[gtaylor]

No, it's about DHH using politics as a stand-in for the actual issue: they mishandled this issue with the name list, they got called out and held to task for it, and they don't like that behavior.

The politics thing really amounts to "don't challenge me" and is a nice diversion from the actual issue.

[randomsearch]

Do you think that the name list was racist? Because it sounds to me like many people do, and it seems only if it was an act of racism would your comment be justified.

Looking at the reported details, it does _not_ seem to be an act of racism. It was reported very few names on the list were Asian, for example, and the only (not fully revealed) examples I read were European names.

[fastball]

What are Fried and DHH supposed to do, flagellate themselves?

[ashtonkem]

Not subtweeting their entire workforce on their extremely popular blog would probably be a good start.

Even if they decided to go with a “no politics” rule, doing it publicly was unbelievably shitty to their employees. Such policy changes really should’ve been done in private, especially since it was clear based on the phrasing that this was in response to a specific incident.

[fastball]

Basecamp as a company has always been about building in public. If you don't want things to happen in public you shouldn't have joined Basecamp.

[ashtonkem]

Disagree. There’s a difference between being transparent, and publicly implying that your workforce is problematic. Especially when there’s some issue that you’ve failed to deal with. That’s both inappropriate and unwise. This should’ve been an internal announcement, not an external one.

Maybe in a year after things have calmed down they could do a “we banned politics at the office and it was great” post, but the timing was guaranteed to create a fiasco for them.

As a metaphor, what they did is closer to disparaging someone’s work performance in an all hands. It might be “transparent”, but it’s also unprofessional.

[waheoo]

They pride themselves on being transparent..

[ashtonkem]

Please read what I said and respond, rather than reiterating someone else’s point.

[pm90]

Admit they made a mistake and address it, rather than institute a childishly overbroad ban on all "political conversation" specifically to shut down criticism related to their mistake.

[digitaltrees]

DHH literally said it was a systematic failure of the whole company but ultimately his responsibility, apologized and asked to move forward. Part of healthy dispute resolution is accepting an apology and moving forward with good faith forgiveness. If an apology isn’t good enough the cycle of conflict just resets because there can be no accepted resolution.

[pm90]

He literally said none of that publicly.

His public response was to post a blog about forbidding politics from work.

Part of healthy dispute resolution is recognizing how to apologize correctly and to the right people. Token apologies do not work for complex situations.

Additionally: he apologized for the list but not for his appalling behavior against an employee who pointed out issues with the list and was childishly dressed down very publicly in the company’s chat.

[fastball]

> The long-running existence of the "Best Names Ever" list that [employee 1] described yesterday represents a serious, collective, and repeated failure at Basecamp. One that we need to learn from together by transparently tracing its origin and history.

> Not only was it disrespectful to our customers, and a breach of basic privacy expectations, but it was also counter to creating an inclusive workplace. Nobody should think that maintaining such a list is okay or sanctioned behavior here.

> Furthermore, Jason and I should have caught this list. We are ultimately responsible for setting the tone of what's acceptable behavior at Basecamp, and in this instance we didn't. I'm sorry.

https://world.hey.com/dhh/let-it-all-out-78485e8e

[fastball]

Have you read DHH's blog? It sounds like they did exactly that, and the instigating employees were unwilling to let things go and insisted on continuing to escalate things.

[pm90]

“Instigating employees” really?

People were hurt by a very obvious instance of the company failing to live up to its stated values, so they attempt to bring it up to its founder.

He’s painted the situation as “troublemakers out to get my skin” whereas from all the reporting it appears that he’s been the one to needlessly throw a childish and very public temper tantrum.

[digitaltrees]

Read his words. They offer a respectful measured tone. They acknowledge and seek to make amends. It is a case study in healthy communication and dispute resolution, and that is saying something for someone like DHH who is prone to bombastic trolling generally. DHH never said instigating employees he merely requested that the apology be accepted and the team move forward. Then he asked everyone to consider the degree of severity of the problem and not give in to the temptation to bring slippery slope arguments into the debate because it actually undermines any possible progress by inflaming the debate, making people’s opinions more intractable and destroying any possible resolution.