Gender Politics : comments [A Bug's Life]

How would you allocate respect in a community the purpose of which is to produce an output other than ability to produce output?

Now, yes, there's no need to be rude to people who are just starting out with small stuff and who might need help now and then - but I don't see what's so gorram awful about giving people more respect when they do $whatever *well*. And *obviously* any group will want to feel that their sort of merit is the *best* sort of merit and within that group it is that merit that counts not some other merit - that's just how it works! The Oscars don't reward bad actors just because they happen to be amazing cooks and OSS isn't going to reward mediocre programmers just because they happen to be genius chemists.

And how do you catch up? You start doing the things that life, unfortunately, didn't allow you to do when you were younger. Or you get a job that comes with training. Or you take some courses off your own back. Or you start at the bottom and watch the experts.

And along the way some people could do with a kick up the arse and some lessons in how to ignore obnoxious trolls (why do people take this crap seriously?). And some other people (and some of the same people!) could do with a kick up the arse and some lessons in how to say "your code doesn't work" without using any swear words.

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Meritocracy is fine, but the attitude of many open source people is far from helpful, and most projects don't have a way to introduce people to a project in a sensible fashion (like getting people to write test cases, or having more experienced developers mentor new project members) so it's often a case of sink or swim.

It's not just a gender issue either, the whole, "if there's a bug then you can fix it, because you've got the source," thing only really works if already pretty familiar with the source or you've got time to go and understand it properly. For most people neither of those is going to be true.

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Er, but if you don't want to put in the time to understand it... just where do you expect to fit in in a community for fixing it?

(disclaimer: I'm far far too lazy to engage in such time intensive hobbies, maybe I'd find I'm too stupid to do them well - I don't know, but I'm not about to blame other people for my laziness (differing time priorities) and/or stupidity)

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The difference in time required to contribute usefully to a project with some help in getting started, and contributing usefully with no help at all is huge. I wouldn't expect somebody at work to sit down and start writing test cases without at least a quick talk through the architecture, and the expectation that they'll write simple ones to start with and will need to ask lots of 'stupid' questions.

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Of course, not all men are loud and crap. Just the loud, crap ones :-)

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Merit is not the only factor that applies in the hierarchy, much though people claim it is. There's also aggressive posturing, and gaining position by belittling other people. It looks like merit is binary, not a continuum - and if you don't have enough merit, you shouldn't be here at all. Women receive a lot more sexually-related comments than they should if the community is all about output: conclusion - it is not just about output.

Also, some sorts of output (coding, bugfixing) are rated more worthy than other sorts, women's work - touchy feely usability, documentation, arranging workshops and meetings.

The set of rules they claim applies, does not.

People may want to avoid the hassle of talking nicely and not being offensive, in order for communication to be more efficient; but this does not stop them crafting belligerent responses. More efficient to let it go, eh?

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Yeah, OK, so immature prats make stupid insulting remarks. OK, they should grow up and develop some tact or at least a professional facade. But why does this have to be a mega issue? If someone calls me a rude name I might decide that I don't like/respect that person much but I'm not going to have much more reaction than brief anger at that person for being an annoying prat - stop caring and people will stop being stupid at you to get a cheap rise - arguing just feeds the stupid troll.

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I think it's the scale that is the issue. You go to join in, expecting people to be developing software with a semi-professional attitude, and get not one but several people flaming you and commenting on aspects of you that are nothing to do with the project. I'm used to a work environment where that is not acceptable, and a lot of legislation and education has been targetted at stopping this. You can ignore one bully but not most of the rest of the office joining in and jeering at you.

I've not been a member of the communities discussed in the paper, but in similar situations I have sometimes given up, as my presence is unwelcome there, and gone to play with my dolls.

But now? Some anecdotes I've heard of the sort of abuse on these lists is shocking, and I would not want to watch them escalate while I tried to stop caring.

"Ignore the bullies and they'll go away" didn't work when my Mum suggested it in school, and I don't suppose it'd work now.

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