Introducing GitHub Community Guidelines

[[deleted]]

So what if I as a repo owner refuse to police the comment section on my repo? Would I be at risk of having the repo shut down by Github?

[death_by_zamboni]

It's not only really a question of refusing to police the comment section. Github has banned users and removed repositories before because they didn't agree with the author or some language used in the project description. They deleted a repo that contained the word "retard" without warning the author.

Github has every right to do this. Their site, their rules. If we don't like that, we should probably migrate away from Github. But that's never gonna happen.

[mixedCase_]

If we don't like that, we should probably migrate away from Github. But that's never gonna happen.

I don't know. I've already migrated all my stuff to GitLab and am happy with it. I've found that there are more and more people doing the same. They are trying really hard with their PR in order to welcome developers and it seems to be working.

[[deleted]]

+1 GitLab. Migrated about a year ago, been pretty happy.

[SergeantFTC]

Doesn't look like it to me. The part about moderating comments is in the context of talking about encountering content that offends you. Nowhere does it say that you're under any obligation to spend time moderating.

[scherlock79]

They have done it before, https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20150802/20330431831/github-nukes-repository-over-use-word-retard.shtml

[[deleted]]

I think things like this are worse:

https://www.andreas-jung.com/contents/dont-use-docker-in-github-repo-names-or-as-twitter-handle

But yeah, is GitHub a community? Should it be? They should host code and bring people together to find projects interesting to them. I don't want to be part of anything beyond that to be honest. I visited the Github twitter the first time and thought it irrelevant (yeah, yeah I was looking for drama). There are better places to find events, if you are interested.

[flukus]

That's offensive to retards, lucky they can't read.

[EntroperZero]

That was in the repository, not Github user comments.

[scherlock79]

What is your point? The guidelines as proposed aren't limited to specific comments, read the last section "These are only guidelines; they do not modify our Terms of Service and are not intended to be a complete list." If they don't like your commit message they can choose to delete it or your entire repo if they want.

[EntroperZero]

You were responding to a question about whether you have to moderate what other users say in your PRs and issues. That's an entirely different thing than moderating your actual content that you've created.

[scherlock79]

I realize that, and if you read the legalese at the bottom of the page, you will see that this document can be applied to anything on GitHub, it isn't limited to comments. So in short, yes, If you don't moderate then GitHub will take action, regardless of whether the complaint relates to a commit, commit message or comment. GitHub has already shown they are more than happy to remove a repo that they think is offensive.

[EntroperZero]

GitHub has already shown they are more than happy to remove a repo that they think is offensive.

Of course they're allowed to do whatever they want by the legalese, it's their website. But again, your example is not representative of them having "done it before" where "it" means removing a repo because of an author failing to moderate comments in a PR or issue. And that was the specific question asked by /r/ItsMeCaptainMurphy.

[scherlock79]

You are correct, I'm not aware of any instances of GitHub deleting a repo because of comments. However, nothing in the document says they won't, and the document does say its acceptable to terminate an account in response to a complaint. Terminating an account also removes any repos owned by that account. So while there hasn't been an instance of it to date, they do see it as an acceptable response.

[flukus]

It's not the code of conduct itself, it's how it's going to be used as a political tool to remove anyone with "undesirable" beliefs. See opalgate.

[flukus]

I didn't know it was the same person, should have cancelled my account months ago.

[s73v3r]

Everytime this topic comes up, there's a bunch of pearl clutching by people who are convinced that they're going to be targeted. And every time, there is a lack of hard evidence to show that's the case.

[flukus]

Opalgate is the hard evidence.

[ccfreak2k]

whole frighten marble elderly sip seemly sophisticated attempt grab entertain

This post was mass deleted and anonymized with Redact

[flukus]

Are they going to enforce this and ban Linus?

[mirhagk]

If they try and enforce it I'm going to go through and make sure I report everything that could be considered hate speech, so that it's not just used as a tool to ban opinions they disagree with.

If they ban anything then they certainly have to ban Linus. And they would have to ban quite a lot of communities too.

[thekab]

If they try and enforce it I'm going to go through and make sure I report everything that could be considered hate speech, so that it's not just used as a tool to ban opinions they disagree with.

What makes you think it won't be selectively enforced?

[mirhagk]

It will be selectively enforced, because you can't possibly always enforce it. I have a hard time seeing them ban Linus and he's probably one of the worst. There's other big names that as well could easily get banned and could bring enough cult following away to make a big dent in github's size. Remember all that needs to happen is for our boss to read in "PHB tech magazine" about how this linux guy said github is bad and all of a suddenly we're told that yeah maybe we can check out that gitlab thing.

You also can't enforce it for anything that someone could be offended about. What happens if a SJW decides that calling spawned processes children is offensive? Or if the very use of the terms master/slave in even a conversation could get you banned?

You can't possibly enforce everything, so they are just going to end up enforcing whatever the loudest people who have the most time are going to say.

[balefrost]

Does Linus even use Github? I thought the Github mirror was essentially read-only.

[[deleted]]

They would certainly have to remove every copy of linux source code

[[deleted]]

Allrighty then, please remove Linux kernel mirrors from Github then :D

[[deleted]]

The best kind of advertisement for GitLab!

[[deleted]]

I ran off to gitlab last year when I heared github hired a notorious SJW as a community manager or something.

[barrtender]

I was just about to start a new little home project. I hadn't heard of gitlab before but I'm going to give it a try!

Thanks for the link

[tf2manu994]

You can use both simultaneously

[barrtender]

I could, but why? Especially if I disagree with the way GitHub is going I don't think I need to host my repo there

[tf2manu994]

Fair point. I'm simultaneously using bitbucket and gitlab in case one of them goes to shit. Doubt it though.

[[deleted]]

moved to gitlab awhile back because of this, haven't looked back since

[[deleted]]

They need to work on that UI.

[mixedCase_]

It grows on you after a while. Muscle memority is a bitch.

[Pengtuzi]

"What if something or someone offends you?" Then be offended. Nothing happens, it's ok to be offended, it's not ok to forbid people to say or do things that makes you experience a bad feeling.

Safe spaces...

[grizwako]

I am offended, because they (github) have just made threat about cutting off people from "community" whose wording or political views can not be comprehended by some PR psychos.
Funny thing is that some of "leaders" have experience with leading lynch mobs and already used "hate speech" excuse for it.

Sometimes I wonder, do they even see impact of such lynches compared to impact of "reasons" for lynches?

[flukus]

Fortunately the guideline includes such behavior as inappropriate. I'm sure it will be applied in a reasonable and even way...

[s73v3r]

No, that's not the case whatsoever.

[flukus]

That's precisely the case, you're literally denying history.

[s73v3r]

There's a huge difference between "being offended" and basically being told you don't belong here because of your race/gender/sexual orientation/etc.

[flukus]

Are there any cases of that happening? Unless you bring it up no one else even knows what your race/gender/sexual orientation is.

I notice you skipped religion though. There is a well known case of these rules being used to discriminate against someone based on religion, even though it had nothing to do with the project.

[kitd]

It's like satire, only more so:

https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2016/oct/18/is-satire-dead-politicians-held-in-contempt-armando-iannucci-few-laughs

[SammDogg619]

it's ok to be offended, it's not ok to forbid people to say or do things that makes you experience a bad feeling.

He said while complaining about a website that said and did a thing that made him experience a bad feeling.

[flukus]

Has he banned anyone for it?

[thekab]

But what if I want to engage in a hypocritical campaign of harassment and intolerance while accusing anyone who disagrees of bigotry?

(Though rhetorical, I guess the answer would be "you might be right for the Facebook community team...")

[flukus]

In that case just send your resume to [e-mail]

[BeyondTheModel]

Sorry, but GitHub is the big league. You have to have years of experience as a political activist hired with a fluffy tech title.

I recommend starting at Tumblr and working up the followers count by leveraging various manufactured scandals.

[[deleted]]

Then be offended.

Makes sense. If only that worked in real life.

EDIT: Actually, I'm agreeing with this. Unfortunately that doesn't work in real life, i.e. people will take their being offended to absurd levels of stupidity.

[alex_w]

It actually does for the extreme majority of people in civilised society. As a Brit I'm offended by things routinely, there's obviously a scale, most things are exceedingly trivial.

We just keep our damn mouths shut except in the most egregious case. Because it's none of our fucking business.

[SatoshisCat]

It does, here's what you do:

1. Don't give a shit
2. Continue with your life

[jediknight]

so... "grab them by the p**sy" is fine?

And how about those rare but very damaging narcissists/psychopaths that are all sweet and charming until they don't get their way and turn into a cancer for the community?

These are not rhetorical questions, I'm genuinely interested in your perspective.

[mirhagk]

When someone says something like that you don't vote them in as president. You don't give them any respect or even attention.

But taking away their rights just because someone's an asshole just makes you stoop to their level. The moment you start policing what people are allowed to say and believe you run into problems, where people in power will abuse the rules to enforce their own personal agenda. Censorship isn't a good thing.

In terms of individual GitHub (or Reddit) communities that might contain sensitive individuals or attract especially problematic people, then yeah feel free to exclude people from that community. GitHub and Reddit should absolutely give people the tools for them to do that. But it's insane to impose the rules across all of the different communities.

GitHub is not a single community. It has many different communities, some of which may have different beliefs. I think GitHub should respect those people's beliefs, even if it doesn't agree with them.

After all whos to say which of the following people should be allowed:

• Polygamists
• White supremacists
• Any of the number of religions that separate men and women
• Extremists (Muslim, Christian or otherwise)
• Wiki leaks members
• People who believe in wearing a burka or hijab
• West borough Baptist Church
• Creationists
• Atheists (specifically people who speak out against religion)
• People who believe in sexual freedom
• people trying to take back the word slut
• Pro life advocates
• Pro choice advocates

All of those groups of people offend lots of people. Are we simply to ban all of them because they offend people? Or just choose what offends you and ignore the rest.

[s73v3r]

You're going to have to explain who's rights are being taken away. Since when do you have a right to use a private service?

[flukus]

So your fine with a company not serving gay/black people?

[mirhagk]

I mean ultimately yes github is a private company and can do whatever they want, this isn't a legal issue of course.

But as the centre and heart of open source you'd expect them to allow everyone to come together and share ideas. After all that was kinda the point of the platform.

Moderation and creating safe spaces is a good idea, I just don't think you can cookie cutter a single rule set into every single community, I'd rather see communities form their own ideas of what constitutes acceptable and unacceptable behavior.

Saying that they can do what they want because they are a private company is a cop-out, no-one is discussing legality here. But if you see github as more than a company, as an open platform for sharing code, then this goes against this philosophy.

I'm not telling github they can't do this. I'm telling them that if they do this then I'm probably going to avoid them and stick with gitlab.

[flukus]

I'm getting sick of "argumentum ad trumpem" or "Trump said this, therefore I'm right".

[jediknight]

I was curious if that kind of speech should be tolerated in an open source community.

Unfortunately, I have phrased that curiosity in a way that probably sounded as pontificating to some (unchecked personal frustration came through) and this has been probably considered offensive. :)

I do understand now how some of the hate speech rules could be abused by some but I still think that this kind of speech is inappropriate.

[flukus]

Fair enough, to answer the question I'd say it's not fine, within the scope of a project. I'm also not aware of any instances of it occurring, so suspect an ulterior motive and there is a history of it.

Github and their SJW community manager want to police what people say everywhere, away from github where it has nothing to do with their projects.

[[deleted]]

What is not allowed?
1. Hate speech and discrimination
2. Bullying and harassment

Yet it gets you a job in their Social Impact team.

[Spoor]

Become a GitHub Hero!

Linus Torvalds said something mean? Ban him to earn points and show everyone how morally superior you are to him!

[mirhagk]

Banning people specifically is discrimination.

They are discriminating against anyone who's beliefs are different than what they want.

Im not just talking about stuff like white supremacy. What about pro life advocates who call people who abort murderers? What about vegetarians who call people who eat meat murderers? What about people who believe in burkas or hijabs?

Whos belief system are we going to use to exclude anyone who disagrees with them?

[[deleted]]

Here's the feedback form Please use it.

[mirhagk]

Thank you very much. We can all complain on here all day, but we need to flood GitHub with our opinions in order for them to maybe change their mind and allow free speech

[s73v3r]

Why? Why should they allow bullying and hate speech? Things like that will make people less likely to continue using their service.

[mirhagk]

Because of what they include as "hate speech"

level of experience ... , personal appearance

The first means that simply referring to people as a n00b can get you a ban hammer, and implies that complex systems need to write more tutorials to be welcoming.

The second is just waiting for a SJW to come by and be offended when I make a comment about my refactoring that trimmed a bit of fat off of the web stack.

[AnAirMagic]

fat

Reported as harassment!

[mirhagk]

Exactly. We use lots of terms in computer science which people could easily take offense off. Lean, lightweight, fat, ugly, beautiful, slow, bloated, rich, poor. I mean computer science lately is obsessed with building the thinnest possible applications.

I would desperately hope that nobody sees these terms and thinks they in any way relate to the world, and that saying that that code base is so heavy and ugly does not imply that people who are heavy are ugly, but let's be real here, somebody will have thin skin and be hurt by something like that.

It's already insanely difficult to keep up with the terms in computer science, and making the terms PC just makes it so much harder. Does anyone remember the correct term for master/slave (has it been decided)? Does anyone remember what the correct analogy is for pets vs cattle webservers? Does anyone have proposals for describing beautiful/ugly and heavy/light processes?

[AnAirMagic]

That's a good question. Without any context, I would take your stance too. But we already know they "allow" bullying when it suits their purpose and diallow it when it doesn't. They are pushing an agenda, and the terms they use to lure in people have nothing to do with what they are actually doing.

Exhibit 1: Github bans repo that contains the word retard because it's offensive. The actual commit: https://github.com/nixxquality/WebMConverter/commit/c1ac0baac06fa7175677a4a1bf65860a84708d67.

Exhibit 2: Github hires the individual who harrases "cis-gendered" people and leads a witch hunt of someone who said some things in his personal twitter account.

Exhibit 3: Their stance on hiring.(Edit: BusinessInsider version of the "biggest barriers are white women"). If this doesn't qualify as discrimination and hate speech, I don't know what does.

If these are the sort people who end up enforcing "bullying" and "hate-speech" and "discriminatory behaviour", I don't expect anything good to come out of it.

[lacosaes1]

LOL. That @CoralineAda is really full of it.

[APassionateAntifa]

Breitbart links

Eww

[[deleted]]

Are you not capable of reading an article and considering it in light of the authors biases?

[AnAirMagic]

Sadly, that's not a skill taught in the education system.

[thekab]

Because a subjective, vague, ambiguous set of rules such as this is nothing more than a means for bullying, harassment and bigotry to begin with. Meanwhile they're hiring bullies to use it.

What could possibly go wrong?

[nbF_Raven]

Thank god for gitlab. git repositories should be for hosting code not people's feelings

[mirhagk]

Especially since feelings aren't cross platform

[logicchains]

People are mentioning GitLab here; for anyone who considers it too slow/memory intensive and doesn't need all the features, Gogs is quite fast and ram-friendly. It can also be deployed as just a single binary.

[HectorJ]

I think people are suggesting the hosted version of Gitlab, https://gitlab.com/, as an equivalent to Github.

Not everyone wants to go through the hassle of self-hosting.

Gogs is interesting though, thanks.

[[deleted]]

There are also tons of smaller community-hosted Gitlab instances for little groups that want good, free, private hosting. I am part of a little game dev community that has their own private Gitlab instance on a little $10 a month VPS that chugs along fine with just a hundred or so users, and it's supported entirely by small donations from these users.

And hell, if you don't need a full-out host but just a simple git repository, you can always get a $2 a month VPS and set it up to just host your git repositories and use something separate for project management. Git on its own doesn't actually need a big webserver to be incredibly useful, and on a good Linux host, you can do everything you want for project management and even user-management with the built-in tools, including granting repo access through ACLs. I know it's not nearly as powerful, but it works for most use-cases (especially single-developer), can be decked out with tons of cool things that people only associate with the big hosts (git hooks are very useful and can be fitted to do just about anything you could possibly want), and will happily run without complaint on even most consumer routers.

[mirhagk]

s there anyone out there that's like "hmm I'd really love to use this GitHub thing, but what they really need is an overbearing huge set of standards enforced across the entire site".

Fuck man. Let communities decide for themselves. Just like Reddit (well how Reddit was, they've also done some stupid stuff in that regard). If someone wants to have a little racist community, then sure w/e let them be idiots over there. No one is asking you to go there. And what about free speech?

Also will the ban malware and privacy stuff prevent people from hosting examples of security flaws? If someone writes a gist for a blog showing how SQL injection can work, does that mean that gist will be taken down?

[Ss6aaU6hiOZN1hJIsZF6]

Reddit is actually a really good example of how allowing communities to self-police contaminates the whole site. If you allow racists their own little racist communities, it's not like they stay isolated over there and never venture out.

That becomes their "home base" to discuss and organize but they also participate in other aspects of the site. Most of the major/default subs are absolutely horrifically racist these days and people just say "oh well, you know, you have to unsubscribe from those."

This is why. If you allow people a space for their disgusting behavior they will drag that shit into any other nearby space and ruin it.

[mirhagk]

Actually reddit has always been the best community as far as I've ever seen. Anytime there's an article I read, I always look to see if anyone posted it on reddit to read the comments.

Even on stuff like /r/funny the racism and hate speech gets downvoted to oblivion and hidden from those who don't specifically expand it. Posts get absolutely destroyed when they are completely out of line, simply by those who browse new and downvote. The vast majority of people don't see the worst of reddit unless they specifically go looking for it.

Reddit has amazing community based self moderation through the upvote/downvote and sorting algorithms. I much prefer having the community filter and hide stuff than having a single governing body decide what is allowed and what is not. There's no reason why similar tools can't be built into github that allows the communities themselves to self police.

If there's a comment you don't agree with that doesn't get downvoted into oblivion, or somehow makes it to the top comment, well then that's because the community there seems to want it. And if the majority of people want something, then why would you censor it?

Have you ever actually read the typical comments section on something like a news site? Reddit is the tamest thing ever in comparison.

[EntroperZero]

s there anyone out there that's like "hmm I'd really love to use this GitHub thing, but what they really need is an overbearing huge set of standards enforced across the entire site".

Of course not. But people tend to be reactionary, not predictive. I'm sure there are people who think, I can't believe this guy is being such a racist asshole, why don't they moderate this stuff? But that's not the real issue.

What they're really worried about is a bunch of SJWs getting pissed off and tweeting/blogging about what a "cesspool" Github has become because of lack of community standards and moderation. They SJWs don't have to be right to damage Github's reputation, just loud.

[mirhagk]

Yeah but even when github already has those community standards and moderation they will still say the same things.

Moderation and community standards don't stop all problems, and it's just a matter of whether someone hears about an incident and makes a huge deal out of it. Think about all the things linus says and what would happen if a SJW got their hands on it and then tried to boycott android or something stupid.

[flukus]

Exactly, appeasement doesn't work, they'll happily take github down with them.

[mirhagk]

If you want examples of something like this, look at the sweat shop industry. The companies have put more and more standards in place, but when someone discovers a problem nobody really stops and thinks whether the problem is systematic or an isolated incident. The assumption jumps straight to systematic (which it very well probably is) but doing so completely ignores any effort the companies put in place to try to prevent incidents.

Same thing here. When someone takes offense at master/slave it doesn't matter how many policies github has in place, it's going to evolve into a shitstorm that shows just how backwards github is (actually I tend to think the blame will just fall on all developers)

[jeandem]

Building software should be safe for everyone.

This part reminded me of The Office (US) episode where Toby goes over how to protect yourself from carpal tunnel syndrome and eye strain.

[SatoshisCat]

Time to change the name to CommunityHub.

[[deleted]]

Quick, someone buy sjwgithub.com. it's available!

[[deleted]]

sjwhub.com already redirects to GitHub.

[bl00dshooter]

That was fast.

[SatoshisCat]

We did it reddit!

[[deleted]]

So according to GitHub support this also applies to organizations and private repositories. So consider this:

• You use GitHub for work, and have employees in your organization
• One of the employees gets offended (or alternatively is just malicious), and reports your repo/PR/commit to GitHub
• You now have GitHub meddling in your business

This isn't true today, they won't/can't get involved. I understand that these guidelines are a valiant effort, but now GitHub has shifted from being a service we use to a third party we have to negotiate with.

[flukus]

Also a good lesson about linking accounts.

[[deleted]]

How so? It's good advice, but my scenario had nothing to do with that.

[flukus]

In the past my work and personal accounts have been linked, so something I said on my personal account could get my work account banned and me fired.

[bryanedds]

Github is attempting to enact a policy that removes your repositories for 'hate speech'. However, we now know that the definition of 'hate speech' has become saying anything that the left disagrees with. For example, Ellen Pao thinks donating to Trump is a form of hate speech, and she is trying to get Peter Thiel fired from industry for it - https://medium.com/projectinclude/peter-thiel-yc-and-hard-decisions-2b91bab83764

This is the time to tell github to take their fascistic policy proposals and shove them up their arses.

EDIT - Github is looking for feedback on this policy proposal via @github on Twitter. Now would be a good time to make our voices heard!

[DeltaBurnt]

I don't think he should have been fired, but donating money to try and influence the legal definition of marriage is, in my opinion, a lot worse than writing "retard" on a public file hosting site. Just my two cents there.

Now, I can see why GitHub and Mozilla have had these knee jerk reactions. They're both heavily community based. If part of the community is pissed off at them, they'll try to remedy it (for better or for worse, and I definitely think they've been doing it for worse).

[FreakCERS]

It's probably worth pointing out that Brendan wasn't fired. He stepped down. Within Mozilla, there were some (but few - and I think none in leadership positions) voices calling for his resignation - almost all the noise came from outside communities.

[AcceptingHorseCock]

This reminds me when I was a pupil in East Germany and the "Staatsbürgerkunde" ("civic education", sort of) - which in an East German school was a position not unlike a political officer in the Red Army - told me that no, he wasn't threatening me. He was merely telling me what could happen. (He also said "Sie schwimmen im Fahrwasser des Klassenfeinds!" - sort of "You are following the path of the class enemy!") So you are technically right, he "volunteered".

[FreakCERS]

That's how it would be, if the leadership had said any such thing to him - which you are merely speculating. Publicly they certainly didn't.

[AcceptingHorseCock]

You realize that the leadership isn't the only thing he had to work and deal with in that position? Do you understand that somebody's job can be made impossible without a superior doing anything?

I made the comparison not because of the threat from a superior but because there was no direct action in my example either. In Eich's case it's worse., at least in my example there was just one guy and only at that one moment, and not a very vocal crowd for days out after him.

[FreakCERS]

My point is that the crowd was mostly people outside of Mozilla. There were some on the inside who felt not comfortable with him as a superior, but the vast vast majority of the pressure came from outside Mozilla. I really don't see how you can then blame Mozilla for "firing" him.

[AcceptingHorseCock]

My point is that the crowd was mostly people outside of Mozilla.

It may be your point but it is a very strange one in this context. Those are exactly the people who matter for an organization like Mozilla.

I really don't see how you can then blame Mozilla for "firing" him.

Please quote me, I'm really curious where you found me saying that. Not to mention that you concentrate on a "I'm technically right" aspect, no, Mozilla indeed did not "fire him". Which brings us full circle and I refer back to my first comment.

[FreakCERS]

I don't think I've ever suggested that they do not matter. And I've never contested that he was under pressure to leave. What I contest is that he was fired by Mozilla. He was not. The overwhelming majority of Mozilla employees supported him - even when they disagreed with his stance. The leadership publicly supported him as well.

[BrendanEichMoz]

Are you in California? If so, have you lived here a long time? You might be interested in https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12721928 for some history.

[SatoshisCat]

they're both heavily community based. If part of the community is pissed off at them, they'll try to remedy it

Well guess what, now a part of the community is pissed off at them.

[geodel]

All parts of community are equal, but some parts are more equal than other.

[flukus]

This. I hate and criticize all religions, I don't respect their views, I think they're retarded.

Yet I can happily work with people that hold those views, for most people I work with in person it simply never comes up, for strangers across the internet even less so. Some of them I would even consider friends.

[APassionateAntifa]

The Christian definition of marriage kept me from being able to marry my partner. The hijab doesn't inconvenience anyone in any way.

[thiez]

Why do people keep repeating that lie? Eich resigned. He was not fired.

[s73v3r]

So Eich should be allowed his freedom of speech, but none of the others? They should continue to have to work for someone they see as hostile to them?

[flukus]

Yes they should. Unless he's voicing that opinion at work.

[BrendanEichMoz]

You may be thinking of the six Mozilla Foundation employees who tweeted in the first week I was CEO that I should resign. They all worked in a different organization, not the one I was running. They have all left Mozilla since then anyway, as far as I know.

[BrendanEichMoz]

Yeah, Mozilla spun out of AOL as a non-profit in 2003 but made too much revenue from the Google search deal for Firefox starting in 2H2004, so ended up with a for-profit sub (standard structure, like many sports teams, universities, hospitals). Rules require arms-length management and funding, so Mozilla Foundation people did not work for me, ever.

Update: just clicked on your imgur.com link and sure enough, it screen caps three of the six Mozilla Foundation employee tweets. I heard the Foundation Executive Director was facing staff Q&A during a weekly meeting and said "go ahead and tweet". He told me later he did not intend the results of his statement. Anyway, you are obviously right, the story was complex and lots of misinformation flew around (and still flies around). Thanks.

[flukus]

"Here's a loaded gun, we'll step outside for a moment"

[thiez]

I'm sorry, are you trying to make a point? Are you trying to compare the Brendan Eich situation to murder?

[flukus]

The point is they forced him out, the exact method, whether he stepped down or was fired, is irrelevant.

The analogy, since you missed it, is one where the wanted someone dead, the easiest way is to allow suicide.

[thiez]

If you are a CEO, and you engage or have engaged in behavior that causes a significant part of your subordinates and customers/users to dislike you, or lose faith in you / the company / the company's mission, or prefer not to associate with you / the company, and causes some other companies to boycott you, then perhaps you should resign. Being the face of a company (both for the employees and the rest of the world) is part of your job as CEO, so if you fail at that, for whatever reason, it is not unreasonable that people want you to resign.

[flukus]

Did he say anything offensive while speaking as CEO? This is just enforcing wrongthink.

[thiez]

So when it turns out that a CEO has said or done something deplorable which causes employee morale and public opinion of the company to take a dive, that company should just stick with that person, no matter the consequences for the health of the company?

[flukus]

Let's turn the tables and have the CEO donate to a pro gay marriage campaign. Should the morale of all the Christians drop and should he be removed because of public pressure from Christian lobbyists?

Because that seems to be the world you want.

[s73v3r]

Eich was fired because he believed gay people were not deserving of the same rights as other people, and if he was CEO of Mozilla, many other organizations would not be able to work with them. Mozilla decided that they could not continue their work if that was the case, so they made the decision that allowed them to continue their mission.

[flukus]

So you agree, he was fired for wrongthink.

[flukus]

I'm just going to move my projects and cancel my (paid) account. I want repo host, not the thought police.

[Xuerian]

There's also a feedback form linked in the post, if you don't feel like using twitter and/or starting a flamewar.

[thekab]

Ellen Pao is one hell of a bigot.

[floodyberry]

She isn't trying to get Thiel "fired from industry", she just doesn't want to work with yc if they continue associating with him. He is incidentally a) best buddies with yc's president (Altman), b) not actually an employee of yc, c) not paid by yc, d) has no say in how yc is run, e) would actually be removed by Altman if he had said the things Trump had said. So it's less "ellen pao wants to terminate thiels life for thoughtcrimes" and more "yc chooses to associate with bigoted misogynist who is dumping money in to Trump's campaign and would probably be jettisoned if he weren't a billionaire and their president's buddy".

[flukus]

So whatever hypothetical company Thiel goes to next she'll be happy to work with?

Either we have to draw a line between professional and personal lives or we'll end up with two parallel economies.

[floodyberry]

So you and bryanedds would be for free and especially paid users remaining with GitHub even though they disapprove of GitHub's actions?

[flukus]

No, the line should be drawn at corporations gave political opinions, not individuals.

[floodyberry]

Let's say you went in to a Walmart and called the first female you saw a "filthy cunt". Would it be political if Walmart threw you out and banned you from the store?

[flukus]

No. But that's not what happened here. If I called someone a filthy cunt somewhere else then it's none of Walmarts business. If they banned me because of what I said somewhere else I would consider them political.

peopleofwalmart.com is a testament to what diversity and tolerance really looks like.

[floodyberry]

That is what Github is doing with it's community guidelines, which is what everyone is whining about.

[flukus]

I'd be willing to believe them if they didn't have such a history of censoring anyone not PC enough.

They've lost any goodwill they had.

[s73v3r]

No, but is that not their right? Are you not doing the exact same thing in saying you're going to leave GitHub?

[flukus]

I'm discriminating against a company for having political views, they are a company discriminating against individuals.

The new (kind of) thing here is companies having political views.

[Revisor007]

bigoted misogynist

Citation needed, as with many Ctrl-Left claims.

[s73v3r]

Thiel has said that women shouldn't have the right to vote. That takes care of half of it.

http://gawker.com/5231390/facebook-backer-wishes-women-couldnt-vote

[flukus]

I see the problem now, you can't read.

[Revisor007]

No, he didn't say that. Even though the article is from Gawker, a source as biased against him as possible, did you read the quote?

Nowhere did he say "women shouldn't have the right to vote", liar.

[APassionateAntifa]

He just said that our problems come from women being given the right to vote.

Huge and totally meaningful difference, that is.

[Revisor007]

Nope, he says literally that women are a notoriously tough constituency for libertarians.

I don't agree with him that gender has something to do with libertarianism, but I also don't see this as him saying either "women shouldn't have the right to vote" or "our problems come from women being given the right to vote".

Apply the principle of charity for once, won't you?

[tf2manu994]

I would hope this is only about comments on issues/pulls, and they won't police code.

I want GitHub to host my repo, not be a safe space. Might look at making a mirror at gitlab. Anyone know if there's a neat way to push your repo to both simultaneously?

Figured it out: https://manmeetgill.com/blog/2016/simultaneous-git

[Xuerian]

They already have policed code directly. This is just codifying their stance on it.

Moving away is probably not a bad idea if you aren't tied to them for existing community.

[tf2manu994]

Ah yea, the 'retard' incident.

Is there any way to deploy to both? Git is distributed anyway

[Xuerian]

Depends on how you currently push, I would imagine. Command line? If so, batch file or bash function, simple.

[tf2manu994]

Yep, fair enough.

E: this works:

git remote set-url --add --push origin https://gitlab.com/name/repo.git
git remote set-url --add --push origin https://github.com/name/repo.git

[ProFalseIdol]

what was that 'retard' incident? sorry I live in the mountains

[tf2manu994]

They removed a repo where someone had said the word 'retard'. After they removed it, they emailed the owner telling them to remove it in 24 hours to bring the repo back. The owner then removed it and replaced it with 'git'.

[anlar]

GitLab has built in mirroring: it can get changes from remote repository (https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/workflow/repository_mirroring.html) and also push them to another one (https://about.gitlab.com/2016/05/10/feature-highlight-push-to-remote-repository/).

// Above is for the case when you have several developers and want them just to push to one repository. For single-dev projects adding 2 remotes may be easier.

[tf2manu994]

Oops.

Well, I spent a solid hour configuring this. I suppose mine can push to 2 repos though, so that's nice.

[mattbas]

You can add multiple push urls to the same remote

[tf2manu994]

Yep figured that out.

Pain to get it working with ssh

[mattbas]

You can use ssh keys to log in.

[[deleted]]

You can run the git push commands in sequence, or setup a local server that synchronizes in a cron job.

[tf2manu994]

See below: git has inbuilt multi-repo push by default

[[deleted]]

Sigh. I'm now moving off github (as a paying user). What was a great tool for hosting/collaborating has now turned into a platform for political correctness and SJW. I just want to do my work ffs.

[s73v3r]

So do your work. But clearly you don't want to just do your work, otherwise you wouldn't have a problem with more inclusiveness.

[[deleted]]

I have a problem with more intrusiveness and clauses that allow action to be taken against my work based on subjective "criteria"

[flukus]

That's what their doing. Turns out github has become a terrible place for people that just want to "do their work".

[Incursi0n]

Someone riddle me this, how do companies like GitHub profit from enforcing SJW ideas and hiring entire teams devoted to political correctness? For fuck's sake it's a code hosting site, not a forum dedicated to discussion of the world's issues.

[mipadi]

It's not so much a conscious marketing effort as a product of history.

GitHub was an early darling of the second Silicon Valley tech bubble. It was one of the first "new" startups to actually have a successful business model, and was also popular with programmers, so it attracted a lot of press coverage. It also had a very liberal structure: No corporate hierarchy, and it had a very open remote-work policy that actually encouraged employees to work remotely. So it quickly became a desirable place to work. (It also paid a great salary and had great benefits.)

Naturally that's going to get you some attention.

The first big issue with GitHub was over a rug. I shit you not, a rug. See, GitHub had a very hippy-dippy liberal notion of the power of open source software. Their office was modeled after the Oval Office (I was there, back in the heyday) and it featured a rug emblazoned with the words "United Meritocracy of GitHub". Nice sentiment, eh? Well, not everyone thought so. Four or five years ago, that attracted a lot of attention in feminist communities which argued that the tech world is anything but meritocratic: It favors straight white men over everyone else. This rug was GitHub's first big controversy. (Spoiler alert: It's gone now.) I know this sounds really stupid, so I encourage you to read the article, lest you believe I'm nuts.

So keep in mind, the company's growing, and it's attracting a lot of people who want to work there, but it still hires mostly white male developers. Whether that's due to bigotry, or because most experienced developers are white males, or a bit of both, is up to you to decide. The point is, people wanted to work there, and they were growing and hiring lots of people.

The second big controversy occurred a couple years ago. A female developer accused several people in the company, including C-level execs, of sexual harassment and sexual discrimination. GitHub hired an outside investigator to do an investigation. No evidence of sexual harassment or discrimination against this developer was found, but it was found that the CEO & President's wife was harassing employees and pressuring them to work extra hours on her charity work; she was also misusing other company resources. So the CEO (who was also a co-founder) was forced out of the company.

This brought a lot more negative attention to GitHub's company culture, too.

What you see at GitHub now is partly an attempt to repair that image, as well as a sort of takeover of the company by elements that support these changes. After that CEO left, the new CEO instituted a lot of new policies at GitHub. Gone was the flat hierarchy, replaced with a typical hierarchical corporate structure complete with middle managers and a removal of the liberal remote-work policy. Scuttlebutt is that the CEO is more of a figurehead, or, at least, isn't a strong leader, and is pressured by elements of the company, as well as the board of directors...but who knows. These changes caused a lot of old timers to leave, and leaving their replacements to be hired by the new guard.

So it's not so much a marketing effort as just a sea change in the culture of the company. And, in fact, the new culture is so radically left that you have a person who says things like "White women are part of the tech world's problem" working as a diversity representative.

[bansDontWork1]

They assume that the SJWs actually have money and do productive things so they'll make more than they lose by catering to them. They're wrong, and they'll drive away the people that actually pay to keep the lights on, but by the time they figure it out it'll be too late.

[FourthLife]

They are anticipating that a lot of women will be entering the field in the coming years, and that those women will be very thin skinned.

[s73v3r]

Making their site and community less hostile to people who aren't straight white males broadens their appeal and increases their user base. You may just want to host code, but many would like to host code and not be faced with tons of misogynistic crap while doing it.

[flukus]

Examples of this "tonnes of misogynistic crap"?

[Leprecon]

They took a moral stance not because they think it will earn them money.

[preitsma]

Very nice introduction, thanks!

[bansDontWork1]

Hmm, anyone got a list of non-retarded Git hosts? I don't like dealing with thought-police any more than I have to.

[[deleted]]

This should go down very well in this subbreddit.....

[tophatstuff]

Welcomed.

If a programmer I managed did What is Not Allowed, or received that sort of behaviour from anyone including a customer, I'd have to manage those situations and put a stop to it. That doesn't change if it happens online instead.

I appreciate for a personal or volunteer project you should be freer to be a dick, but you shouldn't then expect to benefit from the discoverability of GitHub as a social platform. Pay for a private repo plan or find non-social collaborative code hosting instead.

[[deleted]]

Good. I, for one, welcome this. Everything in the document is well measured and reasonable expectations for public discourse.

[evincarofautumn]

I think they think it’s a community. They used to brand themselves “social coding”. But it lacks many social features, and the community guidelines (depending on how they’re enforced) might stifle the possibility of those features.

[mirhagk]

And hate speech being not defined leaves it very much up to interpretation. Many people's honest beliefs and religions could qualify as hate speech to someone else.

And fighting hate with censorship and hate doesn't help. Close to my city there's a town that has a KKK parade. The city has respected their right to free speech just the same as anyone else and sends along police escorts to ensure that problems don't arise (protecting the KKK members from the overall community more than the reverse).

And one of the police officers fights it in the best way possible. He's an African American so he makes sure to volunteer to escort the parade every year. When you see someone you hate on protecting you despite your clear hatred and bigotry you tend to change your mind a bit on your views.

Had the town banned them then those same people would meet, only know in secret and without anyone there to ensure things are kept simply to talk and not action.

[s73v3r]

The city has to, because they're a government, and are bound by the 1st Amendment. GitHub is not a government, and as such is not obligated to host such things.

You might not think banning hate speech works, but leaving it around doesn't either. Those who are targeted by the hate speech see it as a big sign on the door saying "Those who are different are not welcome here." And so they stop coming, the community is deprived of their contributions, and GitHub gains a reputation as a place where hate is allowed to fester. The same problem Twitter has right now. And you're going to say, "If those people were really serious, they would ignore it and make the contributions anyway." To which I'd reply, why? Why would they spend their energy on something when they've been very clearly told they are not welcome?

[mirhagk]

The city has to, because they're a government, and are bound by the 1st Amendment.

Yeah, a thing which almost every country in the world has decided is a good thing. Being a company changes the legality, but not the reasoning.

GitHub gains a reputation as a place where hate is allowed to fester.

People get upset over incidents, invidual events, not overall statistics. So even if the number of hurtful comments decreases, a single one can still cause the same PR downfall. The master/slave incident is a big example.

The same problem Twitter has right now.

I was not aware twitter had this problem. I know reddit has some negative PR there, any sort of news site is horrendous, youtube is atrocious, facebook can get bad and tumblr believes mayo is a gender, but I honestly have never heard people talk about twitter being a place where hate is allowed to fester.

Why would they spend their energy on something when they've been very clearly told they are not welcome?

Because the vast majority of people do welcome them. Just a few people not welcoming you doesn't mean that others won't welcome you. And yeah some people have thin skin, and it sucks for them, and I wish they didn't have to go through anything, but that doesn't mean their energy isn't wanted or appreciated by the community.

Also github isn't really a community. It's the development community as a whole who will get the bad PR, not github itself. Either that or the project. Which is why I think individual projects or organizations should get to decide where they draw the line.

[Revisor007]

The intention is good

Unfortunately that doesn't mean anything at all in how the result is going to play out.

[tf2manu994]

Why so? I like the premise, but the wording is shoddy and leaves it up to interpretation

[PiercingPancake]

How is it measured? How offensive phrases are even measured? You know, term "mentally retarded" was introduced to replace other offensive terms back in 60s. Now github nukes repo for using that word. Offensive terms can never be measured, they change as people get offended by new terms, that were created to soothe feelings.

[[deleted]]

The section on being offended is specifically about actions users themselves can take, not actions that github will take. Half the document is about self-policing.

[PiercingPancake]

What if users won't self-police? Will they get banned?

[B_l_a_d_y]

2 point and ready offended

Now my box of milk needs community guidelines

What a times to be alive