Nora Reed
anything to avoid actually calling in your boys to tell them to shut the fuck up sometimes lol https://cosocial.ca/@evan/110839737998715967
Evan Prodromou (@[email protected])

Hi, fediverse Web and mobile client developer. What if you added a speed bump in the reply flow to slow down users for just a moment? "Do you really want to reply to X? Will they appreciate your reply?" Maybe just the first time they reply to someone; maybe easily turned off in settings. If it makes people think for just a moment, it might help with making the fediverse a more welcoming place for women.

CoSocial
Aug 6, 2023 at 4:14amWeb
Show threadNora ReedAug 6, 2023
the mansplaining problem is a cultural one with mastodon because it's full of cis men who have put more thought into their linux flavor of choice than they ever have about whether their behavior is useful or wanted. it cannot be solved with the twitter popup that says "are you sure you want to post this?" when you tell someone to eat shit
Show threadNora ReedAug 6, 2023
i don't get mansplained to nearly as much on bluesky, and that's not because bluesky stumbled on some kind of magical feminist UI design, it's because mastodon is dominated by FOSS nerds, who have a terrible culture
Show threadRubyAug 6, 2023
@[email protected] idk I get talked down to a lot on cohost by trans women that think they’re smarter than me for some reason
Show threadNora ReedAug 6, 2023
@rubymayvalentine ugh that sucks
Show threadRubyAug 6, 2023
@[email protected] yeah it’ll just happen randomly too I’ll just make a joke even and someone will feel the need to write an essay about how I’m wrong or whatever it’s dumb
Show threadGraham Sutherland / PolynomialAug 6, 2023
@NoraReed if I didn't have a few good friends on fosstodon I would just block the instance lol
Show threadMark OtwayAug 6, 2023

@gsuberland @NoraReed I'm not really sure this is an instance thing. I think it's more a "men on the Internet are often dicks" thing.

(Disclaimer: @damselfly is my account)

Show threadGraham Sutherland / PolynomialAug 6, 2023
@markotway @NoraReed @damselfly it's a proportion thing. I get comparatively few mansplainy / "badly designed UX is good, actually, and using it means I'm very smart" interactions, but >90% of them come from one instance.
Show threadNoodlemazAug 6, 2023

@gsuberland @markotway @NoraReed @damselfly but your username is also 'Graham...' which most men will instantly ID as 'man' so you're unlikely to see anything like the amount of mansplainers cf obvious-women's-accounts

Bc that's how they work. ID someone as female and therefore obviously knowing less, proceed to condescend.
That's part of the word's def.

Show threadGraham Sutherland / PolynomialAug 6, 2023
@noodlemaz @markotway @NoraReed @damselfly yeah, exactly, so it's waaaay worse if you're not male-presenting
Show threadGraham Sutherland / PolynomialAug 6, 2023
@noodlemaz @markotway @NoraReed @damselfly to be clear, when I say "it's a proportion thing" I mean for me, not for everyone, and almost certainly not for femme folks.
Show threadjust adrienneAug 6, 2023
@gsuberland @markotway @NoraReed @damselfly Universeodon is also super, SUPER full of splainy people, not only mansplainers but whitesplainers and cissplainers etc...
Show threadjust adrienneAug 6, 2023
@gsuberland @markotway @NoraReed @damselfly There is also a technical issue with the Fediverse which i am pretty sure significantly increases the amount of splaining overall: not everyone can see every reply to a post because of the way federation works. So the 50th dude mansplaining at you may not have even seen the other 49. This is deeply annoying and it's something that is technically possible to ameliorate in various ways, but nobody's really agreed on how to do it well yet.
Show threadFadeAug 6, 2023
@gsuberland @NoraReed I only just realized fosstodon was an actual instance; every time people referred to it before, I thought they were talking about the people on Mastodon with particular interests (much like 'mosstodon’). TIL!
Show threadNora ReedAug 6, 2023
@fade @gsuberland i only figured it out today too
Show threadflabberghasterAug 6, 2023
@NoraReed It really sucks too because FOSS is a worthwhile thing, IMO, but like you said there's so many people who are in to it who haven't really thought about anything other than software. Makes me a little sad whenever I hear people say they hate FOSS due to the culture, but i've heard it from several people.
Show threadAmy WorrallAug 6, 2023
@flabberghaster @NoraReed Yeah. FOSS attracts people who have never put effort into learning social skills, and resent being asked to learn some. (It attracts other people too of course, but they’re not the problem.) It’s a shame.
Show threadPete JohansonAug 6, 2023
@NoraReed that sucks. Full stop. So annoyed that perpetuates.
Show thread[HANDMAIDEN] xanAug 6, 2023
@NoraReed I sorely wish more people would come here to break up this culture. I have been depressed as hell the past few days because I stopped using Twitter altogether and just don't have the wherewithal to invest in trying to get a word in edgewise on Bluesky. I feel positively ready to give up.
Show threadjust adrienneAug 6, 2023
@xan @NoraReed Saaaaaaaaaaame. I'm on a mod team so i feel like i can't really throw in the towel over here though :(
Show threadkurtshAug 6, 2023
@NoraReed "mastodon is dominated by FOSS nerds, who have a terrible culture"
<stands and applauds> Pretty sure that no one has ever had the balls to post that thought anywhere on Mastodon before. Well done.
Show threadNoah GibbsAug 6, 2023

@NoraReed I'd feel bad boosting, because that's kind of inviting them to come be awful to you. But it's true.

It's amazing how much "who you invite onto your server" dominates all the other factors, over time.

Show threadCharlie StrossAug 6, 2023
@NoraReed FOSS as a movement owes a lot to Richard M. Stallman and Eric S. Raymond—in all the worst ways imaginable.
Show threadJoshua A.C. NewmanAug 6, 2023
@cstross @NoraReed I choked down a couple chapters of The Cathedral & The Bazaar before concluding that any idea Eric Raymond had was much less important to Eric Raymond than Eric Raymond is to Eric Raymond.
Show threadCharlie StrossAug 6, 2023

@JoshuaACNewman @NoraReed I'm pretty sure that ESR is the sort of insecure authoritarian who is attracted to totalizing ideologies because they offer certainty—hence, the kind of libertarian who goes full Nazi at the flip of a switch.

I spent an enlightening hour with him on a firing range in 2007, listening to him rant about muslims in a way that would have been instantly familiar to any German in 1933. The "goes full Nazi" opinion is a witness report, not meant as hyperbole.

Show threadJoshua A.C. NewmanAug 6, 2023

@cstross @NoraReed He practically brags about the self-importance that props up his frailty in that book. I can muster zero surpriseds at your IRL experience with him.

“A thing is best when it is maintained by its users” is a good premise, but I don’t want to share enough community with that guy to implement it anywhere he is. You can’t build a community on contempt.

Show threadFadeAug 6, 2023
@JoshuaACNewman @cstross @NoraReed "You can't build a community on contempt" applies to so many places where I see someone come in with a "You're doing it wrong, let me fix all your problems" attitude and--it doesn't even matter if the incoming person is /right/ about the basic facts, it's exactly what you say. Contempt is soil subsidence below the foundations of community.
Show threadVery Human RobotAug 6, 2023
@JoshuaACNewman @cstross @NoraReed
"You can't build a community on contempt" is a wonderful phrasing -- thanks for introducing it for readers like me!
Show threadFadeAug 6, 2023

@cstross @JoshuaACNewman @NoraReed @john_chu I once got into a near-shouting argument with him in his kitchen about his libertarian philosophy and how it would(n't) provide for protection of people who could not physically defend themselves, sigh.

(Unsurprisingly, his answer was "more guns.”)

Show threadCoreo Jones (coreopsismajor)Aug 7, 2023
@fade I knew I liked you. I had a friend in library school who once threw a drink at him.
Show threadcatchAug 6, 2023
@cstross @JoshuaACNewman @NoraReed there was also the time he wrote on his blog that if he ever found himself in an elevator with me, he'd shoot me, because i'm a communist.
Show threadNora ReedAug 6, 2023
@catch56 @cstross @JoshuaACNewman what is it with tech guys and elevators
Show threadJeff Miller (orange hatband)Aug 7, 2023

@NoraReed @catch56 @cstross @JoshuaACNewman Proverbially an elevator is where you catch a tech exec or investor as a captive audience and give them your "elevator pitch" like "It's Facebook for gardening, monetized (...)!" in 30 seconds to turn their large signature authority in your favor.

Said like that it makes me think of movie or pop band pitches.

Show threadcatchAug 8, 2023
@jmeowmeow @NoraReed @cstross @JoshuaACNewman it's that but it has to come from somewhere. Is it from going to loads of conference centres where you can identify people in the elevator by their lanyards?
Show threadAndreas KrennmairAug 7, 2023
@cstross the one time I met ESR, it was him presenting at a Linux/FLOSS community conference in Austria 20 years ago. He subsequently burned all the bridges to the whole Austrian FLOSS community by proclaiming that the holocaust wouldn’t have happened if the Jews all had guns. A properly unpleasant character.
Show threadAtomic OrbitalsAug 7, 2023
@akrennmair @cstross A kinda related incident in Ireland: he was doing a tour and the phrase "taking the gun out of Irish politics" was being commonly used at the time in relation to the peace process in Northern Ireland. He mentioned the phrase and went on a pro-Right To Bear Arms rant. Probably the fastest I've seen a speaker alienate a roomful of people - easily over a hundred in the audience.
Show threadJon WilsonAug 6, 2023
@JoshuaACNewman
He isn't even a particularly good programmer. I've modified some of his code, and it wasn't very good.
@cstross @NoraReed
Show threadJoshua A.C. NewmanAug 6, 2023
@jswphysics @cstross @NoraReed That, there, is the sickest of burns.
Show threadThomas HurstAug 6, 2023
@jswphysics @JoshuaACNewman @cstross @NoraReed If only he had more eyeballs.
Show threadAtomic OrbitalsAug 7, 2023

@jswphysics @JoshuaACNewman @cstross @NoraReed There's a webpage that contains a criticism of an ESR version of fetchmail. It begins "Fetchmail is an abomination before the Lord."

Unfortunately I can't seem to find it.

Show threadSean Eric FaganAug 6, 2023
@JoshuaACNewman @cstross @NoraReed I won't discuss my thoughts about ESR in public, but if you start with a response of "fuck you, I already changed the text to not use a domain I didn't own so I don't have to do anything more" you can figure some of it out *real* quick.
Show threadFlorianTischnerAug 6, 2023

@JoshuaACNewman

@cstross @NoraReed

https://geekz.co.uk/lovesraymond/page/60

Everybody loves Eric Raymond – Page 60 – A comic featuring esr, rms, Linus and others

Show threadGuyAug 6, 2023
@FlorianTischner @JoshuaACNewman @cstross @NoraReed Back when Scott Siskind was trying to keep his blog articles mask-on but letting the comment section rip, Eric Raymond was a regular, ranting about the need for guns and preparing for the coming race war. I didn't know then he was known for anything else, he just came across as a sub-Sailerian nasty little racist.
Show threadWeekend EditorAug 6, 2023

@JoshuaACNewman @cstross @NoraReed

Back in the day of The Cathedral and the Bazaar, I was happily writing software at a lisp machine. I was grateful to have found a culture where "Do the Right Thing" was not a joke, but the actual practice. (Mostly.)

We looked at The Cathedral and the Bazaar with some horror, as though it were some kind of barbarian manifesto. As though it urged people not to bother handling all the cases, just crash instead. As though speed of delivery were more important than correctness.

But then, we were the Cathedral Crowd, so we would have said that, wouldn't we?

Show threadFadeAug 6, 2023
@weekend_editor @JoshuaACNewman @cstross @NoraReed Dear god, did "move fast and break things" come from that direction? That... would explain a lot.
Show threadWhat A GuyAug 6, 2023
@JoshuaACNewman @cstross @NoraReed having met the man, I can say with some authority: yes.
Show threadPoul-Henning KampAug 6, 2023

@JoshuaACNewman @cstross @NoraReed

See also: https://queue.acm.org/detail.cfm?id=2349257

A Generation Lost in the Bazaar - ACM Queue

Show threadSean Eric FaganAug 6, 2023

@cstross @NoraReed I have very strong opinions about both those people.

(For RMS, it's mostly: ugh ugh ugh ugh ugh, but the GPL and FSF have been huge, positive influences on my portion of the world.)

Show threadCharlie StrossAug 6, 2023
@kithrup @NoraReed Just think how much more good the FSF and GPL could have done if they were the product of someone who was charming, diplomatic, erudite, and not a serial abuser with bad personal hygeine!
Show threadSean Eric FaganAug 6, 2023

@cstross @NoraReed Tell me about it.

But the person that describes? Michael Tiemann, for whom I worked for a few years.

Show threadSteve DowneyAug 6, 2023

@cstross @kithrup @NoraReed
Being surrounded by hero worshipers who excuse, validate, and valorize all your bad behavior is a recipe to convert people into monsters.
Rock stars on tour, golden age SF authors at SF cons, techbro VCs, etc

Edit, for clarity: Doesn't make them not monsters, or excuse them.

Show threadKyrre SjøbækAug 6, 2023

@cstross
Someone more like Thorvalds?

But yeah. I've never been a fan of ESR, but my view of RMS has dimmed significantly over the last decade or so, basically going from "a bit extreme to be practical, but ok" to "wtf is wrong with him".

@kithrup @NoraReed

Show threadKyrre SjøbækAug 6, 2023

@cstross

I do however really like the GPL and ideas underpinning the free software movement, and these ideas are probably needed more now more than ever.

But new leaders, less hero worship, and practical and open discussion on financing, is needed. AFAIK almost all of it is built by professionals industry and academia during working hours, while somehow some of the more toxic people are most visible to outsiders.

@kithrup @NoraReed

Show threadAtomic OrbitalsAug 7, 2023
@kyrsjo @cstross @kithrup @NoraReed The hero worship is so toxic - some people will not tolerate any criticism and attack the critics, accusing them of being liars or shills for Microsoft.
Show threadflere-imsaho 🇺🇦Aug 7, 2023

@kyrsjo so all direct personal accounts suggest that torvalds is quite charming.

while reports of direct contact with both esr and rms generally go along the line of “what an odious twerp”, or worse, if the unfortunate person reporting the encounter is not a man.

@cstross @kithrup @NoraReed

Show threadSean Eric FaganAug 7, 2023
@mawhrin @kyrsjo @cstross @NoraReed I'm assuming you mean Linus Torvalds by "thorvalds"?
Show threadflere-imsaho 🇺🇦Aug 7, 2023
@kithrup indeed. that's what i'm getting by writing comments while insomniac; corrected now.
Show threadCharlie StrossAug 7, 2023
@kyrsjo @kithrup @NoraReed People become more themselves as they grow older—especially when they're famous. And in doing so they inevitably show you more of themselves, and it's often really unpleasant.