| 7 Nov 2021 |
 piegames | In reply to @irenes:matrix.org
if you look at the stuff that's been happening in Scala this week, it's the kind of thing I mean Yikes. The Scala community has a really bad reputation for being toxic in general | 09:36:54 |
 Ellie | https://www.reddit.com/r/bestof/comments/pco186/uusedtodonateblood_shows_how_the_canadian/ | 09:37:16 |
| Ellie | In fact, the comments on that thread allege a few other examples | 09:38:13 |
 Irenes | I don't think it's a tech community but it's certainly a good example. Tech isn't special in that regard. We aren't immune to stuff just because we're about technology. | 09:39:38 |
| Irenes | I do think there are people who will only find examples persuasive if they're from tech, though. | 09:40:10 |
| Irenes | Everyone comes to this with different backgrounds. | 09:40:26 |
 Emil Karlson | tech is slightly different, as you are not supposed to normally touch subjects sensitive to racial or other identities or roles? | 10:00:11 |
| Emil Karlson | obviously not saying it could not be pulled in somehow, but as a normal case | 10:00:41 |
| piegames | I think tech is only different if you buy into the "tech should not be political" thing | 10:00:45 |
 ash (it/its) 🏳️⚧️ | ofc, "should not be political" is implicitly accepting and reinforcing the status quo as well | 10:04:00 |
| ash (it/its) 🏳️⚧️ | keep in mind that "no politics" isn't a thing that exists | 10:04:33 |
| Emil Karlson | I am not saying people suddenly become pure beings of light, but I'd expect "Canada" to be blatantly political in a way that is not clearly visible in nixos, or maybe I am just missing something | 10:07:42 |
| Emil Karlson | ie. I do believe it's plausible that people do get harassed etc. and it can be done in a way that's not clearly off-topic, but you are not supposed to start talking about eg. immigration out of the blue in a pull request | 10:09:09 |
| piegames | In reply to @jkarlson:kapsi.fi
I am not saying people suddenly become pure beings of light, but I'd expect "Canada" to be blatantly political in a way that is not clearly visible in nixos, or maybe I am just missing something Not sure. /r/de for example is just a bunch of memes making fun of themselves in some way or another. But maybe that's simply a result of healthy community moderation. | 10:11:11 |
| ash (it/its) 🏳️⚧️ | well for example, women in tech have to deal with a lot more roadblocks to being seen as competent peers (i'm having trouble wording this at 02:00). that's a political issue, and one that needs to be addressed or else we implicitly accept the status quo | 10:12:52 |
| ash (it/its) 🏳️⚧️ | refusing to talk about these issues doesn't make them go away, it just sweeps them under the rug | 10:13:46 |
 joepie91 🏳️🌈 | In reply to @jkarlson:kapsi.fi
tech is slightly different, as you are not supposed to normally touch subjects sensitive to racial or other identities or roles? still on weekend break, but I would like to make a quick note here that "_______ should not be made political" is a common refrain in many communities, technical or otherwise, including in some communities like city planning that have infrastructural responsibilities similar to tech (and therefore the statement is similarly problematic). all of this is to say that tech isn't really as 'different' here as it might seem | 10:14:41 |
 tomberek | Perhaps I missed something; what was meant with "legitimate concerns" in the RFC thread? What were the language issues that were being acknowledged there? | 10:17:52 |
| Emil Karlson | I do also find it likely that women (and many other) have more socially constructed obstacles in many things and would definitely not refuse to discuss the topic. | 10:26:25 |
| Emil Karlson | * I do also find it likely that women (and many other groups) have more socially constructed obstacles in many things and would definitely not refuse to discuss the topic. | 10:27:27 |
| ash (it/its) 🏳️⚧️ | i also want to reference a thing that happened recently, with delphi the descriptive ethics ai that was trained on r/aita. things like this need to explicitly pay attention to how they intersect with social issues, or they will reinforce the biases of the status quo | 10:27:39 |
| ash (it/its) 🏳️⚧️ | delphi has some racist judgements, and that's because its input has racist judgments. the authors didn't pay attention to that stuff and it reinforced the status quo | 10:32:32 |
| joepie91 🏳️🌈 | and while that is still a fairly explicit failure mode that's fairly easy to see and point at, there are many more subtle problems that fan out from social-issue-ignoring technical design choices, that aren't obvious to someone who isn't already very familiar with the problem domain | 10:35:55 |
| joepie91 🏳️🌈 | and no one person is going to spot every single issue themselves, because nobody has a full view of the world, and that is IMO why it's important to embed these sort of social considerations into the culture behind a project and actively ensure a diversity of 'vantage points' | 10:37:18 |
| joepie91 🏳️🌈 | * and no one person is going to spot every single issue themselves, because nobody has a full view of the world, and that is IMO why it's important to embed these sort of social considerations into the culture behind a project and actively ensure a diversity of 'vantage points' or backgrounds | 10:37:35 |
| ash (it/its) 🏳️⚧️ | irenes and i certainly don't have every viewpoint or insight, which is why we're so glad to see constructive feedback | 10:42:02 |
| tomberek | That is my question, what feedback has been considered as constructive? | 10:45:08 |
| joepie91 🏳️🌈 | In reply to @tomberek:matrix.org
Perhaps I missed something; what was meant with "legitimate concerns" in the RFC thread? What were the language issues that were being acknowledged there? just realized that this question may have been aimed at me? I think I was the only one who used that particular phrase | 10:45:47 |
| joepie91 🏳️🌈 | (asking so that I don't talk over others :p) | 10:48:21 |
| piegames | In reply to @kity:kity.wtf
irenes and i certainly don't have every viewpoint or insight, which is why we're so glad to see constructive feedback joepie91 🏳️🌈: ⬆️ | 10:50:45 |
