. If Azer was "fucking kik over illegally", Bob would be able to prove it beyond a shadow of doubt by showing the specific Trademark that he claims is being infringed. It's trivial, yet he didn't do it. Why would that be?

>I'm not sure why you're quoting this, it doesn't say they don't want it, it says they're not using it for the package they're going to publish. No one is disputing that fact. Their stated reason for wanting the package name still applies, namely, avoiding confusion for people who install 'kik' expecting a package by them.

Unfortunately this contradicts Bob's first email:

>Azer: We’re reaching out to you as we’d very much like to use our name “kik” for an important package that we are going to release soon. Unfortunately, your use of kik (and kik-starter) mean that we can’t and our users will be confused and/or unable to find our package.

And Mike Roberts' side:

> In fact, once Azer had made it clear that he wasn’t going to change the name, we decided to use a different name for an upcoming package we are going to publish to NPM. We did hope that Azer would change his mind, but we were proceeding under a different package name even when we were told we could have the name Kik.

Edit: From the previous post (sorry, but I actually don't want to debate every fine point of this story, at least not on HN [terrible interface]):

>They went through a lot of trouble to get it, what leads you to believe they don't want it? At the very least they explicitly say they want it to avoid confusion for people expecting a package by them.

The fact that the package remains unused by kik Interactive. [0]

[0] https://www.npmjs.com/package/kik

1 comments

> The thread I linked to was in response to the above ^. There (in the link) is more about it. I believe the claims were made on Twitter and the Tweets have likely since been deleted.

Okay then.

> If NPM tolerates that language, they should also tolerate the word 'pussy', or a derivative, being used

What? Your argument seems to be "if NPM tolerates this one word, they should also tolerate this other word." Why?

Even if they were equivalent in offensiveness, the way you used the word and the way Bob used the word was fundamentally different. Calling someone a pussy is aggressive. It's understood to be an insult. Telling someone that you don't mean to be a dick is not insulting them. "Fuck" is arguably a worse word than either of these, but there are plenty of ways to use it that no one would call harassment. "I fucked up", for example.

> My notion of harassment isn't really pertinent.

I meant your interpretation of NPM's definition of harassment. Has it been unclear that that's been the core point of disagreement for our entire conversation?

> "someone [is illegally fucking you over]" [honestly not sure what this means]

I was very specific in the original statement. Someone is publishing your proprietary code under their name.

> which makes the discussion rather moot.

It's not moot, my point logically follows from it.

> Bob never tried to reason with Azer.

You seem to believe Azer has some kind of fundamental right to this name in the NPM package namespace. What could Bob have said that, in your view, would have counted as "trying to reason with" Azer?

> Bob was completely disingenuous the entire time.

See, when I think that, that's when I try to reconsider my take on a situation. I can't believe Bob woke up that morning, looked himself in the eye and decided to fuck over Azer. I think Bob was trying to release his open source project with his own company's name, was annoyed by Azer's curt response to his first request, and sent a pushy followup email.

> That and I have looked up all Trademarks for "kik" and none of them would apply in this situation.

I'm sure you have, jsprogrammer LLP.

> It's trivial, yet he didn't do it. Why would that be?

How about because no one asked him to? Because no one cares?

> Unfortunately this contradicts Bob's first email

Huh? It's perfectly consistent with "once Azer had made it clear that he wasn’t going to change the name, we decided to use a different name". Is there something about the timeline we're not agreeing on

First, Kik wants to publish a package, they ask for the name 'kik' from Azer to minimize confusion. Then, Azer gives them the middle finger, Kik switches names so releasing their package won't be blocked on seeing how this thing with Azer shakes out, but continues pursuing the name 'kik' to minimize confusion. Finally, NPM transfers the name to Kik, but they don't bother switching back their package's name.

Is that not their undisputed account of what happened?

You aren't reading me right. The problem is not the way in which the word was used, but the fact that the word was used at all. The Code of Conduct forbids it.

Further, the problem is not that Bob "d[id]n't mean to be a dick about it"; it is that despite Bob's well-meaning intention to not be a dick, he immediately reversed course with his next word, "but". So, Bob informs Azer that he doesn't mean to be a dick, then double slaps him with full-on dick-mode.

Like I said, a top troll.