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Comment by codys | Hacker News Reader

Alternately, there's this: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28515306

I love Rust the language, and the community is generally good, but for whatever reason modern identity politics has always been looming around its key members. Maybe just because it spun out of Mozilla and the Brendan Eich debacle, who knows.

I'm not seeing any connection between the linked discussions and identity politics, and I'm certainly not seeing any connection with Brendan Eich. Hopefully not every thread that involves reference to a CoC has to automatically turn in to a grievance bin for people who have a bone to pick with identity politics.

The second link in this thread (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28515306) includes multiple alleged statements that are about identity politics. One example being: "saying incredibly horrible sexist and racist things such as 'kill all men', and actively trying to prevent white men from speaking at tech conferences" Which seems to be connected to identity politics.

This seems to be a case of one person who's said some things that pretty much everyone would regard as inappropriate and potentially offensive (probably regardless of where they stand on CoCs or their views regarding identity politics). I see no evidence of a connection between this person and the resignation of the Rust Moderation Team.

I'd also add that making white men feel unwelcome in an open source software project is very hard work. I am a white man, and would not for a moment feel uncomfortable about trying to contribute to node or Rust because of the indelicate mode of expression of this one individual.

If the core team took her side even though she said those inappropriate and offensive things then it makes sense that the Rust Moderation team felt that they couldn't do their job and resigned because of it. Note that she is a part of the core team.

Sure, maybe. But what evidence is there that this is what happened?

As you can see this sub thread is just speculation from the first post. The evidence are the links provided in the posts above and the rest is speculation how that could potentially related to what happened today.

I encourage everyone to read the actual links in that post. I'm in no way associated with any party, but the links that supposedly give evidence for specific statements are not as clear cut as it's made out to be.

E.g. with respect to the wasm-pack both sides have reasonable arguments in the thread how I read it.

With respect to unsubstantiated accusation, that very post makes accusations of nepotism without any proof.

It's actually the opposite. In a repeat of what happened previously in the NPM community, people are asking for the CoC to actually be enforced _because of_ identity politics, rather than associating CoCs with identity politics.

Going around saying things like "Kill all men" is just about as obvious as a CoC violation can get.

Additionally, having members of the same governance body that are romantically involved probably isn't very effective strategically.

"The core team refused to kick out a misandrist member" would lead to a lot of drama if they said it publicly. If that is why they are quitting then it makes sense that they refused to say anything about it.

It's not like she would be the first or the only team member with rather controversial political views. As long as these views don't meaningfully impact her work on Rust, why shouldn't she be on the team? Why can't we just learn to be more tolerant of dissenting views?

I didn't said that she should get expelled, however since the moderation team cannot do their job to enforce the CoC when such blatant violations goes unpunished it makes sense for them to disband the moderation team. Why have a moderation team if it is just for show?

Well, then there's the other accusation: that she applied for a job at Amazon and was rejected and since then her partner, also a part of the core team, has been publicly negative about the relationship between Rust and Amazon (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28513130)

There would seem to be a massive conflict of interest there, if true.

Also...from the first line of Rust's CoC:

    We are committed to providing a friendly, safe and welcoming environment for all, regardless of level of experience, gender identity and expression, sexual orientation, disability, personal appearance, body size, race, ethnicity, age, religion, nationality, or other similar characteristic.

And the first line from the Moderation section of that same document:

    Remarks that violate the Rust standards of conduct, including hateful, hurtful, oppressive, or exclusionary remarks, are not allowed.

It's not just that it's a controversial political view -- it's a clear violation of the first rule of participating in the community. It's rules for thee but not for me.

If you're a man, I don't see how it would be possible to feel safe or welcome in _any_ association with the Rust community when a prominent Core team member is advocating for you to be killed.

It's like saying that Hitler's position on Jews is just a controversial political view.

> It's not like she would be the first or the only team member with rather controversial political views. As long as these views don't meaningfully impact her work on Rust, why shouldn't she be on the team? Why can't we just learn to be more tolerant of dissenting views?

The link goes into detail about her effect on wasm-pack, the official Rust wasm project. Her personal views and behavior at npm aside, this alone should be enough to remove her from being part of Rust in any official capacity. I guess being in a relationship with Steve Klabnik has its benefits.

https://archive.fo/f10KK

I guess the speculation is around whether or not she is the core member that might be causing friction with the coc.

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