GitHub tells user to remove the word "retarded" from his repo, the user proceeds to change it to "gi
137 replies, posted
[QUOTE=Swilly;48359008]Wasn't the code used inside actually using retard in the sense of slowing down?[/QUOTE]
No, it was not.
[QUOTE=itisjuly;48359027]No, it was not.[/QUOTE]
Then get rid of it. Its entirely unprofessional.
[QUOTE=Zephyrs;48358761]If the pc police actually knew anything about the topics they complained about, their heads would probably explode.
[url]http://gimpchat.com/files/196_splash-2.7.2.png[/url][/QUOTE]
There's nothing wrong with being a gimp (provided it's safe/sane/consensual) so why would "the PC police" care?
It's a shitty name because when you hear the name this
[video=youtube;S8kPqAV_74M]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S8kPqAV_74M[/video]
Comes to mind before anything related to image editing
[QUOTE=Swilly;48359066]Its entirely unprofessional.[/QUOTE]
So?
It's a public repository for code.
[QUOTE=Thlis;48359084]So?
It's a public repository for code.[/QUOTE]
So GitHub is required to host any shit that people put on it?
[QUOTE=Swilly;48359066]Then get rid of it. Its entirely unprofessional.[/QUOTE]
What does it matter? It's not developed by a corporation or for a corporation.
[QUOTE=CapellanCitizen;48359094]So GitHub is required to host any shit that people put on it?[/QUOTE]
That's irrelevant to what I said.
I was addressing the assumption it should be removed because it's "unprofessional"
[QUOTE=CapellanCitizen;48359094]So GitHub is required to host any shit that people put on it?[/QUOTE]
That depends. If they want to preach software freedom, then close to any shit, yes. Having "retard" in your code does not break any laws, why is it an issue then?
[QUOTE=catbarf;48358124]Some feel that these companies ought to focus on offering a service, and are being too heavy-handed with policing how their users employ that service.[/QUOTE]
I'm one of them. People are going to say and do what they say and do. It isn't Corporate America's place to police that.
[editline]2nd August 2015[/editline]
[QUOTE=CapellanCitizen;48359094]So GitHub is required to host any shit that people put on it?[/QUOTE]
So long as that code isn't [i]illegal[/i]. Last I checked putting obscenities in your code is crude but perfectly legal.
[QUOTE=TestECull;48359182]
So long as that code isn't [i]illegal[/i]. Last I checked putting obscenities in your code is crude but perfectly legal.[/QUOTE]
Reminds me of this actually
[url]https://twitter.com/gitlost[/url]
[QUOTE=Swilly;48359066]Then get rid of it. Its entirely unprofessional.[/QUOTE]
It originates from 4chan. It isn't meant to be professional.
[QUOTE=Scratch.;48359212]Reminds me of this actually
[url]https://twitter.com/gitlost[/url][/QUOTE]
when did "suck" become a swear
[editline]2nd August 2015[/editline]
[QUOTE=KillerJaguar;48359242]It originates from 4chan. It isn't meant to be professional.[/QUOTE]
this is pmuch my opinion. when the thing calls itself "webm converter for retards" and is made by a channer for channers i don't think professionality is really a concern of anyone actually working on it or using it. this seems to be people bitching about things that don't concern them, again.
[QUOTE=Handsome Matt;48359291]Why does my open source project have to be professional? Many many many open source projects, some that you probably use are incredibly unprofessional - it doesn't make the quality of the code or software any less.
Just seems like people who get offended too easily are once again winning by making an overwhelming amount of noise, such as enforcing code of conducts on projects to literally bully contributors into obeying their fixed behavior of "no trans/race/etc-phobia" which can mean literally anything these days when you have white people identifying as black people, these contributors share their personal opinion on twitter and literally get witch hunted and bullied off of GitHub and away from open source software development by a tiny minority who get "offended" and make a whole lot of noise about it.
I really don't like the way things are headed for GitHub and the open source community in general, someone's recently been banned from an open source conference for having "negative opinions" on transexual people so of course @freebsdgirl and the gang bullied the guy and got his name tarnished and banned from this event. Yet some of you in this thread are just shrugging all of this off like it's not a big deal.[/QUOTE]
This so much, the point of code is that it works and does it's job fine, the rest is fluff most of the and must not affect the software itself.
[QUOTE=itisjuly;48358867]Is the word "retard" such a big issue? To be fair I think that to whoever it is, they need to seek help.[/QUOTE]
The social justice community has plenty of theories on how many factors, including such little things - death by a thousand cuts - as casual use of slurs in contexts where they are [I]clearly[/I] not intended to insult - all add up to a situation in which minorities do not have equal standing with cishet-white-ablebodied-men.
But I'm not gonna get into how much merit there is to those. For one, because it's a complicated subject (I hope we can all agree that a forum post might not quite be enough to discuss the veracity and logic of a subject so large it has its own academic field), but more importantly because the outcome here doesn't matter to me - though I'd certainly encourage anyone who cares about politics to critically examine them, especially if they already think the outcome would matter to them (i.e. you'd switch gears if you started believing these little slurs really do have much greater effects than offending some people, or vice versa).
But what is absolutely obvious is that a minority - but not an insignificantly small one! - of people does feel offended, hurt or unsafe - consciously or not. At least that is an issue that we [I]know[/I] exists, so please don't pretend it's not.
[I]Whether we should care[/I], whether we should accomodate those people out of empathy, whether we want to decrease freedom of speech for it (or like GitHub doing that), whether we consider further decreases of freedom of speech in the same vein a Good Thing, whether even if we don't we should accept the risk of that happening etc... these are all different questions.
I contribute to open source because I enjoy working with others in a fun and friendly environment and improving projects I use or work with.
If I make a joke in bad taste, despite the fact harm to others was not my intention, does that really mean I am a bad individual? Because that's how I would feel if I received one of these notices.
Does mean me or my community's repository really deserves to be taken down for insensitivity or offense, if I choose to not amend a joke or remark? Is open source about code and community, or is it about the outliers of the development?
It's an interesting perspective to have, but I think overall it's going to cause more harm than good to open source. I think it's absurd to threaten removal of a repository due to use of language. Even if it's offensive.
[QUOTE=Swilly;48359066]Then get rid of it. Its entirely unprofessional.[/QUOTE]
[url]http://www.vidarholen.net/contents/wordcount/[/url]
I think it is a good thing that Linux isn't hosted in github then
[QUOTE=Handsome Matt;48359375][URL="https://github.com/opal/opal/issues/941"]Ah here we go a fine example of bullying[/URL], using an issue tracker to demand the removal of someone contributing code to a project in his spare time because of a harmless comment he made on his personal twitter not affiliated with the project, nowhere on the issue tracker for the project had he ever said anything offensive. A blatant witch hunt mainly on someone who's tweet was hardly even offensive.
The person complaining doesn't even contribute to the project, nor do any of the social justice warriors backing her up, they just out voice the majority of people, and complain and complain and harass and harass until they cave in and bully someone out of a community.
And now GitHub is quite literally complying with them straight up by removing anything that's deemed "offensive" to anyone that yells loud enough.
[editline]3rd August 2015[/editline]
I mean gee some of them even get funded through Patreon for thousands of dollars a month to harass people through the name of anti-harassment:
[t]http://files.handsomematt.co.uk/ShareX/2015/08/2015-08-03_03-09-01.png[/t][/QUOTE]
I didn't think they would go THAT far, contributing to open source projects is something completely seperate from your own personal opinion.
[QUOTE=eirexe;48359485]I didn't think they would go THAT far, contributing to open source projects is something completely seperate from your own personal opinion.[/QUOTE]
You can only imagine. [url]https://github.com/opal/opal/issues/941[/url]
[QUOTE=Handsome Matt;48359502]But they do and that's the issue, it should be, it really really should be. But these people are making it not.[/QUOTE]
Yeah that's fucked up.
[QUOTE=Handsome Matt;48359375]I mean gee some of them even get funded through Patreon for thousands of dollars a month to harass people through the name of anti-harassment:
[t]http://files.handsomematt.co.uk/ShareX/2015/08/2015-08-03_03-09-01.png[/t][/QUOTE]
I really don't see any harassment in a tool that helps people avoid reading things people they don't like say.
[QUOTE=Venom Mk III;48359545]You can only imagine. [url]https://github.com/opal/opal/issues/941[/url][/QUOTE]
There's two problems with this:
1. You can say whatever you want on the internet, but you should have to deal with the repercussions of doing so.
Because this person said they were transphobic, he's alienating people and making people feel unwelcome. Why would you want to work with a person that thinks less of you?
2. You can protest, but don't shoot the messenger.
Most people in that original thread weren't interested in resolution or rational debate, but instead flinging shit at the one person who was trying to keep level-headed. Instead of trying to talk things out with some honesty and humility, people went militant.
[QUOTE=DrTaxi;48359582]I really don't see any harassment in a tool that helps people avoid reading things people they don't like say.[/QUOTE]
You need to be in the know to understand. She's making a list of people she doesn't like & calling them harassers while bullying feminist authors and doxing people.
[QUOTE=Handsome Matt;48359452]I wonder what'd happen if GitHub suspended the [URL="https://github.com/torvalds/linux"]Linux mirror on GitHub[/URL] because Linus tells people to fuck off all the time.[/QUOTE]
Hell, why is github even a thing? Git was created by Linus Torvalds, and Linus is known to offend people by being extremely blunt and sometimes calling them derogatory terms. I believe he's even called some things or people "retards/retarded."
Wouldn't using and supporting Git by some twisted logic be enabling and supporting the same ideals that Github is apparently trying to fight against?
[QUOTE=wauterboi;48359668]There's two problems with this:
1. You can say whatever you want on the internet, but you should have to deal with the repercussions of doing so.
Because this person said they were transphobic, he's alienating people and making people feel unwelcome. Why would you want to work with a person that thinks less of you?
2. You can protest, but don't shoot the messenger.
Most people in that original thread weren't interested in resolution or rational debate, but instead flinging shit at the one person who was trying to keep level-headed. Instead of trying to talk things out with some honesty and humility, people went militant.[/QUOTE]
I would like to add to this for clarification: the consequences are influencing people to not use your service, affiliate with you, or work with you.
[QUOTE=wauterboi;48359769]I would like to add to this for clarification: the consequences are influencing people to not use your service, affiliate with you, or work with you.[/QUOTE]
I understand your points, both of which I agree with, but the opal thing to me was just a blatant misuse of the community at the core.
Someone wanted to remove someone from a project they hadn't contributed to themselves. They somehow decided that the issue tracker was the right place to start a vendetta.
The whole thing could have been avoided and resolved quicker if a more mature decision was made in the first place, such as emailing the lead maintainer, which makes miles more sense given the sensitivity of the issue.
[editline]3rd August 2015[/editline]
Sometimes, people don't actually want the issue resolved, they just wish to draw attention to it when it's not always the right thing to do. The "bikeshed" concept is one of those things.
[QUOTE=CapellanCitizen;48359079]There's nothing wrong with being a gimp (provided it's safe/sane/consensual) so why would "the PC police" care? [/QUOTE]
Because most of them are colossal hypocrites in some fashion or another?
See the first page for someone demanding actions against gimp. It's impossible to tell if that screencap is actually satire. Some people actually do care. I've run into some of them.
[QUOTE=mooman1080;48358795]It's a matter of principle, censorship is still censorship, just because it's easier to just take it doesn't mean you should.[/QUOTE]
Except the word "retard" isn't a protected form of speech and if censoring a word was illegal the FCC would be in for a world of trouble. (for obvious reason) Beyond that Github could legally change all text to just read "bark, bark, bark," repeat, ect, deleting all other content in the process and that's perfectly within [I]their[/I] rights.
Beyond that, my suggestion of simply implementing a good community policy regarding how you conduct your self on [I]their[/I] service is perfectly within[I] their [/I]right as well and it's more restrictive than simple word bans. [B]Facepunch[/B] has more "censorship" by your contextual definition than github does, and you're posting here aren't you? Just because there are rules about how much of an asshole you can be doesn't mean your freedoms are being stripped from you one by one in the name of creating a totalitarian thought police ran society.
[QUOTE=eirexe;48359485]I didn't think they would go THAT far, contributing to open source projects is something completely seperate from your own personal opinion.[/QUOTE]
It was really messy. I read through it and the Twitter conversation all this was about, and a good 80% of the allegations were flat out made up no matter how you look at it.
He was extremely polite on Twitter considering a lot of people were more or less screaming at him how terrible he was supposedly being too.
(I don't agree with him on the underlying issue btw, in case you look it up. I just don't think anything he tweeted warrants more than one short reply of disagreement.)
The project maintainer was away and couldn't moderate properly, and also completely failed to check the validity of the allegations before giving way to a CoC (which ironically enough should have banned a lot of the actual harassers but wasn't enforced at all as far as I know).
I really couldn't give a shit either way about this specific instance, but I want to chip in on the "offense" debate. Personally, I think it's a little silly to be offended just from hearing a negative word you identify with in certain contexts, and that's the important part; context. If I say the pistons of an engine are being retarded, do you really believe I am being insensitive? If I call a blatantly handicapped person retarded, then yes, absolutely. But if if someone casually uses the word retarded to describe something inanimate, I do not see the point in being offended to the point that you're willing to enact the effort to silence that person or group.
If GitHub (or any other service) has a rule in their TOS against offensive language, then it's a whole different story, and I am not sure if it does or not.
[QUOTE=DrTaxi;48359582]I really don't see any harassment in a tool that helps people avoid reading things people they don't like say.[/QUOTE]
She promotes it elsewhere and for other purposes. For example [URL="http://www.twitlonger.com/show/n_1sn4lnd"]O'Reilly OSCON's social media manager recently used it to block all those people on the list[/URL] for the duration of the convention after some criticised her doing an anti-harassment talk while being one of the worst examples in that regard herself.
It only checks if you follow at least two(?) people she disagrees with (every single one of which is utterly benign compared to her and probably still relatively nice compared to the average Twitter user), so the list has easily over 90% false-positives.
IGDA also promoted the list as one of "worst harassers" for a while. This was while their own Puerto Rican chairman was on the list.
He complained about it and subsequently had to explain to a ton of people that he isn't a misogynist.
Aside from the obvious censorship issues with a deceptively advertised tool promoted to a large number of people (Yes, I do somewhat regularly stumble across someone who has me blocked with no interaction. This did include [URL="https://twitter.com/raspberry_pi"]Raspberry Pi[/URL] for a while.), the blocks on Twitter work bidirectionally so you can't follow any accounts using it, can't view their timeline*, and can't retweet, favourite or reply to any of their tweets if you happen to get on her bad side by association.
* The search works normally so this point is moot to some extent.
[editline]3rd August 2015[/editline]
[QUOTE=blerb;48360170][...]
If GitHub (or any other service) has a rule in their TOS against offensive language, then it's a whole different story, and I am not sure if it does or not.[/QUOTE]
They have an incredibly vague "if we feel like it" rule: [quote]We may, but have no obligation to, remove Content and Accounts containing Content that we determine in our sole discretion are unlawful, offensive, threatening, libelous, defamatory, pornographic, obscene or otherwise objectionable or violates any party's intellectual property or these Terms of Service.[/quote]
Note that they are already required by law to remove about half of these.
If you remove that and the parts about pornography and threats (which are understandable and may even be required (the former at least here since there's no age gate)), what remains are "offensive" and "otherwise objectionable".
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