Don't Be Nice

eedent about 3 hours ago 3 commentsRead Article on roe.dev

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Discussion (3 Comments)Read Original on HackerNews

LoganDark•about 2 hours ago

It can be perfectly reasonable to remove people who are being completely inappropriate and/or egregiously insensitive. I think reducing it to simple politics is a distraction though. At the end of the day, people who are making everyone around them uncomfortable and causing everyone else to feel excluded/hated/marginalized probably deserve to learn that behavior is not tolerated, because that's often one of the only things that can get it to change.

Their opinions don't have to be political and your opinions don't have to be political. If someone is making the space worse for everyone, then maybe they're not good for the space. Maybe the space is not good for them. You would be doing good for both sides by stopping them from harming the space, and stopping the space from further enabling the problematic behavior.

I have personal experience with not changing until it became clear enough that certain behavior was driving away everyone and everything I care about. It didn't matter to me how much people told me it was bad, or tried to convince me to stop. What worked was seeing people leave over it, over and over, until I couldn't take it anymore. I had to change. You would be helping these kinds of people, and the community at large, by seeing to the consequences of their actions.

neuroticnews25•16 minutes ago

What if the space becomes a bit of an echo chamber when it comes to some topic and a person shows up with wildly different views, asks sharp questions and it becomes clear the community not used to having its beliefs argued doesn't have good answers? Negative valence arises through no fault of anybody. I've seen this happen multiple times. Utilitarian solution would be banning them, but it feels unjust.

basilikum•about 1 hour ago

Why is your bar that they must be hurtful to everyone? What do you suggest to do when they direct the same behavior only a certain group in the space? You say that it does not have to be political and I agree, but what if it is? What if they see that group as a legitimate target for political reasons?

LoganDark•about 1 hour ago

It's easier to make my point about behavior that is unquestionably harmful, like what's discussed in the article. Nothing I said can't extend to less clear-cut cases; honestly my entire point is that you should weigh decisions like this based on whether behavior is harmful to the community (or vice versa) rather than based on either side's "politics".

> What if they see that group as a legitimate target for political reasons?

It doesn't matter. I wouldn't engage with whether or not they think they're acting in a justified manner. If the behavior won't stop, the behavior is harmful, and the community would be better off without it, then sometimes you just have to kick someone out.

The reason why I say politics are a distraction is because I don't think you need to bother to explain that someone is politically incorrect or how you are less so. You can, but none of that is actually relevant in a majority of cases. Removing someone from a community is not about being more correct or about them being incorrect, it's for the good of the community (and/or the good of whoever you're removing).

XorNot•about 1 hour ago

For the better part of two decades I frequented a particular forum, and one of the most common reasons people tended to eventually get banned wasn't because of any particularly egregious political opinion, but because whatever opinion they held they tended to turn every thread they participated in anywhere into either a thread about that or a thread about them.

ath3nd•about 3 hours ago

> DHH, you're not welcome in the Nuxt community, because you say that Black people aren't 'native Brits' and call for the mass deportation of 'gypsies'.

100% agree. Niceness is NOT for white supremacists, and no, I am not debating whether DHH's politics are fascist-adjacent or what % of them are pure fascism.

DHH's politics and the man himself will get only shunning and ridicule from me. He's, after all, one of the weird little guys of FOSS: https://drewdevault.com/weird-guys/

tokioyoyo•about 1 hour ago

I have no idea why I clicked on that link, but honestly, it must be exhausting to try to care about that stuff consistently. Maybe I’ve gotten old, or have other priorities in life, but I can’t think of being so much into anyone’s yet alone FOSS people’s lives/choices/politics/etc.

well_ackshually•41 minutes ago

Half of these people are trying to actively make life worse for you, or someone you know. We care about that stuff because otherwise people like DHH will want to get you shot if you're black, or people like Stallman will want to sexually harass you if you're a woman.

If you have the privilege of being able to forget about it: congratulations. If you're part of those potentially at risk: closing your eyes just makes their jobs easier.

RobotToaster•about 1 hour ago

Your little unperson list loses all credibility when you include people like Louis Rossmann and Richard Stallman

well_ackshually•38 minutes ago

Rossmann might be a useful tool in fighting against companies, that doesn't change the fact that he's a gigantic asshole who regularly harasses people he disagrees with. In the same way, if Stallman could stop eating his toenails in public and saying that Epstein's victims were totally willing, maybe he would avoid being on that list.

Lerc•1 minute ago

Eating tonsils in public is weird, weird should not be a reason for exclusion, we're all weird in some way.

I don't think you're characterisation of what he said on the Epstein case is entirely accurate, but I think it did show a variety of inaccurate assumptions, biases, and added to an air of minimizing what happened. I can accept being uninformed an biased if an attempt to correct is made. I am unsure if I count his later statements as sufficient to address this for me.

I do however think Stallman tends to be a bully in situations where he feels he can act with impunity. That's why I don't like him very much.

That's just me though. I wouldn't tell others how to feel about it. That is what putting names on a list does. It demands that people decide based upon the list maker's reasons, not their own.

globular-toast•about 1 hour ago

Where's the list for people who would compile and publish a list of people who believe things they don't believe and call them "weird little guys"?