[binarymax]

There isn't any problem with her advice. There is a problem with the hosts. The suggestion that encouraging contributions to OSS might expose someone to being harmed in some way is absurd. You may as well say nobody should go to the grocery store - there might be a racist hiding in the frozen food section!

[0815test]

> The suggestion that encouraging contributions to OSS might expose someone to being harmed in some way is absurd.

Ironically enough, given the way this woman has been treated, and with CoC's that are explicitly open to being aggressively abused against "undesirables" of all sorts being increasingly ubiquitous in the OSS community, this suggestion is becoming less and less absurd by the day!

[criddell]

I'd like to understand this better.

Is the microaggression the implicit assumption that you should be able to handle the potentially negative people you encounter in the OSS community?

[icebraining]

I think the microaggression is not explicitly stating that those negative experiences exist while making that broad statement ("contributing to OSS is a good way to get started"), and thereby disregarding/minimizing/ignoring the people who had those experiences, harming them.

[criddell]

Oy. An article or talk where every point includes a disclaimer (or even a YMMV) would be pretty tedious. Katie started her talk saying it was an anecdote and it's too bad that a blanket statement in the preamble isn't good enough.

[icebraining]

Oh, I don't disagree, just passing on what I understood from the tweets :)

[fortran77]

I always had my suspicions about Mrs. Paul!