I think that everyone would be well served by stepping back from this and thinking carefully about commenting, before inserting snark and derision at either side.
I see a number of comments that trot out a lot of tired "anti-SJW" talking points, and these do not add to the dialogue and only create unnecessary animosity. I didn't see any negativity on the "pro-SJW" side yet - the responses to the former seem calm but are being downvoted - though I would advise the same.
If your immediate reaction went to taking some sort of partisan stance on the issue, either for or against this decision by the author Myles Borins, or by the TSC's vote, or by Rod Vagg, then I urge you: please step back, psychologically, from this. Reflect on your thoughts before you resort to believing that any of these folks are part of your in group or not and basing your judgment on that quality, as opposed to the facts, which it appears few of us have.
It's a bit worrying that the steering committee for such a widely used technology, one which billion-dollar companies have built stacks around, could fracture because of a twitter fight.
Without knowing the facts, the fact that we even know this happened and that it briefly ended up on the front page of HN is concerning.
I think the issue is a number of us have built our livelihood on node, and to see it stumble (in both PR and technical quality) is concerning. Especially if the stumbles are due to non-technical matters. Merging the CTC and TSC sounds like a smart approach to balance this: https://github.com/nodejs/TSC/issues/312
Also, this article comes from another TSC member, meaning one of his peers. If 4 of your 12 peers resign because you weren't removed, there is almost certainly some merit to these complaints.
Neither this post, nor the linked decision by the TSC make it possible for me to judge if this reaction is appropriate.
Without details on how rvagg conducted himself, this could be anywhere from 'Social justice warriors biggest fuck up yet' to 'nepotism protects blatant asshole/racist/nazi/mysogonist'.
This is all due to the following reasoning:
[Note: the specific list of issues has been removed at the request of several core collaborators who felt that listing the issues was not fair to Rod. This post was made with an effort at full transparency and with no ill intent towards anyone. No additional harm was intended by listing the issues - jasnell]
Unless this was requested by Rod himself, this seems like needless censorship.
It's not needless censorship even though it might not have been requested by Rod himself. The question before the TSC is "hey should we take action against Rod for shit like this: ________" and necessarily that blank is filled by a lot of stuff which makes Rod look like he's not a community player. Meanwhile the members of the TSC are able to contextualize this -- they are able to say "Well I have worked with this guy on this and that, I have seen more comments than just these, and I get to make a holistic evaluation of what's going on here."
Now if the original post goes public, it makes sense that the details be blanked as "not fair to Rod", since the rest of the world's eyes are going to look on just these things and might not have full context.
"...Rod’s first action was to apologize to a contributor who had been repeatedly moderated. Rod did not discuss the issue with other members of the CTC/TSC first. The result undermined the moderation process as it was occurring"
"Rod did not moderate himself when asked by another foundation director and told them he would take it to the board"
"Rod tweeted in support of an inflammatory anti-Code-of-Conduct article"
I'm scan reading the article and don't see what's so inflammatory about it either.
It's about the problem of campus censorship and lack of free speech in universities. It starts by suggesting that Isaac Newton would have been pushed out of modern universities, if zapped forward in time, due to his mental issues and eccentric beliefs about non-gravity related topics.
Then it goes on to argue that there's a thing called "neuro-diversity" and universities are only catering to the "neuro-typical". The "neuro-divergent" should stand up for their rights against oppression. This seems like a rather forced way to try and cast what campus politics is doing as discrimination in the hope that the people enforcing speech codes will think again.
It's kind of an odd thesis - I can see where the author is going with that, not sure I agree but I don't clearly disagree either. I just doubt it's a good argument.
Regardless, the only people who could describe this as inflammatory are people on the war path, who want to expel anyone who isn't 110% committed to their ideology of punishing speech that isn't sufficiently "progressive". Seems like another day, another Damore to me.
Of everything in there, this one is probably the most problematic.
"""
His tweeting of screen captures of immature responses suggests pleasure at having upset members of the JavaScript community and others. As a perceived leader, such behavior reflects poorly on the project. https://twitter.com/rvagg/status/887790865766268928
"""
What do you think you're missing? He undermined the processes he's meant to support, which sends a mixed message about the org's commitment to its Code of Conduct, and in fact his behavior undermined its authority. In addition, he explicitly violated some policies.
Out of his 13 peers (other Node TSC members), 4 felt strongly enough about this that they have resigned.
....concerns were raised by several TSC
and CTC members regarding issues they had with
@rvagg's interactions in the Github tracker and
Twitter.
The specific issues that were reported include:
[Note: the specific list of issues has been removed
at the request of several core collaborators...]
(elipses editing for brevity, full link here[0]
Maybe the offenses of @rvagg were really heinous, but from later in the link[0] they mention that the charter states they can only remove members by vote, through voluntary resignation or through participation rules (I assume that means they stop participating for some length of time) and that they took said vote to remove @rvagg after failing to reach consensus and the vote failed.
They are working on improving their existing code of conduct. Presumably to make it easier to remove people for whatever it is that @rvagg did.
Unless they just want to turn it into a pet project dictatorship (nothing wrong with that many successful open source projects are run that way - see the linux kernel for instance) then they need to follow the rules they set down and it sounds like they are doing that as well as trying to improve the rules to prevent whatever ruckus it is that happened internally.
I'm sure the OP has lots of inside knowledge that we never will but on the outside it looks like he would be better served by sticking around to work on the revisions to the code of conduct
A lot of opaqueness for a decision that apparently affects the steering of an open project. A rather peculiar set of half-elaborated and [REDACTED] posts that doesn't tell the whole story and makes the governance seem pretty closed off. Strange.
I really love Node. A single language across server and browser, with decent C++ integration on the server, rocks. I sure hope the TSC can get their organizational drama sorted and focus on improving the tech.
Maybe we should fork Node again? While not Node.js per se, npm 5 was a poor quality rollout, and maybe the folks working on both are too distracted with the... not-technical?
I'm not that surprised. Nodejs has coorperate and investor interest. Rvagg seemed to more of a doer than a talker in general while it certain involved didn't offer too much.
I'm hoping this eventually leads to a fork but it probably won't. I imagine there needs to be enough concentrated power to fork and I doubt there is enough developers interested to do it.
Would you please not post unsubstantive inflammatory comments, especially on divisive topics, to HN? That's flamebait and we ban accounts that do it repeatedly, regardless of the views they favor/disfavor.
I think that's an uncharitable reading. It's one thing to be anti-CoC. It's another thing to be anti-CoC when you're on a committee whose job is to maintain and enforce the CoC. There's nothing dishonorable about saying "I don't think I agree with the goals of the job that I am doing, so I will let someone else do it," but he didn't do that.
It's sort of like going to work for customs while being a strong believer in open and unrestricted borders, apologizing to people about the existence of customs and waving them through, and then complaining about "the alt-right brigade" when people ask if you're actually the right person for the job.
Yes, and what some call daring, others call scary. One thing many people loved about Node was its openness to everyone. But when a leader of a group shows distaste for CoCs, one can see how that might mean the group's CoC may be threatened. Without CoCs, many people in the Node community wouldn't feel as safe.
You may still feel just as safe, and that's great for you. But it's not very hard to understand why people aren't happy. Even if you vehemently despise CoCs, you should still be able to see how a mass exodus, for whatever reason, could be bad for a project's future.
[+] [-] AaronFriel|8 years ago|reply
I see a number of comments that trot out a lot of tired "anti-SJW" talking points, and these do not add to the dialogue and only create unnecessary animosity. I didn't see any negativity on the "pro-SJW" side yet - the responses to the former seem calm but are being downvoted - though I would advise the same.
If your immediate reaction went to taking some sort of partisan stance on the issue, either for or against this decision by the author Myles Borins, or by the TSC's vote, or by Rod Vagg, then I urge you: please step back, psychologically, from this. Reflect on your thoughts before you resort to believing that any of these folks are part of your in group or not and basing your judgment on that quality, as opposed to the facts, which it appears few of us have.
[+] [-] strken|8 years ago|reply
Without knowing the facts, the fact that we even know this happened and that it briefly ended up on the front page of HN is concerning.
[+] [-] gedy|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ebola1717|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rocqua|8 years ago|reply
Without details on how rvagg conducted himself, this could be anywhere from 'Social justice warriors biggest fuck up yet' to 'nepotism protects blatant asshole/racist/nazi/mysogonist'.
This is all due to the following reasoning:
[Note: the specific list of issues has been removed at the request of several core collaborators who felt that listing the issues was not fair to Rod. This post was made with an effort at full transparency and with no ill intent towards anyone. No additional harm was intended by listing the issues - jasnell]
Unless this was requested by Rod himself, this seems like needless censorship.
[+] [-] drostie|8 years ago|reply
Now if the original post goes public, it makes sense that the details be blanked as "not fair to Rod", since the rest of the world's eyes are going to look on just these things and might not have full context.
[+] [-] strictnein|8 years ago|reply
https://web.archive.org/web/20170821212745/https://github.co...
"...Rod’s first action was to apologize to a contributor who had been repeatedly moderated. Rod did not discuss the issue with other members of the CTC/TSC first. The result undermined the moderation process as it was occurring"
"Rod did not moderate himself when asked by another foundation director and told them he would take it to the board"
"Rod tweeted in support of an inflammatory anti-Code-of-Conduct article"
Is this really all that there is to it?
[+] [-] peoplewindow|8 years ago|reply
It's about the problem of campus censorship and lack of free speech in universities. It starts by suggesting that Isaac Newton would have been pushed out of modern universities, if zapped forward in time, due to his mental issues and eccentric beliefs about non-gravity related topics.
Then it goes on to argue that there's a thing called "neuro-diversity" and universities are only catering to the "neuro-typical". The "neuro-divergent" should stand up for their rights against oppression. This seems like a rather forced way to try and cast what campus politics is doing as discrimination in the hope that the people enforcing speech codes will think again.
It's kind of an odd thesis - I can see where the author is going with that, not sure I agree but I don't clearly disagree either. I just doubt it's a good argument.
Regardless, the only people who could describe this as inflammatory are people on the war path, who want to expel anyone who isn't 110% committed to their ideology of punishing speech that isn't sufficiently "progressive". Seems like another day, another Damore to me.
[+] [-] fixermark|8 years ago|reply
""" His tweeting of screen captures of immature responses suggests pleasure at having upset members of the JavaScript community and others. As a perceived leader, such behavior reflects poorly on the project. https://twitter.com/rvagg/status/887790865766268928 """
[+] [-] ebola1717|8 years ago|reply
Out of his 13 peers (other Node TSC members), 4 felt strongly enough about this that they have resigned.
[+] [-] spootnik|8 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] gwrhgwrg|8 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] iamthepieman|8 years ago|reply
Maybe the offenses of @rvagg were really heinous, but from later in the link[0] they mention that the charter states they can only remove members by vote, through voluntary resignation or through participation rules (I assume that means they stop participating for some length of time) and that they took said vote to remove @rvagg after failing to reach consensus and the vote failed.
They are working on improving their existing code of conduct. Presumably to make it easier to remove people for whatever it is that @rvagg did.
Unless they just want to turn it into a pet project dictatorship (nothing wrong with that many successful open source projects are run that way - see the linux kernel for instance) then they need to follow the rules they set down and it sounds like they are doing that as well as trying to improve the rules to prevent whatever ruckus it is that happened internally.
I'm sure the OP has lots of inside knowledge that we never will but on the outside it looks like he would be better served by sticking around to work on the revisions to the code of conduct
[0]https://github.com/nodejs/TSC/issues/310
[+] [-] mattnewton|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] syshum|8 years ago|reply
One can not even question the codes of conduct, they are written on stone and are beyond criticism and questioning...
[+] [-] pimterry|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Others|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] geofft|8 years ago|reply
I'm an outsider to this, but it seems to me that the tl;dr was that he was basically undermining the moderation actions of the TSC and CTC.
[+] [-] rileytg|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|8 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] thecardcheat|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tlb|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gedy|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] curtisblaine|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] balupton|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] formula1|8 years ago|reply
I'm hoping this eventually leads to a fork but it probably won't. I imagine there needs to be enough concentrated power to fork and I doubt there is enough developers interested to do it.
[+] [-] curtisblaine|8 years ago|reply
So you mean he actually contributed to the code instead of inventing new ways to police what can be said on Twitter? What an horrible person.
[+] [-] neom|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] 0x4f3759df|8 years ago|reply
Because they got what they wanted?
[+] [-] curtisblaine|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dang|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] geofft|8 years ago|reply
It's sort of like going to work for customs while being a strong believer in open and unrestricted borders, apologizing to people about the existence of customs and waving them through, and then complaining about "the alt-right brigade" when people ask if you're actually the right person for the job.
[+] [-] spootnik|8 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] jamescostian|8 years ago|reply
You may still feel just as safe, and that's great for you. But it's not very hard to understand why people aren't happy. Even if you vehemently despise CoCs, you should still be able to see how a mass exodus, for whatever reason, could be bad for a project's future.
[+] [-] busemann|8 years ago|reply
[deleted]