Node.js leadership is a toxic mess

It's a shame that this was flagged instantaneously just because it was perceived as being in opposition to diversity programs. The quote that really stood out to me wasn't about the diversity programs at all, but instead about vilifying the node community on reddit.

> reminder to reddit manbabies that they are kinda pathetic, irrelevant, boring, creepy nerds who’ll never amount to anything. The only thing they seem to know how to do is complain, masturbate about upvotes and karma, and be creepy stalkers when women are involved. Like holy shit, do these weirdos even realize what they’re doing? Y’all are literally the sketchy, sweaty nerds that make us wanna vomit. But keep doing what you’re doing, because I’d rather that y’all vomit-inducing rapey gross dweebs actually keep being open about who you are

That seems like an incredibly unprofessional thing for an employee to say, even if that's how they feel. It sounds more like childish name-calling than any real effort towards promoting diversity. I'm supportive of efforts to increase diversity within the tech community, but this sort of rhetoric just comes off as divisive rather than productive.

I have a similar thing: There's this Javascript community called WeAllJS, which according to their website: "We’re committed to being supportive, attentive, and inclusive." I know about this because one of their admins (per their Twitter profile) posted an obviously offensive Tweet about men, and has "professional mantagonizer" in their Twitter bio, alongside "Admin for @wealljs". They also work at NPM.

Most interestingly, their Code of Conduct has: 'Any attempt to present “reverse-ism” versions of the above as violations. Examples of reverse-isms are “reverse racism”, “reverse sexism”, “heterophobia”, and “cisphobia”. I think this means that heterophobia and cisphobia are not only explicitly not against the rules, but it's in fact a violation to claim that they are against the rules. Fascinating stuff.

Okay, I didn't read the post in full first. The person I'm referring to is the one who made the "reddit manbabies" comment quoted.

Also, the wealljs code of conduct has the exact same "regardless of age..." line from the NPM code of conduct, in a slightly different order (but every element is identical). I wonder how much overlap there is between the leadership of each.

If anyone is interested, please look into Isaac Schlueter's twitter account at twitter.com/izs ( he is the current CEO of NPM )

In the past few weeks his Twitter feed has gotten progressively more incendiary. He now has blocked over 200k people on Twitter and basically declared a personal vendetta against the 30k subscribers to reddit's Node.js subreddit.

This is a person who has over 10 million dollars in VC funding . I don't believe they are acting in the best interest of their investors, or the Node.js community as a whole.

Can Americans working in SV explain me how or why the white dudes let that kind of crap happen? Do they walk their heads down when the little fascists talk about "diversity"? They say Europe is liberal, but that kind of shot wouldn't get far in any country over here.

Important to remember that npm is not Node JS, though sadly they are very tightly intertwined.

I like diversity, but "Fck white dudes lol" likely isn't helping anyone.

Promoting diversity using affirmative language only should be possible. And white guys's feelings are important, too.

Every leadership group will devolve into something like this if it's members aren't moderated and if there is no clear hierarchy.

I feel like there's something important going on here, but it's damned difficult to understand what exactly it is.

Of course it's toxic. Remember the kik disaster in which NPM valued it's users like crap.