Nora ReedAug 6, 2023
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
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 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. Newman
@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.
Aug 6, 2023 at 12:56pmWeb
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