Python Bans Prominent Dev for Enjoying the Wrong Old SNL Sketch
lunduke.locals.com
lunduke.locals.com
I actually burst out laughing when I got to this part.
These people need a serious talking-to. It's clear they have no idea what the sketch was about, and that it was actually deeply and brilliantly anti-sexist to its core. Let alone the of climate of the time, or how their reaction might be received by the great Jane Curtin.
There's also this concept of "irony", but that may a bit too far out for them at this point.
The L in SNL stands for "live".
This was aired one time live and it had a distinct and unmistakable meaning to an impressionable generation of all ages.
But way more people did have their VCRs running.
For years this was the correct answer if a pointless back-and-forth, among people who work together respectfully almost all the time and will be doing so almost all the time in the future, when it would come to such an absurd point that it must end.
The first one to recognize this point has arrived and call "Jane, you ignorant slut" entitled everyone involved to an immediate halt to the escalating discourse. This was a trigger which gained agreement to move in a direction more respectful, forever after that for people who do work together.
Well within corporate decorum to signal that no further disparagement makes sense and the worst it could get is behind us.
Nobody ever said this to each other except one time live, and the real Jane made it clear that it's not harmful to her so what does that tell you about people who can't take a joke.
It didn't used to take a whole lot of social awareness for everyone to benefit by recognizing when they had gotten as comical as SNL.
Calling a truce like this immediately set the stage that further unflattering action from any party signifies who is actually more of a loser than you thought.
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.
Defending “reverse racism” and “reverse sexism”, concepts not backed by empirical evidence, which could be seen as deliberate intimidation or creating an exclusionary environment.
Using potentially offensive language or slurs, in one case even calling an SNL skit from the 1970s using the same slur “genuinely funny”, which shows a lack of empathy towards other community members.
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.
Discussing bans or removals of community members, which may be seen as publishing private information without permission.
Dismissing unacceptable behavior of others as a “neurodivergent” trait, which is problematic because it creates a stereotype that neurodivergent people are hard to interact with and need special treatment.
Excessive discussion of controversial topics or past conflicts, which could be seen as sustained disruption of community discussions.
Use of potentially offensive terms, even when self-censored or alluded to indirectly.
Making assumptions or speculations about other community members’ motivations and/or mental health.
(I don't necessarily agree with either side, I just find it worthy pointing out that the article is bending the story to fit a narrative the author usually tries to paint).
Was there a rule that prohibits that?
> concepts not backed by empirical evidence
You can see evidence with your own eyes right here: https://old.reddit.com/r/MachineLearning/comments/10k31w3/d_...
> Making light ... which could be interpreted as harassment or creating an unwelcoming environment
No comment needed
> Discussing bans or removals of community members
Similar to violation of later Russian law that prohibits criticizing the government.
> Dismissing unacceptable behavior of others as a “neurodivergent” trait, which is problematic because it creates a stereotype that neurodivergent people are hard to interact with and need special treatment.
Sounds bad, but really hard to judge without examples.
> Excessive discussion of controversial topics or past conflicts
Was there a rule that prohibits that?
> Use of potentially offensive terms
Is this like a kitchen knife "potential instrument of murder", or "he said something we think might have offended someone else. We don't have anyone complaining yet, but let's ban just in case"?
> Making assumptions or speculations about other community members’ motivations and/or mental health.
> Casually mentioning scenarios involving sexual abuse, which may be inappropriate or triggering for some audiences.
These two are problematic, but the first one may be valid depending on actual circumstances (e.g. if his assumption or speculations were correct, then there's nothing to blame the person for).
In particular, an entire discussion of how to do so (see Mr. Peters' thread https://discuss.python.org/t/how-can-we-better-support-neuro... ) was mis-cast as an attempt to petition for allowing more "slack" to neurodivergent forum users. But that simply wasn't the argument. Mr. Peters and I, and others such as Chris Angelico, repeatedly emphasized that their communication is lacking, and when they do say what they mean, they are extraordinarily closed-minded about it.
I expect to have a lengthy blog article about this at some point, but it probably be rather challenging to express everything precisely.
Do you not realize that this just proves that this was indeed the worst kind of baseless personality driven witch hunt? This offering of proofs and justifications damns itself with it's own words.
Once again the most uncivil people with the worst conduct are the ones talking the loudest about codes of conduct.
As another commenter said, the cherry-picking is explicit in the article. But I'm writing more to assure you - as someone who was personally caught up in the situation - that the other points offered are about equally laughable. Some of them are hard to imagine as problematic even as stated; some of them appear to be multiple points referring to the same incident (e.g. "Use of potentially offensive terms, even when self-censored or alluded to indirectly." appears to also be about the SNL skit case - the point of referring to that skit was to clue the reader in to the self-censored word); and the rest - well, there are clear candidates for what incidents they have in mind, and it's simply absurd to frame them as their list does.
Unfortunately, a significant amount of the relevant forum content has now been hidden from the public eye (including many of my own posts, and posts where Mr. Peters defended me). However, archives certainly exist - I saved my own posts (and have been planning to release them for nearly a month now, and am about to do so), and it's possible to use the Python Discourse forum in "mailing list" mode, so there will be people out there with their own private copies in their email clients.
But still, some of the additional charges sound unenforceably vague and/or otherwise dubious as well.
So overall the rap sheet has a distinct aftertaste of "We're getting tired of this guy, but the current set of charges doesn't quite pack the punch we'd like it to have. So let's lather him up with rather more slippery charges X, Y and Z to, you know, make it stick and speed this process up. And so he can really start to feel the full sting of our opprobrium. That'll learn him."
I actually believe that community standards are very important, and that it's not so bad to err (modestly) on the side of safety and general respect for others.
But there's also this thing known as "due process". Basic common sense, and at least a modicum of sanity are important to have in place as well.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Dgp9MPLEAqA
Best to kick out Guido since he clearly enjoys "problematic" content. Also, they must swiftly rename Python to "Grey Box Lang" or something totally inoffensive.
The most offensive thing is the PSF's power grab vote so they can fire Python Fellows behind closed doors, which previously required the community to vote. This board is out of control and has to go.
Also, if the board can muzzle a giant in the Python community with such vague and wispy allegations, they will have no problem silencing anyone else. This dispute should have been handled by a third party, rather than relying on inexperienced volunteers who are hopelessly too involved to be impartial.
Little tricks like this make me lose faith in the objectivity of an article. Then there's the cherry picking of reasons, general tone, which makes this feel more like rage bait than an article meant to inform.
I would love to read an unbiased article on this.
Edit: here's the source suspension announcement, which has lots of comments: https://discuss.python.org/t/three-month-suspension-for-a-co...
And a less ragebait-y albeit much longer critical write-up from another developer: https://chrismcdonough.substack.com/p/the-shameful-defenestr...
Lunduke went off the deep end a while ago, anything he writes about codes of conduct is coming from the perspective of someone who published a list of companies to boycott for celebrating Pride Month. He is the archetypical person that CoCs are intended to exclude and he's extremely bitter about it.
To be clear, do you allege that he has done this? While I agree that Mr. Lunduke's content has an admittedly right-wing bias and is certainly not what one would consider "politically correct", nothing I've seen from him seems concordant with that. I would expect that the phrase "celebrating Pride Month" carries quite a bit of weight in such an accusation.
> He is the archetypical person that CoCs are intended to exclude and he's extremely bitter about it.
He has previously documented himself, as a Jewish man, being quite literally labelled as a Nazi by people who are in positions to enforce CoCs. The reaction seems not exactly unjustified to me.
My experience is that the large majority of people "excluded" by CoCs genuinely haven't done anything that ordinary members of the public would consider objectionable.
Yes: https://conservativenerds.locals.com/post/4082682/list-of-te...
I don't have the time to do a bunch of research, but these three links should be enough for someone to write a good article on this.
While Lunduke has done good work, he's alienated a lot of people in recent times (for good reason, in my opinion). He is a great source if you're looking for a quick hit of tech-adjacent social justice ragebait. He is an awful source if you are looking for a neutral account of the facts.
https://discuss.python.org/t/three-month-suspension-for-a-co...
Note that in Tim's response at the bottom of the article, he says clearly he believes the board that the details can't be shared and that they are serious.
As others have said, 3rd party that somehow has established trust, who has no incentive to favor either of the first parties and an incentive to never once have their own integrity questioned.
Never mind that pairs of these groups may have multiple members in common and that they may act upon each others' "recommendations". Never mind that Mr. Peters is also suspended from the forum for the same period (which is nominally a completely separate action) and there was no separate announcement of this.
Aside from that, keep in mind that one of the supposed charges is "defending reverse racism/sexism" - by which they don't mean defending the act of engaging in racism against white people or sexism against men, but rather defending the use of those concepts. Never mind that Mr. Peters didn't write those terms; the closest he got to the subject was to point out that he's been in environments where e.g. the idea of racism against white people is not considered legitimate.
By the way, there is nothing actually written in the Code of Conduct (see https://policies.python.org/python.org/code-of-conduct/ ) which prohibits such a political view. The closest it gets is in the completely separate "enforcement policy" document, which says that claims of having been thus discriminated against should be considered as inherently bad-faith.
In short: the Work Group, on all available evidence, objects to the idea that e.g. discrimination against men occurs and ought to be labelled as sexism; and in fact objects so strongly as to imagine that expressing such an opinion is inherently objectionable. When one party reasons like this, what "unbiased third party" could possibly be deemed acceptable?
Meanwhile, they will lose out on his hardwork and inventiveness. I don’t think this should have been flagged though. People should be honest and cover what is happening.
Some people just love being annoyingly influential with undue power in their little fiefdom.
I've been using Python for nearly 20 years. Its faults are many, but it's definitely the actually-existing language I hate the least. It's not even close.
In the various threads here about the issue, I've seen calls to fork the project. This is a massive undertaking for a programming language and there's no viable way to get buy-in if you're planning to create something mutually incompatible. So that leaves separate implementations. But that doesn't really solve a problem, if the concern is that organizational dysfunction will limit development of new features - since you've committed to the same limitations. And if the concern is anything else, then why is that concern relevant to the language itself?
I agree a fork would fail. This is why I will avoid and recommend against utilising Python as a technology, because forking isn't realistic or constructive, and it seems the major implementation has this political baggage now. I'd only change my mind on this if the project apologised and reversed their decision, but given how the decisions were made I don't see that as a likely outcome.