Comment by jancsika
7 years ago
That's all well and good. But none of it explains why the author says the current changes taking place in the Linux project reinforce her decision not to participate in Linux.
How does a code of conduct and a hiatus for the guy who was cursing at people reinforce the decision to stay away? The only way that makes sense is if she weren't previously aware of any of the documented cases of Linus' abusive behavior, and that seems quite unlikely given she was already using her own "shadow ecosystem" years ago.
But none of it explains why the author says the current changes taking place in the Linux project reinforce her decision not to participate in Linux.
I can't speak for the author, so I can't explain that to you.
What I can tell you is that virtue signaling is vastly more common than people actually doing the right thing and nasty behavior frequently gets a great deal worse during periods when people are very visibly and openly trying to publicly address the problem in some manner.
My observation is that a common outcome is the metaphorical guillotines come out, people on their high horses behead all the bad guys, pronounce themselves to now be the good guys in charge and then business as usual follows.
So, for example, if the issue is sexism, terrible evil asshole sexist pigs take the fall to be promptly replaced by more men, not a mixed gender group of leaders, and you hear a lot of smack talk about more women being in the pipeline and someday this will result in gender parity while nothing really changes. But you should be nice to the new men in charge since they beheaded the bad guys and, clearly, in twenty years this will pay off for women.
If the issue is racism, well, clearly, racist white supremacist assholes get removed and are promptly replaced by new white people who will obviously treat people of color better -- someday, but probably not today, but you should believe they are the good guys. After all, they were so kind as to behead your enemies.
Etc.
If you are part of an "oppressed" group, you eventually get burned out on watching all the white guys fight over which white guys are less evil while no one actually does much of anything to genuinely include women, people of color, etc. And you don't really care to get in the middle of this mess knowing that none of these people actually has your best interest at heart and every last one of them will be happy to trample you underfoot in service of convincing virtue signaling.
Some of the most vicious fights are the ones about how to be respectful and well-mannered. Those frequently get ugly real, real fast and only go down hill from there.
> What I can tell you is that virtue signaling is vastly more common than people actually doing the right thing
You absolutely nailed it right here IMO.
Codes of conduct nowadays I feel are hijacked and reshaped into the vendetta persecutions you described.
Could Linus be nicer? Everybody keeps talking about that. I almost never see anyone assume that he tried being nicer but the only way he could get through to people was to draw their attention with being rude.
From what I gather, Linus is sincere and making a good faith effort. I think that's a better signal than writing a Code of Conduct. CoCs strike me as virtue signaling more often than not.
Hopefully, Linus will figure out a better path forward and start setting a better example. If he does that, I think that will make more of a difference than a CoC.
This post is not virtue signaling, come on
I believe you are misinterpreting her post. I believe she's trying to communicate that the eruption of toxic behavior in response to the addition of a code of conduct reinforces her decision to stay away, not the code itself.
It also makes sense if you view codes of conduct as inherently toxic and a sign of a hostile community, and don't view Linus's cursing as particularly out of line. After all, Linus tended to chew people out for what they did or what they made, not what they were.
Not everyone views having a CoC as a good thing. If they did, this whole set of drama wouldn't be a thing in the first place...
>How does a code of conduct and a hiatus for the guy who was cursing at people reinforce the decision to stay away? The only way that makes sense is if she weren't previously aware of any of the documented cases of Linus' abusive behavior, and that seems quite unlikely given she was already using her own "shadow ecosystem" years ago.
I did not read it that way. I read it more of calling out both sides as being toxic. And I do not think she was speaking specifically about Linux, but the whole dialogue these days about codes of conduct. She's indicting both the pro and anti crowds.
But in reality, all of us (including me) are projecting. She simply doesn't spell out what she's talking about.