Moved: -> @[email protected]Apr 23, 2017

Everyone read this incredible essay by @u2764

"Mourning Mastodon"

https://medium.com/@alliethehart/gameingers-are-dead-and-so-is-mastodon-705b535ed616

If you're wondering why I stopped working in MastoDev, and why my posts about how development already includes marginalized voices are no longer applicable, then read that essay because it gets into all of it super fucking well

Show threadMaiyannah Bishop
@shel For what it's worth, if you know PHP, your contributions would be more than welcome in postActiv - I need all the help I can get.
Apr 23, 2017 at 4:50amWeb
Show threadMoved: -> @[email protected]Apr 23, 2017
@maiyannah I don't know PHP :( My experience is with jekyll, jQuery, bootstrap, UX, and copy-writing. If you need help designing a menu or or feature layout or something lmk and I can take a crack at it. But I'm not very useful for back-end type stuff.
Show threadMaiyannah BishopApr 23, 2017
@shel We'll be needing some experienced hands with JS and HTML once we finalize this release, I'm going to be removing the hard-coded HTML and stuff from postActiv and making a smarty-templated replacement theme that isn't something you have to rewrite half the software to change.
Show threadMoved: -> @[email protected]Apr 23, 2017
@maiyannah Oh! That's actually something I may be able to help out with. Keep me in the loop
Show threadMaiyannah BishopApr 23, 2017
@shel As for a more on-point comment, I always think of what Hintjens commented on this topic.  It is more important to onboard contributors, find the problems with their contributions as colloborative process than a combatative one, and you make a much healthier community by being permissive and inclusion with MRs and PRs than you than by trying to gatekeep them.  We all have the same goal when we work collectively on a software project: making the software better.  The tribalism, the "I know best" and the treading on your contributors to ego-trip, all sabotage that goal.
Show threadMaiyannah BishopApr 23, 2017
@shel Hintjens describes one of the paths to success as thus, and it's what I strive to be, if not always succeed at:

"The Constant Gardener grows a process from a small seed, step-by-step as more people come into the project. She makes every change for a precise reason, with agreement from everyone. She never imposes a process from above but lets others come to consensus, and then he enforces that consensus. In this way, everyone owns the process together and by owning it, they are attached to it.
Show threadMaiyannah BishopApr 23, 2017
@shel I feel that this is the path path to success, because if the community owns the project and their contributions, and they feel they have a place in and they are invested in seeing it continue and succeed.
Show threadMoved: -> @[email protected]Apr 23, 2017
@maiyannah Have you read the "Mourning Mastodon" essay that just got posted? It's about precisely this. Mastodon got popular precisely because the community felt like they owned the project and could affect it through contributions. so they got invested. and since the media boom that hasn't been the case anymore. It became a very toxic working environment, while working for free, and after a particularly rude comment i found myself going woah, why am i even doing this?
Show threadMaiyannah BishopApr 23, 2017
@shel I'm going to assume Mastodon's glorious conversation stitching failed, I was replying to your post about it originally.
Show threadMoved: -> @[email protected]Apr 23, 2017
@maiyannah it said you were replying to my post about leaving mastodon development, though also I'd be impressed if you'd read that essay that quickly while talking to me hehe. So I wasn't sure.
Show threadMaiyannah BishopApr 23, 2017
@shel I read it over before strarting to reply.  The one from Allie Hart, yeah?  Just to be sure we're on the same page.
Show threadMoved: -> @[email protected]Apr 23, 2017
@maiyannah yup, that one
Show threadMaiyannah BishopApr 23, 2017
@shel This bit stood out to me in particular: 

"What do I mean by justice? Simply this: that the community which produced and shaped the Mastodon phenomenon be recognized for their efforts, allowed to enjoy the fruits of their labor, and given the opportunity to continue to play a meaningful role in its development"

That kind of hurt the soul to read.  I've been burnt in the past in a /big/ way with that by a project I don't want to name because I ended up burning the handle I used to contribute with, it went about that well.  It was a cry not for fame or money but for sheer recognition for their contribution.  Erasure is a shit, shit thing.
Show threadMoved: -> @[email protected]Apr 23, 2017
@maiyannah and yeah recognition and gratitude. respect and appreciation. it goes a long way. to see your work implemented and used and to be told that you did a good job and given guidance on how to get better, where you need to improve, that's a great experience. without it you get left with merely having your work merged as your reward.... the prize for your work is the work not going to total waste. it's not the best environment
Show threadMaiyannah BishopApr 23, 2017
@shel Did you see the bit where they basically reimplemented one of animeirl's contributions without credit?  That was nasty.
Show threadMoved: -> @[email protected]Apr 23, 2017
@maiyannah I didn't. i dont think that even gets thought about. people aren't attached they're just sources of code. i didn't get credited for my welcome modals simply because the pull request was squashed before merging, so my commits got erased. and so then when git log got run to generate the contributor list, i was absent. even though I had made one of the most visible contributions. it was infuriating.
Show threadMoved: -> @[email protected]Apr 23, 2017
@maiyannah and then because i still had write access on the repo i added myself to the contributor list w/o making a PR, which got my write access revoked it seems
Show threadMaiyannah BishopApr 23, 2017
@shel Now that, is malicious.  It's one thing to make a mistake or have a technical failure, or just forget or not care.  To actively take away someone's tools for trying to be attributed for their work though, that's rotten.
Show threadMoved: -> @[email protected]Apr 23, 2017
@maiyannah like i don't know if it's directly connected but the last thing i wrote to the repo was adding my name to the contributor list in the tagged release description. but like that was before I submitted my PR to fix design-breaking changes to my modals, which was titled "Repair most egregious mistakes in onboarding modals" because i was so mad when i wrote it. Someone told me to be polite and I said "I'm writing a PR, is that not polite enough for you? I could just commit"
Show threadMaiyannah BishopApr 23, 2017
@shel I think this continued to escalate ultimately because of a lack of leadership.  The way I look at it, the lead dev/maintainer is the person that bullshit on both/all sides of a conflict should end at.  They are the facilitator, and ultimately when neccessary, the peacemaker.
Show threadMoved: -> @[email protected]Apr 23, 2017
@maiyannah the way it worked was the lead dev/maintainer had power and i was the facilitator and peacemaker but without power or recognition and the lead dev/maintainer was not participating in being facilitated so we'd have agreed-upon priorities and to-dos and it rly only applied to us and not him.
Show threadMaiyannah BishopApr 23, 2017
@shel Yeah, so you got all the bullshit and none of the rewards.  I had a job like that once.  I lasted just about a year.
Show threadMoved: -> @[email protected]Apr 23, 2017
@maiyannah yeah but your job got paid yeah? I was pay_ing_. but this lasted what, 3 months? not so bad
Show threadMaiyannah BishopApr 23, 2017
@shel Minimum wage for a middle management job, but it did pay, yeah.  I can only imagine being someone who paid in to it and still got shit on.  I would be very resentful, I think, although I try not to be.
Show threadMaiyannah BishopApr 23, 2017
@shel I always felt terrible about the times I've had to manually do shit and try to at least put messages in the commit history, for ex:

https://git.postactiv.com/postActiv/postActiv/commit/d3cadf7863419541df853168ea3ee125bff4b804

Attribution has always been a big thing for me.
Show threadMaiyannah BishopApr 23, 2017
@shel Here's the thing though: People make mistakes.  We say things we regret, or sometimes we don't realize we said something one way and people interpreted it another.  Perhaps we ventured into territory they don't want to go into without realizing it.  Some people will try to make amends to that.  Others will burn the bridge.  Which, says a lot about you, as a person.
Show threadMoved: -> @[email protected]Apr 23, 2017
@maiyannah Yes!!! It's so refreshing to hear from someone who actually has the right idea about project management and group facilitation. I'd certainly been lacking that lately
Show threadMaiyannah BishopApr 23, 2017
@shel I must admit some of my frustration with Mastodon comes from a place of "the things you guys complain about are exactly what I am trying to address with my approach :c" both socially and technically.

I will admit my personally is not infallible, I've had a rough life and I tend to be rough around the edges, but I am at least _trying_.
Show threadMoved: -> @[email protected]Apr 23, 2017
@maiyannah Yeah. You're notoriously a good person to work with. With all the people talking about FOSS organization and forks and stuff it's come up multiple times that "we should take notes from Maiyannah" etc.
Show threadMaiyannah BishopApr 23, 2017
@shel It's funny because all that ever gets back to me is how I'm a terrible person for this thing or that thing.  I try to walk the middle between several disparate cultures because I ultimately value them all as a whole in different ways and contexts.  It isn't easy and sometimes it just feels like you end up making /everyone/ unhappy with you.
Show threadMoved: -> @[email protected]Apr 23, 2017
@maiyannah re: making everyone unhappy by walking middle lines. I think that's like, very real and relatable and definitely something I've experienced. if you talk to the wrong people you get trusted less.