Core Python developer suspended for three months | Hacker News Reader

Core Python developer suspended for three months

theregister.com

107 pointsKhaine104 comments

The first given reason in "https://discuss.python.org/t/three-month-suspension-for-a-co..." is discussion on the bylaws change:

> Overloading the discussion of the bylaws change (47 out of 177 posts in topic at the time the moderators closed the topic), which created an atmosphere of fear, uncertainty, and doubt, which encouraged increasingly emotional responses from other community members. The later result of the vote showed 81% support for the most controversial of the bylaws changes, which demonstrates the controversy was blown out of proportion.

I skimmed much of "https://discuss.python.org/t/for-your-consideration-proposed...", and all the Tim Peters comments I saw so far reflected pretty well on him.

He seemed to be pointing out risks of giving quite that additional power to a board, including the risk of it being abused to neutralize opposition -- only to have the existing power appear to be used to neutralize him.

I hope this aspect won't be lost in discussion. Knowing online forums of modern Internet, I fully expect some of the keywords in later-listed reasons given for suspending Tim Peters to trigger big upvoted threads, with the effect of burying discussion of the first-listed reason. As, for example, the current top-voted thread on HN as I type this.

It's a cringing read.

Someone points out new rules make it too easy to cancel people over nothing, gets cancelled, seemingly, over this compliant (no idea about everything else).

It's literally a catch-22.

EDIT on further reading, while I agree with the arguments made by Tim Peters, I think he misread the room perhaps. It's clear the people he's talking to don't understand his hypothetical objections, and just won't change their mind. At the point where they start to take his (reasonable) objections personally, it does turn into a bit of a polite food fight.

At some point, I think you cut your losses, if arguing for the right thing does more damage than the wrong thing itself. As is, he's out, presumably the proposal will pass, just without him in board. He could have cut his losses and maybe resigned.

But easier said than done, arguing with people online about things you care about is hard.

Yeah, I didn't read the entire thing (it was torturing my just-waking brain), but I did notice a shift at one point, when he seemed to be trying to defend some well-known fundamental, which IMHO ideally wouldn't need defense nor explanation in context of a bylaws discussion.

I suppose, even to very seasoned operators, sometimes it's hard to know when is time for patient and diplomatic explanation, when is time to get worried and make more passionate argument, when is time it's time to shift to "commit" mode, and when it's time to resign with the right decorum so that you still look like a sophisticated team player to future opportunities.

I also suppose it's easier if the first priority is to be an operator.

As for the other key party, besides whatever else is going on, publicly suspending someone in the tech industry like this seems like a big deal, and can damage the career of even the most accomplished people. It had really better be necessary and appropriate, or you're looking at damage to your org reputation and your culture, and maybe legal liability.

What do you mean by "operator"?

Politician.

> I skimmed much of "https://discuss.python.org/t/for-your-consideration-proposed...", and all the Tim Peters comments I saw so far reflected pretty well on him.

I read most of it,twice. I almost agreed with Peter's after the first skim, but on reading the second time, I do think use a lot of rethorical stratagems/fallacies (he isn't the only one but the fact that he posted a lot does not help, and the use of the 'slippery slope' argument in like his 3rd post is a killer) so i now tend to distrust his good faith. The 'arguments' he use are fairly anecdotal, and now I think he's mostly wrong and a touch too adversarial. I think the Bennet guy made far better arguments (and that's frm someone who don't know/think anything about the overall situation).

Overall, I don't think Tim Peters is a bad guy (tm), I think he has been mischaracterized/misunderstood, but his position was mostly wrong and he was a bit too active, which made him seem adversarial/trollish, which did not help. Also, clearly bad faith arguments are cheap and makes me dislike you when I fell for it (which I did).

Banning for that is a bit much, but I understand my sensitivity is not the rule (but it should be :)).

P.S: Re-reading that made me feel like I'm part of the 'lesswrong' community. I'm not, but I see why checking the use of rethorical fallacies is useful.

Ironically, that chain of thinking might be a case of the argument-from-fallacy fallacy. Just because someone is seems to be good at rhetoric and makes some bad arguments doesn't mean they are arguing from a bad faith position, or even imply that their position is unsupported.

>>He seemed to be pointing out risks of giving quite that additional power to a board, including the risk of it being abused to neutralize opposition -- only to have the existing power appear to be used to neutralize him.

I mean even though the board is not traditionally a boss in the sense of an open source project. But its still a kind of management/boss.

One of the most cornerstone laws of power is to never criticise a team member, even less so one's own boss(es) or their policies in public. Another law is to never make a team member apologise to you. It simply creates a rivalry on the longer run, and new enemies you don't want to fight. In fact you are better of not doing such things in gossip too. Powers always maintain spies, or just plain allies who give them information in return for favours. If you want to walk down this path, do ensure you have enough(minimum) support from a majority section of similar powers, then act. But even this is not recommended.

In this case whenever such policies are announced in public, these decisions have been made with enough support and votes, the announcement is just a public event of informing the larger masses. If you criticise these things in public, you won't change a thing. Instead the powers mark you up for elimination at the first chance. Like in this case.

If I was this person, I would abandon the project(not just the 3 month suspension) and probably convince other team members to do the same. Python is not the only decent open source game in town.

Its also pointless to contribute to a project whose sole purpose is to hurt the very people that make it happen.

Tim literally wrote the Zen of Python and also came up with Timsort, he’s not just some random contributor.

The world is not a fair place. Its the political powers at work that decide people's fate no matter who they are.

Over the years I have seen some very critical people, even critical teams fired en masse, and then replaced by not so good people. The world goes on. The products and projects suffer for a while, many times even die out completely. But that is what the powers-that-are want, and are ok to live with.

My experience with these things tells me Tim won't find much respect there(even when he returns) unless the whole leadership is now replaced. And I can tell you other people will be treated with same levels of disrespect and outright insults going on. Once there is toxic management/leadership in place, your only options are to leave and work at some other place that treats people with respect.

Im sure their foundation gets lots of money. And they have to appear in certain way(politically, and popular cultural trends) to keep getting more money. They are not going care who is important or how important they are, when big money is involved and they are likely to make big pay days.

Its the standard evolution arc of most political hierarchies in tech companies. Once the product is successful and profits are flowing in. Management takes over. Decide they don't need engineering anymore, treat people with disrespect. Drive away good talent. Poison the whole culture and continue to milk features for more money. Eventually the set up dies out, and they go the next companies to extract the next pound of flesh.

> My experience with these things tells me Tim won't find much respect there(even when he returns) unless the whole leadership is now replaced.

I think this is the crux of the matter. The Python community was great when it was still niche. Corruption is likely to happen the more popular a group becomes. This is why I advocate staying niche: https://srid.ca/niche

> If I was this person, I would abandon the project(not just the 3 month suspension)

I would like to strongly urge you to research the story of Stefan Krah, another core developer who left in 2020. After receiving a 3 month suspension. Whom Mr. Peters spoke favourably of at the time, and who might credibly also be suspected of being neurodivergent in some manner.

History rhymes quite impressively at times.

> Steering Council member Gregory P Smith: "If a conduct-related enforcement action happens and that 'ruins their career', the responsibility for that lies entirely on them. It was their behavior that got them there in the first place."

It's concerning just how strong the "just world" fallacy is with so many people, to the point of not being able to comprehend the argument that Good Thing (tm) could ever cause harm

> "Defending 'reverse racism' and 'reverse sexism', concepts not backed by empirical evidence, which could be seen as deliberate intimidation or creating an exclusionary environment."

Sorry do they need a scientific paper to confirm that it's possible to be racist to a "majority"? And the Kafkaesque idea that it's "exclusionary" to oppose it, even as a theoretical thing

So basically “import kill-whitey.py” in an example bit of pseudo code is perfectly acceptable?

I bet there are lots of pips(?) arguing against the use of hyphens in module names.

Definitely not acceptable. For starters, you can’t import a module with hyphens.

Is this a real example? Adam lives in theory, right?

Something that came into my mind while reading your comment: There is a link between the "just world fallacy" and "creating an exclusionary environment". The just world fallacy is a mis-thought to justify CoC abuse. Abusing the CoC against people is going to hit marginalized people most - if there are accusations against a person, they are more likely agreed with when the targeted person is one of the odd/weirdo people in the community.

This is how how marginalization works in practice.

I actually agree with them here. Under the original definition the Russians used when they invented the word no you can't be "racist" against a majority. You can be bigoted but racist means something more along the lines of maintaining civilization in the form it's in and excluding people who either don't fit in well or aren't typically involved.

> Sorry do they need a scientific paper to confirm that it's possible to be racist to a "majority"?

There are different definitions and views of racism. And one dominating in certain circles says that it's impossible that a weak minority can be racist against a strong majority. This then comes down to in those group's popular claim that there is no racism against white people, because white people are the dominating group on this planet.

> I recognize that there are some who think that way. It makes me sad. But that attitude as phrased is entirely backwards. If a conduct related enforcement action happens and that “ruins their career”, the responsibility for that lies entirely on them. It was their behavior that got them there in the first place.

That seems obviously incorrect. The outcome is a combination of their behavior, the text of the CoC, and the subjective interpretation of the CoC and the behavior (by the people doing the enforcement). Any of these could be "wrong".

I gather that the person making this comment was one of the people doing the enforcement. Obviously they'd think that in any specific case, the CoC was reasonable and their reading of it and their interpretation of the behavior was correct. If they didn't think that, they would have reached a different outcome.

But this isn't a statement about a specific case. It's a statement about generalities. And it's pretty disturbing that the people running the show refuse to acknowledge the possibility of errors even on a theoretical level.

True. Reminds me of some negative interactions on Stack Overflow when your post is rewritten making your question into a different question. What are the reasons— it reads better for the community; you don’t know what you’re asking.

> mechanism to remove them – if they've been found to have violated the CoC – is seeking a vote from the full Python Community. This is undesirable, because it would "subject members of the community – including people directly impacted by that violator's behavior – to undue distress.

So... down with voting, up with secret police? Wouldn't want to stress the commoners with the power of a vote.

I've seen an increasing number of projects with seemingly questionable Codes of Conduct or other similar guidelines. As an example, a few years ago I was interested in trying my hand at contributing to a FOSS project, and found P5.js which matched my interests. However, the contributor docs [1] mentioned:

> At the 2019 Contributors Conference, p5.js made the commitment to only add new features that increase access (inclusion and accessibility). We will not accept feature requests that don’t support these efforts.

I completely support these efforts, but it turned me off the project. It seems a bit too strict to just refuse any PRs that cannot be considered as increasing access by some measures. I even tried looking for the proceedings of the mentioned conference to get more context, but didn't find anything conclusive. It seemed like an arbitrary decision, made outside public oversight.

It might be the case that these policies aren't enforced seriously, but at that time I decided that I didn't want to risk working on something for potentially months that I found cool but couldn't present as "increasing access". So, I just went ahead and played around with OpenGL instead.

[1]: https://p5js.org/contribute/access/

Gregory P. Smith writes: “If a conduct-related enforcement action happens and that ‘ruins their career,’ the responsibility for that lies entirely on them. It was their behavior that got them there in the first place.” That puts far too much faith in the process, assuming that the Python Steering Council (of which he is a member) will never get something wrong.

‘Enforcement actions’ (what a bureaucratic way to refer to punishment!) do not just ‘happen’: they are imposed by people. They may be just or unjust; the people may be fair or biased; the process may be due or undue.

Mr. Smith should reflect on the fact that his name is indelibly associated with this action, and consider that if others happen to think ill of his actions and remarks in this affair then the responsibility for that lies entirely with him: it is his behaviour he may be judged for.

python-dev is a repressive organization run by those who put themselves up for election and get 30 out of 90 votes.

Inexplicably, the elected "leaders" also have/had positions at Google, Microsoft, RedHat and Bloomberg (the Googlers may have been fired this year).

The council prosecutes those who contradict the hierarchy and have an own opinion. Tim Peters has contradicted the council on many occasions. The council is unable to summarize even simple mail conversations, disregards historical context, applies the CoC selectively and does not shy away from defamation.

The council censors and does not let the accused defend themselves.

Tim Peters is the good guy here. Intelligent, non-threatening and easy to deal with. Like in the Soviet Union, these qualities make him a threat to the system.

This is open source. The traditional remedy to some disagreement over project managemeng is to fork. If everyone agrees the fork wins, if the CoC people are in the right the fork dies. The great thing about free software is you can vote with your feet when it comes to management issues.

Yes it is that simple and it’s also not. You need financial muscle behind the fork. E.g deno vs node, valkey vs redis, etc.

The discussion got heated but I think Tim Peters is arguing for a more stringent suspension rule as opposed to a simple majority vote. CoC violations are serious and should be debated better than just setting up a vote. The debate should be publicly discussed and the findings and reasons published as well.

Why is there opposition to that?

> if the CoC people are in the right the fork dies.

I would disagree with that part. Forks are highly difficult. OpenBSD succeeded, so did the gcc fork that was sponsored by Cygwin but then merged back into mainline gcc. Otherwise?

Then, the council owns the entire marketing organization PSF, which owns the conferences, which means undesirables can and will be deplatformed.

It is much much harder to do a successful fork in 2024 than it was in 2005. Open source is corporate now, and the employees will stick with the official version and not the fork.

I think you could literally write an XPython fork that is 2 times faster, has a 100% compatibility but would still be marketed out of existence.

If Python had a free standard, it might be possible. But that will not happen.

Besides from anything about CoC, your understanding of Python fork is extremely wrong. There were numerous forks and reimplementations of Python over past two decades, some of which are mature enough to be widely known to the Python community, and yet none of them were able to fully dethrone CPython because:

- Python turned out to be annoyingly dynamic, in contrast with usual instincts. This meant that even CPython itself had to sacrifice some edge-case compatibility for every release.

- Moreover, Python C API was also hard to change without breaking some extensions, which are ironically why Python got popular in the first place! Many alternative mechanisms, notably HPy, were proposed but they all fell short of replacing the current C API. Nowadays CPython is more willing to get rid of as many internal but publicly exposed APIs as possible though.

- Python has a free standard, it's located at https://docs.python.org/ and is enough to implement something that resembles Python. You probably meant the sort-of-formal standard (which also mean many different things), but the mere existence of such "standard" doesn't mean anything, see: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40519050

Before Timsort, I knew of Tim some 20 years ago from the ranking and online forum of SPOJ[1], a Polish competitive programming website where he always seemed to top the speed leaderboards with unorthodox usage of Python.

He's exceptionally talented and original, and that sort of nonsense doesn't go well with a bureaucracy.

[1] https://spoj.com

Not all, but some exceptionally talented people might be hard to work with as well, so that anecdote doesn't give much information---you may well have claimed such observation as a generality and argued in the other way.

You're right, generalizations are difficult, and I can't give a second hand summary of how the younger me perceived Tim's posts. One thing I remember is that he didn't give off the dogmatic stubbornness or indifference to the reasoning of others that seems to be correlated with the difficulty in working with smart people.

The leaders seem to have the self-awareness to realize that writing "we are punishing a contributor for disagreeing with us on a forum thread, an act we found personally annoying" would not be ideal. Yet, they don't have the awareness to realize saying "actually, we are punishing them for writing too many comments" and directly referencing that exact thread is precisely the same thing.

This makes me a little bit less of a fan of Python, maybe that thing has jumped the shark after all. Time will tell.

Looking a bit more into this. I saw https://discuss.python.org/t/im-leaving-too/58408

And this really makes me sad for Python: the whole thing is so far away from a productive discussions, posts get hidden, etc. Very much a poisoned well.

People's tempers flare, they have unresolved trauma and whatnot. So talk with them more, not less!

Is there any way to read flagged posts? That thread is near useless without that context

Hi, I am the OP of that thread.

As my opening post there says, I was going to leave anyway - so I don't particularly mind being banned, but I do consider most of what they said about me to be defamatory and untrue (and the rest to be irrelevant). I'm admittedly no stranger to this sort of drama in the tech world - so I made local backups of my posts throughout that discussion (across multiple threads), because I knew there was a chance that I and others could lose access to them. But the specific way in which they went about things was beyond what I could have imagined.

But regarding your question: the linked forum uses the Discourse software, and its standard policies apply. Posts which were "temporarily hidden by the community" (in some cases, this can be done unilaterally) are only visible to logged-in users who have reached a certain "trust level" (which is also involved in weighting flags).

If you are logged in and subscribe to a thread, you can (as I understand it) configure your account so that replies are emailed to you. Generally this would happen before a post can be hidden, and you'd have an irrevocable record of it. However, this doesn't help with previous posts.

There's an outside chance that archival websites have copies of those forum threads taken at the right time to include currently-hidden posts.

Alternately, I've put my own archives on my blog: https://zahlman.github.io/dpo_archive/ .

It is poisonous and cancerous. I can only recommend to the people to abandon these ships. DEI in all it's forms will make you suffer, when you are talented and you are "diverse" by being "difficult". Simply let those shops dry out. Money talks. These "nice" communist people want everyone equal and those ideas have to be fought.

To see a headline were an individual who massiveley donated his private time is suspended from doing so and then wondering before clicking it "is there any chance this doesn't have anything to do with some upper class zealot being offended by how normal people speak" – one might say "Bull's Eye! What are the chances?"

But the only thing I'm surprised of is that I'm not surprised anymore.

> how normal people speak

Normal people don't use the N-word in 2024.

Also, being neurodivergent isn't a "get out of jail free" card. Plenty of neurodivergent people know or at least try to not be a jerk.

Edit: I'm wrong. I confused 70s SNL skits that didn't age well - He referenced the S** skit.

Where does he say that?

Did he use the n word anywhere in 2024? I didn't see it until now anywhere. Link? Thank you.

For anyone else wondering, the SNL skit word was apparently "slut", based on other comments here.

In my experience, the worst people to have in a group project are useful assholes. The people who volunteer a lot of time, but are so miserable to deal with that they are still a net negative when it comes to how many people they scare off or prevent from joining the project because they create such a toxic environment.

I dont know anything about this person or the python politics, maybe he fits in this category, maybe he doesn't. However i strongly feel "donating lots of time" is not an excuse for being an asshole.

It doesn't seem he was an asshole.

That's exactly why CoC exists in these projects. Everyone has to follow the same rules (at least supposedly).

There are lots of discussions about Linus criticizing others in a very harsh, sometimes offensive way, I won't repeat them here. One thing I 100% agree with is that this would create an unhealthy environment that discourages participation and contribution. Many projects adopted CoC exactly because they saw what could happen without one.

Right, that tragic cautionary tale that is Linux

Woe unto us for being subjected to the disaster that supports 90% of all infrastructure. I use Ar--

Are you willing to consider that filtering out the people who are extremely sensitive about having their feelings hurt and being as inclusive as possible is actually a good thing? Linux is a roaring success, after all. Maybe focusing on the tech instead of feelings is the right governance model.

Have you considered the possibility that Linux could have been even more successful if it had a more inclusive environment? I can't see how your elitist "filtering" philosophy is necessarily a good thing.

And of course, my comment that is purely based on facts and about professionalism is now all about sentimental and "feelings".

That's why we can never have a productive discussion on this topic.

P.S. looks I hurt some people's feelings by using this Linux example. Maybe you guys are the ones that are most vulnerable and sensitive.

"Discussing bans or removals of community members, which may be seen as publishing private information without permission" ... isn't that what they're doing here? Either ban people "silently" without commentary, giving them the choice whether they want to talk about it, or give 100% transparency and share the full details. Making an announcement about it that has half the (one-sided) details is just the worst possible option.

Things like "defending reverse racism" can mean so many things from "oh my God, that's super-racist!" to fairly benign awkward choice in language. We have no idea what it is now, but by making the accusation (without details) there will always be the air of suspicion that maybe, perhaps, they're secretly super-racist. Or something. This is an issue with a number of items on this list.

Not great... Whether the suspension is justified is hard to judge, but it shouldn't have made this announcement, and absolutely should not have published this list.

I'll also add that quite a few of these items seem to be "making assumptions or speculations about other community members’ motivations and/or mental health", which is one of the accusations on the list. Posting "too much" can certainly be disruptive, saying this "creates an atmosphere of fear, uncertainty, and doubt" is just speculating about motivation. This too is an issue with several items on this list.

I briefly went through two posts and the comments, and just can't figure out this --

> "Making light of sensitive topics like workplace sexual harassment, which could be interpreted as harassment or creating an unwelcoming environment." > "Casually mentioning scenarios involving sexual abuse, which may be inappropriate or triggering for some audiences."

In which scenario would these topics even come up when people discuss Python? I can't imagine anyone talking about these things in a professional workplace outside exceptional situations. This just seems very weird to me.

It was a code of conduct discussion wrt to enforcement and changes to bylaws to enable that. The actual threads

https://discuss.python.org/t/for-your-consideration-proposed...

And then a public warning

https://discuss.python.org/t/inclusive-communications-expect...

Wow. I can only say I can't imagine such conversations take place in this way at my company (or most companies with a decent HR department) -- some people would be fired for that. But this is open source project, I don't know what's happening.

This is interesting, from the PSC, as a whole: ‘Resisting soft conduct moderation when people point out problematic statements in what has been said. When someone tells you something said earlier was problematic, listen. That is not an opportunity for debate. That is an expression of pain. It is time to stop and reflect upon what has happened.’

I genuinely find the PSC’s suspension of Mr. Peters to be problematic given my current understanding of the situation. Will they listen to my expression of pain? Will they stop and reflect on their actions, and on the repercussions of those actions on Mr. Peters, the Python community and the software community as a whole?

Or will they try to exclude me, as they have exclude Mr. Peters?

If bias plus power is a problem, who here has the power: the one suspended, or the ones suspending?

This article gives much better context than the previous discussion (which devolved into an usual disagreement over CoC process), but the discussion itself didn't improve much. It turns out that there were several actual reports about the person in question and even quantative observations [1], regardless of one's actual intents, and that should be enough to alarm anyone (but please let me know if this is rather just a regular phenomenon). This "suspension" should really be read as: please, please chill down, because you may well have been just overheated enough to harm without realizing.

[1] https://discuss.python.org/t/python-s-supportive-and-welcomi...

Truth is, this days if a project have a code of conduct larger than 1 page, you should probably not invest your time helping it.

Three month suspension for Python core developer - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41187470 - Aug 2024 (73 comments)

This seems quite relevant to this situation: https://unherd.com/2020/01/cast-out-how-knitting-fell-into-a...

Small community scandals are a part of small communities and good luck to whoever is involved. However, the dot point list in this article manages to add a few levels of entertainment.

> Using potentially offensive language or slurs, in one case even calling an SNL [Saturday Night Live] skit from the 1970s using the same slur 'genuinely funny', which shows a lack of empathy towards other community members.

This is wonderful on a couple of levels. Both because someone seems to be saying finding SNL funny can be a CoC offence and also because I can't figure out what the word is. Too offensive for adults I suppose.

Roenxi, you ignorant slut, you can’t figure out which skit they’re referring to?

Ta.

Found it. Watched it. I laughed.

Dare to link it?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c91XUyg9iWM

Some context: The Point/Counterpoint debate between Curtin and Ackroyd was a recurring feature on SNL, and was a parody of the Point/Counterpoint segment on CBS's "60 Minutes":

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/60_Minutes#%22Point/Counterpoi...

I thought of the Richard Prior and Chevy Chase skit.

And that quote is also a direct misrepresentation, if you look at the link, he merely said “back in the days when [SNL] was genuinely funny”, near the context of someone talking about that clip.

Genuinely appears to be someone bad-faith fabricating reasons to get the result they’ve already decided on.

The way that point is worded feels like it's deliberately misleading. I don't know SNL aside from a couple famous sketches and my first interpretation was they meant they N word.

I hate that they publish 10 points without link to the original offences.

I'm sorry, I won't trust any of these committees / foundations / council without direct evidence, you can't just make up these charges and remove all the context...

I mean you can, but based on my experience, I'll just assume the council is full of do-nothing political activists who infiltrated a developer project and found a way to be petty and feel all important and mighty.

First point, he started a discussion in a discussion? What else, he commented on a RFC?

LMAO. Allowing the public to vote IS UNDESIRABLE because it MIGHT cause "undue distress." The Python Foundation is subverted.

> The issue is that Python Fellows are awarded membership for life and the only mechanism to remove them – if they've been found to have violated the CoC – is seeking a vote from the full Python Community. This is undesirable, because it would "subject members of the community – including people directly impacted by that violator's behavior – to undue distress."

This is pretty low stab and i agree that it is no better than a personal attack, but... the person enforcing the CoC has pronouns in their bio while the person who got banned doesn't. Again.

It seems like there is a corollary to the paradox of tolerance which causes groups to become so preoccupied with inclusiveness that they become exclusive

Getting the vibe that both parties are probably at fault here. Sounds like python community can be a bit overzealous in it's enforcement of generally good rules, and potentially might be politically motivated to silence someone who wants to affect change. But also that Thomas Wouters is failing to understand context and time and place, with his other infractions (like overt endorsement of slurs) making him an easy target for censoring. Like if you want a community to be more welcoming to your point of view you don't do it by upsetting others in it. Also as someone diagnosed with ADHD, burn Babylon.

You can express yourself as long it aligns with us ...

Is this a volunteer or a paid position?

Being a core developer is not paid as such.

Whether it's "volunteer work" is a bit tricky, because a number of core developers work on Python as part of their day job. Some also work on it in their spare time, some don't. Or some previously worked on it in their spare time and now no longer do. So there isn't really an obvious answer to this.

Typical modern codes of conduct (broad, arbitrary, politically motivated) seem to me to exist solely as a case of pluralistic ignorance. Besides a few true believers - usually those that gain a sociopathic leverage through them - most everyone else only goes along with them because they think everyone else does. A collective illusion forced by social pressure - nearly no one believes in it but assumes the others do so it exists.

You can’t CoC unsavory opinions out of existence. You need to confront them by putting beliefs against each other. Otherwise it’s just another inquisition.

I suspect the expectation is that we consider this an abhorrent violation of free speech or something and get worked up over it? But it seems to be a well-defined governance mechanism applied reasonably and as intended. The user has a pattern of disruptive behavior across many posts over a long stretch of time, many of them clear violations of CoC and received a 3-month suspension for it. It isn't a witch hunt, or an egregious punishment. I don't see the crisis frankly.

The damage of the public image of the Python Community has now been done not by the developer being banned, but by the CoC drama around it.

If seemingly innocent things are now held against the banned developer, that is reason to worry.

> its not too difficult to disagree that they justify a ban

I don't disagree. I have never been involved in their governance, don't know their rules, and therefore I don't have an opinion. It's their organization, they can do whatever they want.

The person you're responding to is right, this is the outrage industry again.

Having and using a CoC isn't drama unless you're a grievance farming culture warrior. The list of behavior is far from "innocent" especially taken in aggregate. Now if it isn't a true representation of the user's behavior that's a different story entirely, and would certainly reflect poorly on the python community. Is that the allegation you're making?

I mean, i think anytime something gets to the point of CoC issuing a ban against a well known community member, it is always dramatic. I dont know anything about this particular case, but in every community i have ever been a part of, the ban hammer equals drama. That's true even when it is the right course of action.

"far from innocent" - in my eyes more of a statement about you than about Peters. I'd be worried what I would be guilty of in your eyes.

Clearly very guilty of wrongthink.

Should a potential contributor get involved with Python development, or keep a safe distance? The decision isn't obvious, and conflicts of this kind place a lot of weight on the wrong side of the scale.

It is obvious, and I’ve made it. I had planned to join PyPA - attended a sprint, even had a fairly significant PR ready to submit. Then some drama started behind the scenes and I saw one of my friends drug through the mud by almost exactly the sort of thing this article is about.

I “noped” right out of there. Deleted the PR, and will never be associated with that group.

I wouldn't assume anything without seeing direct quotes.

What exactly are you alleging here?

Absolutely nothing at all. I just cannot make a judgement without seeing what was actually said.

Same, if they want people to side with them, quotes are vital.

I wouldn't jump to conclusions either.

I asked for direct quotes, but got turned down with general corp speak.

Can you point to an example that you find illustrative?

cool, when does the movie come out?

Is that the woke mind virus in action Elon Musk has been talking about on his personal blog?

Variation on Lewis's Law:

Any discussion of a Code of Conduct supports the need for a Code of Conduct.

(Original is "the comments on any article about feminism justify feminism").

That sounds like a usefully-circular/tautological claim

We say that open source is "coding in public", but we often omit that it's also being a professional in public. Even if they were well intentioned, it doesn't sound like Tim's actions were too professional. That kind of behavior can be damaging for a professional community in a lot of ways. Outside of giving the impression that the community is not welcoming to individuals of all backgrounds, it can expose actual legal entities to actual risk.

This doesn't seem like a one-time mistake, but rather a pattern of behavior that was measured and then acted upon -- likely after a series of warnings that took place behind closed doors.

The suspension is really too bad for everyone involved in the Python community, but I hope it can be a lesson for folks who have a hard time separating how they present themselves personally vs. professionally. Let's also hope that this doesn't result in the collateral damage we saw after the whole Donglegate fiasco. I'd like to think after ten years of stuff like this we've gotten a little bit better.

> We say that open source is "coding in public", but we often omit that it's also being a professional in public.

I completely agree!

> it doesn't sound like Tim's actions were too professional.

I disagree here, at least with respect to what I have seen of his actions (I am not deeply familiar with them, just know what was referred to in https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41187470). From what I can tell, the Python Steering Council’s actions were unprofessional and the members should resign; if they do not, they should be replaced. However, since I have not seen everything referred to, it is possible that I am wrong.

edit 1: reference earlier HN thread

edit 2: I found and linked that earlier thread

> folks who have a hard time separating how they present themselves personally vs. professionally

It always amazes me to see the way people behave here.

Some of the heaviest hitters in the world hang out here. Even though the atmosphere is casual, careers are regularly made (and, I suspect, broken), here.

I know that I may seem overly casual, in my own posting here, but:

1) I am not looking for employment,

2) I try to present a face of kindness and empathy. It may seem "stuffy," but I never come from a position of "I'm better than you" (There's very good reason for that, which is a story for another time), and

3) I take care not to "go negative." I'm quite capable of it, being a reformed troll, but have decided that it is better to be a force for unity, than rancor.

python-dev has never been professional. Steering Council member Wouters:

https://marc.info/?l=python-dev&m=107666540014940&w=2

"Eek... What do we have the fucking warning framework and deprecation warnings for, anyway ?!"

Van Rossum:

https://marc.info/?l=python-dev&m=139283012525982&w=2

"Larry volunteered to be the release manager and got widespread support when he did. If you don't trust him, go fucking fork the release yourself."

Both are members of the inner circle and protected.

Not every part of the world looks down on mild use of profanity, or even has the same concept of mild or not mild profanity.

If you think using the f-word in professional communication makes it unprofessional, do I have decades of stories to tell.

There are circumstances when it is appropriate or necessary, such as when indicating urgency or criticality or when emphasising authority when it is challenged in person.

But, I would argue, not in a mailing list.

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