An important recent learning about programming adoption is that a good community is absolutely key to drive growth. Makes sense to establish the principles.
this has nothing to do with community or even inclusivity and everything to do with signaling political allegiance & telling people who don’t agree that they aren’t welcome
It is quite literally the opposite of what you and others supporting this are claiming it to be
All you have to do is remove the weird bit about “nazis”, which is irrelevant and adds nothing of value to the statement anyways, and you’re not really going to scare any normal person off. But this is just over the top and literally the only purpose it could serve is as an exclusionary political signal.
From what I've encountered, the main principle of this activism seems to be around reorganising society by 'gender identity' in place of sex, and redefining language to further this aim. I'd be interested to hear your perspective on this.
Casually using “Nazi” like this in context of American politics just means “anyone to the right of me”
it’s ambiguous but the implications are clear
If you are a Christian, someone who would use this phrase would likely call you a Nazi. If you don’t want to abolish the state of Israel, they might call you a Nazi. It could be any issue really. But to actually be “safe” in an environment like this you have to align yourself roughly to the politics of the DSA or you aren’t welcome.
I guess you could say at this point that “Nazi” has devolved into being a sort of a political slur referring to anyone who is not sufficiently leftist.
That's a lot to bring to a random footer on a web page about something else. I get the distaste for sloganeering but the suggestion that 'the implications are clear' that this is.... the DSA? feels like a more than a bit of a reach.
It is a reach and that’s kind of the issue I guess. You have no idea whether or not people involved would call you a Nazi or what for, only that they might.
I am probably overreacting to this because I have encountered it in the workplace before. Politics constantly being brought up inappropriately & the only safe move was to go out of your way to signal to the right people that you were on their “team”. The occasional political witch hunt over nothing would happen. A good portion of the company spent most of the day talking politics instead of working but I assume nothing was done out of fear of retaliation. A lot of really bizarre things, but hopefully not the norm.
You have no idea whether or not people involved would call you a Nazi
You have no idea of that whatever footer they put on their page, short of one that is 'we like to call people Nazis'. The reaction is as if someone's already called you personally a Nazi and the footer doesn't do that.
Again, I get the discomfort with the perception you might have different political views from whoever wrote that footer. But that's the discomfort of difference that comes with everyday life. Nobody has called anyone a Nazi, that's not a reasonable extrapolation from either the footer or your unpleasant personal experience combined with the footer.
It is best understood as a social contract - in order for a group to function, people need to tolerate each other. People who don't obey that social contract are therefore not eligible for being in the group.
Yes, but in most cases I have seen that is just used as a justification for hostile behavior that has nothing to do with actual intolerance. The opposite tends to happen - you let people like this get power & their intolerance is then what is tolerated out of fear that they’d come for you next if you called them out on it.
An example: I once had someone tell me to my face that I shouldn’t have an engineering job at all because no white men without a college degree should be “allowed” to. At work. However, this person was involved in ERGs and close with people in HR, so I didn’t have much choice but to just accept it and move on.
Another good example I’ve seen personally: employer hires a new CTO. He sets up the second phase of our interview process to be a phone call with him, and out of dozens of candidates he only allows Muslim candidates through this process. This was the clearest case of discrimination I have seen. When someone on my team speaks out about this, he’s fired and we are all scolded about racism being unacceptable.
This isn’t a social contract, it’s organized harassment and abuse by politically obsessed weirdos and it has no place in any professional environment.
"Black lives matter", "trans rights are human rights" and "no Nazi bullshit" are completely uncontroversial positions though. Like, if you disagree with those, then there's something fundamentally wrong with how you view the world and interact with other human beings.
No they're not. They are common phrases used to shoehorn a lot of politics and meaning into a simplified message that doesn't really reflect everything it stands for.
Everyone knows this and it is highly controversial which is the point. I don't agree with any of these things because I know what they mean in reality.
Casually calling people nazi on a website for a programming language isn't really cherrypicking and I find it to be quite interesting and very influential in my decision NOT to use this language.
This message is right in your face, it isn't like you have to search for it.
the actual effect of enforcing this rule in this circumstance is basically to say that implicit political loyalty tests are a normal thing to have on a website for a programming language
on a surface level the statement isn’t controversial in any way, but the particular language that’s used signals something else entirely
No, the rule is about not going on irrelevant tangents and not dingleberrypicking stuff from submissions. Its actual effect is that such diversions get moderated by users and moderators, just like this one did by users.
Not sure what this was since it appears they just have a link to the code of conduct now.
The type of statement isn’t really the issue, but the specific language used being in the form of political slogans and the “Nazi” bit. I don’t remember seeing anything quite like that on the Go page. Or any other programming language’s page.
The daily standup is not the right forum, for example. The pub after work? maybe.
The previous part of the community statement gets the "we're going to be nice, and not discriminate, and focus on the language itself" point across just fine.
Signaling that you want to inject politics into an inappropriate context signals that you may be the type of project that will do unpredictable things when the political mood strikes and makes it less viable to depend on you.
I couldn't agree more. Injecting personal political advocacy into a professional context is itself unprofessional and raises large numbers of questions about fly.io and the Gleam project's ability to operate in solely professional context.
It's this "turn everything into activism" bullshit that people across the the political spectrum engage in on social media that got me to cancel all my social media accounts some years ago (present company excluded).
The other problem with these statements is they can never get rid of them, because the people that like them will freak out if they do that. It's like the land acknowledgements we have in Canada that keep getting longer and longer and will never go away unless the pendulum eventually swings
The moment someone raises a ticket that says "hey, maybe we should put 'no nazis' in the FAQ", you, as the FAQ maintainer, have to make a choice. Whatever you choose is a political choice, even ignoring the ticket. Fencesitting is a political choice too. It's just unavoidable.
If you came into my FAQ and wanted me to put medical advice in it we would not see my refusing to engage with the concept with it as medical advice in itself. (I would not be seen as either for or against the medical advice, in fact people would wonder why the heck you were suggesting I put medical advice in my software FAQ!)
"this isn't the place for that" used to be a very well understood concept, and everyone was able to respect that, whether it was in the workplace or over Thanksgiving dinner. We just stopped enforcing that and started treating "not here, not now" as though it were taking a side.
Have you read The Analytical Language of John Wilkins by Borges? It crops up here occasionally. If not, I'd totally recommend it.
When you draw up rules for an FAQ you're delimiting a box and saying "the stuff inside the box is part of my model, and the stuff outside it is not". The person suggesting you put advice about raising suckling pigs in your Emacs FAQ (picking the most extreme example I can think of) is suggesting you redraw the box - change the model. I'd still say the decision to redraw the model or not is a political decision. I'd also say that saying "no" is obviously the right decision. But still political.
I admit my definition of political (any action or decision that affects how people relate to each other or how resources and opportunities are allocated) is maximalist. We could, at root, be talking about different things.
I haven't read it, but I'll add it to my reading list!
I suppose I have to agree with you that the statement itself is political, given your definition. In which case I'd simply re-phrase my argument. We used to have political neutral zones, where we agreed that we'd try to avoid overt political discussion, and we'd politely ignore those little statements that are "still political". In your example we would all be able to agree that "no" is obviously the right decision regarding the FAQ additions, and we'll all politely ignore the fact that we have differing opinions about the politics of raising suckling pigs. Neutral territory where we can put aside our differences and focus on something bigger.
We've lost a lot of those spaces, which is sad because those neutral zones are critical for the functioning of any ideologically diverse group of people. We have a word for a space where everyone must agree, and must all say all the correct phrases: cult.
We need to build communities, not cults. And to do that we need to be able to agree to disagree about things.
(Back when I was doing a lot of Ruby "Matz is nice and so we are nice" seemed to me to be about the best community code of conduct you could hope for!)
Foucault wrote: "This book first arose out of a passage in Borges, out of the laughter that shattered, as I read the passage, all the familiar landmarks of my thought [...] breaking up all the ordered surfaces and all the planes with which we are accustomed to tame the wild profusion of existing things, and continuing long afterwards to disturb and threaten with collapse our age-old distinction between the Same and the Other."
Well sure, if weirdo runs up to me and starts asking me what I think of Nazis, anything I say or don't say could definitely be looked at with a political lens. Doesn't mean I'm being anywhere as political as the weirdo.
Suggesting to mention Nazis in the FAQ is extremely political. Closing, ignoring or fencing the ticket is much less political.
It's up to everyone whether you want to raise or lower the levels, keeping in mind what you actually want to accomplish.
The status quo is the progressive theology. If billionaires fund your advocates, you have most of the elected representation, and the state-sanctioned press amplifies your views, then you're not challenging anything.
You foster a positive community by accusing the person reading your webpage of potentially being a Nazi? lmao
All this sort of thing tells me is to avoid this community because accusations of bigotry are going to start flying over the smallest of arguments and I have no interest in having people try to ruin my life because of their unhealthy obsession with politics
People are ignoring (or pretending not to know?) that these are political slogans. They signal allegiance to a rather prickly segment of the political left.
I always take these things as a kind of warning. They're telling you what their politics are, and that they're upfront about it. If you agree with that or can at least ignore that, you'll be alright. If not, don't interact.
Personally I'll use any technology regardless of the politics, but engaging with people is another matter.
They're not very specific and quite open to interpretation. As a left leaner here in Norway, I find at least the last two to be quite problematic and a huge red flag. They make me feel significantly less welcome.
Trans rights are not well defined (ie what do the Gleam team put under that umbrella), and I've seen several statements in that context that I find problematic at best.
And they say "No nazi bullsh*t", which to me is a very loose phrasing with avtivist vibes, meaning I get unsure what exactly they put under the Nazi banner. Is it just actual Nazis or anyone they don't like, or something inbetween?
trans rights are incredibly well defined, actually. they’re human rights. trans people deserve the same rights as every other human. idk what “problematic statements” you’ve heard but it sounds like you need to listen to less ben shapiro. saying you’ve heard “several” without providing any examples sounds like you just don’t like trans people.
I think it’s safe to assume that when a community claims to contain “no nazi bullshit”, they mean that it contains no nazis or their associated bullshit. if you’re worried that that includes you or people you sympathize with, ask yourself “_why_?”, because it makes a lot of sense to everyone in the quite active gleam community.
I mean you say they’re well defined but your own explanation is a vague generalization. I don’t think any decent & rational person wants to deprive trans people of basic human rights, but that doesn’t mean they’re comfortable with every single demand of activists either, which is probably the actual intent of the message.
As for the “no nazi bullshit” part, this doesn’t tell me anything except that the community has some childish and unstable people who have a habit of calling everyone they disagree with a nazi. It’s not hard to be “worried that that includes you” when there are plenty of people who would call someone a nazi for just about anything or for being even slightly to the right of them on any issue.
It has very little to do with a literal interpretation of these words, which these types always hide behind because they are cowards, and everything to do with the implicit meaning given broader context.
again, I would really like to hear what the "activists" are demanding that you think is so unreasonable.
that's a lot to assume from a couple words on a website, but if you're this fun at parties we must really be missing out.
also btw, hi, it's me, the coward who wrote the prose for the website. tho it wasn't _just_ me that thought it was a good idea. it's done a terrific job of keeping "un-politic" buzz kills away.
When 'trans rights' are demanded by these activists, typically it's because they want self-proclaimed 'gender identity' to override sex in every circumstance.
This is particularly harmful to women who need female-only spaces away from any males. Any man who calls himself a woman would be able to enter any space designated solely for women, with impunity.
This has already happened in many places that have acceded to 'trans rights' activist demands. It is a political and ideological assault on women's boundaries and consent.
> trans rights are incredibly well defined, actually. they’re human rights.
Then why can't I readily find a well defined list of what they are? For reference, the human rights are fairly well defined[1].
Of course trans people should be covered by the human rights. They're human as well, so that goes without saying.
> idk what “problematic statements” you’ve heard
I don't keep an evidence folder, so to speak, so I can't provide references.
However, I think we can agree there are extremists on both ends. It's also not a well-established term, in that it's fairly recent and isn't solidified in the same way as older terms like "human rights". Thus the need to be specific when referencing it.
> it sounds like you need to listen to less ben shapiro
Never knowingly listened to (nor read) Ben Shapiro and I couldn't pick him out in a crowd. I generally don't listen to or read much political commentary.
> I think it’s safe to assume that when a community claims to contain “no nazi bullshit”, they mean that it contains no nazis or their associated bullshit.
No, that is not safe to assume at all because a lot of people misuse "nazi" to mean something very different from actual Nazis, typically someone they strongly disagree with.
It really shouldn’t be controversial to suggest that calling people nazis on the official website for your programming language is unprofessional, but here we are…
But the idea that it would even be a concern for there to be “nazi bullshit” in a programming language would require such an absurdly broad definition of nazi that i can only assume whoever wrote this would consider a large % of Americans to be Nazis. This is inherently exclusionary. The statement is bullshit. It isn’t “Friendly <3” as the heading would suggest.
Quite the opposite if you see my other comments, I think you may have misread what I said here. This statement is clearly a problem imo, its usage of political slogans makes it more of a declaration of political allegiance rather than actually being about inclusivity.
Only if you take it literally which you would only do if you were entirely ignorant of American politics or deliberately hiding behind this interpretation to pretend you aren’t actually taking about a broad % of the population
It should be safe. Still it seems some people get offended by it. What kind of people? I can only assume they are people more supportive of autocratic regimes than the rest of us.
You seem to be applying some kind of modus ponens rule to this list. To me, they read disjointly; you can agree with the status quo regarding police violence, and that trans people should not be welcomed in society, and still not follow Nazi ideology.
Thanks for the clarification. By that, do you mean that you have no issue with the exclusion of 'trans women' (i.e. men who identify as women) from female-only spaces?
