Comment by seneca
7 years ago
While I don't think her solution is the best, I can't say I disagree with the spirit of this post. With politics being dragged ever more into the software world, people attacking everyone for any perceived transgression, attempts to get people kicked out of communities, or even fired, over social media comments, you really need to consider what you're exposing yourself to by getting involved in the open source community. You would think that a community based on giving away typically very expensive effort would be more welcoming, but somehow we've ended up with this.
It does seem like this is just part of some wider trend though. It's not just the software world, public communities in general seem to be destabilizing and radicalizing.
It's not perception. It's a byproduct of a few different things. Close interaction between people of different social classes, lack of faith in governmental institutions, massive changes in labor markets, and in the U.S. in particular massive disenfranchisement through gerrymandering and archaic voting and representation laws.