On Sat, Dec 7, 2013 at 9:57 PM, Darren DeRidder <[email protected]> wrote: > > @isaac "First of all, to characterize Ben's departure, or the whole recent drama, as being over pronoun usage, is a radical oversimplification." > > I'm glad to hear this admission but the fact remains Joyent characterized things this way. Cantrill's post "The Power of a Pronoun" makes it all about language, and as far as anyone can tell from your corporate blog, that gross oversimplification is still their official position.
Did you read the whole post, or just the title? Maybe you missed this bit? >>> On the one hand, it seems ridiculous (absurd, perhaps) to fire someone over a pronoun -- but to characterize it that way would be a gross oversimplification: it's not the use of the gendered pronoun that's at issue (that's just sloppy), but rather the insistence that pronouns should in fact be gendered. To me, that insistence can only come from one place: that gender—specifically, masculinity—is inextricably linked to software, and that's not an attitude that Joyent tolerates. >>> Bryan published this on the official Joyent blog because this is an official Joyent position regarding inclusiveness and professional decorum, and many Joyent and Node users were calling on Joyent for a public explanation for allowing this to happen. This was mentioned in the paragraph above, as well: >>> ...because this is a Joyent-sponsored project, many made the reasonable inference that Ben is a Joyent employee—and have called Joyent to task for tolerating such poor behavior. (Especially when that poor behavior transcended into the gobsmackingly inappropriate as Ben tried to revert Isaac's commit.) >>> I don't agree with everything that Bryan says or writes. We're separate people, and Joyent employs many smart passionate people with a wide range of opinions on many issues. As more details came to light, it becomes clear that Ben's actions were not motivated by sexism, but in the end, that doesn't matter. The lack of empathy for these issues would be a fireable offense from a Joyent engineer, and the "gobsmackingly inappropriate" action of reverting the commit while a "chiding" a fellow team member is also completely intolerable. At the very least, from a Joyent engineer, closing that pull req would have been a mistake that would require an apology and explanation. Reacting out of anger in that situation would be a fireable offense. Saying so on the official Joyent blog is actually a good idea, imo. > It doesn't wash when the blog stands, and you're joking with Mikeal on Twitter referring to yourself as "The Hitler of equality". If someone calls me an "equality nazi", I'm going to laugh at them. Because they're acting like a fool, and it's hilarious. I might even make additional jokes in the same vein, because Twitter is for jokes. I changed my twitter bio even. > If you stand behind this statement that its not about just language or sexism then you ought to back it up by removing that blog post and offering a huge apology, several cases of Grolsch, and possibly your firstborn child, to Ben. Ben already has 2 kids, I don't think he needs any more. -- -- Job Board: http://jobs.nodejs.org/ Posting guidelines: https://github.com/joyent/node/wiki/Mailing-List-Posting-Guidelines You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "nodejs" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/nodejs?hl=en?hl=en --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "nodejs" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
