(mainly addressed to
[2022-02-14 10:01:58 AM] : (mainly addressed to those working in tech-y audiences): in recent years there's been greater awareness of toxic communities (or toxic leadership within those communities) in the software world. I struggle with this issue a bit because the founder and main engine of the audience I serve (Racket programmers -- it's a pretty fringe-y programming language) is a huge a-hole (sorry for the salty language). Everyone else in the leadership knows this, but nothing happens. This issue is as old as the hills. Some high-profile people even leave the community because of this abuse. Most people don't encounter the abuse, but if you get high up enough in the community you're likely to become increasingly aware of it. I admit that this sometimes takes some of the steam out of my efforts to serve the audience. I don't want to turn a blind eye to the issue, or in any way help the open-source project along in the knowledge that the leadership benefits from my efforts. In short, I don't want to promote toxic crap, even indirectly. But at the same time, I don't want to just abandon the audience. Any insight into this?
1 Reply
[2022-02-14 10:31:09 AM] : in my community (ruby/rails) there are a lot of people i don’t like. i just consider it a cost of doing what i’m doing, and i try not to let it bother me more than it should.
[2022-02-14 10:38:46 AM] : i can’t tell you what’s a good choice for you but i can tell you how i’d view it. i’d view it not through the lens of what helps or doesn’t help the founder, but rather what helps or doesn’t help the audience members. does leaving the community help the “consumers” in the community? obviously not. sounds to me like a tough dilemma though will probably no great solution, only trade-offs.
[2022-02-14 10:48:43 AM] : > sounds to me like a tough dilemma though will probably no great solution, only trade-offs.
[2022-02-14 10:49:57 AM] : I'd agree with this
[2022-02-14 10:50:30 AM] : being aware is good. i'd also think about ways to frame it so you can be a positive voice and advocate in the space.
[2022-02-14 10:50:41 AM] : shitty people are everywhere, sadly :disappointed:
[2022-02-14 10:51:29 AM] : haha, so true
[2022-02-14 10:58:39 AM] : I think about it through the lens of: if there are people I can help, who aren't awful and toxic, I focus on them.
[2022-02-14 11:05:07 AM] : great ideas -- thank you!
[2022-02-14 11:19:30 AM] : it helped to just get this out of my system, thanks
[2022-02-14 11:19:37 AM] : I really believe in separating the art from the artist, so to speak. There are a lot of very successful, brilliant people, who should absolutely be listened to, closely, in their particular area of genius…. who are unrepentant assholes and also hold a lot of opinions unrelated to their core competence that are just flat out wrong.
[2022-02-14 11:19:39 AM] : it's a kind of mental roadblock
[2022-02-14 11:21:38 AM] : Could also be an opportunity, in fairness.
“Racket, now with 20% less assholes!”
[2022-02-14 11:22:36 AM] : yeah actually people encourage me to build on something I already started (Racketfest, a Racket-centric conference that I launched based on my 30x500 work). they want me to use it as a basis for a kind of parallel, less-asshole-y community
[2022-02-14 11:23:32 AM] : (I admit in my own experience with hard core functional programming types, the language family has a real magnetic pull towards a certain kind of programmer.)
[2022-02-14 11:23:44 AM] : you said it!
[2022-02-14 11:24:42 AM] : (that said, there are also a bunch of really mind-blowingly awesome people, too, in addition to a lot of people who want to get started)
[2022-02-14 11:26:41 AM] : I myself sometimes get blown away and can feel small compared to some of the people in that community, given my own skills, but that's a separate issue
[2022-02-14 11:28:35 AM] : That’s just the biz. It’s too big for anybody to wrap their head around in its entirety, but it attracts smart people who self-identify as smart people, and they’re always stumbling over something that blows their minds and being in awe of somebody coming up with it.
[2022-02-14 11:29:09 AM] : Don’t be worried feeling dumb. Be worried when you have all the answers all the time.
[2022-02-14 12:05:30 PM] : I write a lot about systems stuff that has a kind of toxic vibe to its community. My approach is to write about it in a way that's totally detached from the community -- like "hey, these things are on your computer, let's see how they work!". I don't encourage people to get involved in the community and I'm not involved in the linux kernel community in any way myself.
[2022-02-14 12:07:26 PM] : in my first zine I wrote about this explicitly actually -- I wrote something like "It seems like Linus is an asshole and the kernel community is kind of toxic, but I don't care, I'm interested in this stuff and we're going to learn about it and you literally never need to speak to those people"
[2022-02-14 12:09:08 PM] : > My approach is to write about it in a way that’s totally detached from the community -- like “hey, these things are on your computer, let’s see how they work!”
fwiw julia i really like and appreciate this aspect of your work, and your work has inspired me to take a similar approach (or at least try to)
[2022-02-14 12:11:34 PM] : really well said julia
[2022-02-14 12:18:31 PM] : I'm not sure if that approach works as well with a faster-moving technology though, with Linux it works really well because Linux has a really strong backwards-compatibility guarantee and decades of software relying on it working a certain way so like there's no way some Linux community drama is going to change how system calls work
[2022-02-14 12:49:28 PM] : haha, I come from the rails community and the mobile dev community, and there’s just always always always some shit going down, either DHH (and others!) running his mouth or bigtech doing some dirt, or lately, everybody in an internet slapfight together.
I just ignore it, be the change, and stick to my knitting.