[HN Gopher] Why I no longer contribute to Racket
___________________________________________________________________
Why I no longer contribute to Racket
Author : velcrovan
Score : 328 points
Date : 2021-06-16 18:00 UTC (5 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (beautifulracket.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (beautifulracket.com)
| adenozine wrote:
| Is there any proof to this?
|
| Not that I'm in disbelief, but I guess I just wonder why nothing
| has been done if it's as intense and awful as the claims.
|
| Either way, it's repulsive to hear about bad behaviors like these
| in beautiful scheme communities.
|
| I hope everybody involved heals and flourishes.
|
| Edit: to be clear, obviously I believe the guy. It just seems
| crazy that such an amount of responsible, educated people would
| let this happen in any kind of professional or educational
| setting. If someone spoke that way to anybody at my work, they'd
| be absolutely brutalized and more than likely terminated that
| same day.
| gorjusborg wrote:
| Because it can be difficult to approach cruel people about
| their cruelty, would be my guess.
| alexfromapex wrote:
| Kind of a weird instance of The Bystander Effect
| Tomte wrote:
| It's usually called "missing stair":
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Missing_stair
| faitswulff wrote:
| What would the author have to gain from fabricating it?
| plank_time wrote:
| For the record, I believe the author.
|
| But asking what the author would gain from fabricating it is
| a terrible reason to believe something. Pathological liars
| exist and they prey on people with such low bars for belief.
| faitswulff wrote:
| I think it's exceedingly rare for an outstanding technical
| contributor like Matthew Butterick to also be a
| pathological liar, especially in ways that would hurt their
| own career.
| toolz wrote:
| Both of these are great questions, I wish situations like
| these were resolved with a recorded conversation between at
| least the accuser and someone who attempts to be unbiased
| that was involved.
|
| I recently had an acquaintance get cancelled who held pretty
| troubling religious opinions, but outwardly the way he
| treated everyone was better than the vast majority of people
| treated others in that community. I feel like a conversation
| would've resolved that issue without him losing 3 positions,
| one of which being his job.
| adenozine wrote:
| Maybe you misunderstood my post, I don't disbelieve him. I'm
| raising concerns that there's apparently brazen abuse
| happening amongst many accomplished adults with nobody being
| held accountable for it.
| golergka wrote:
| I don't know enough about this particular situation to have
| an educated opinion.
|
| But in my experience with these kinds of situations, people
| often misconstrue and sometimes even knowingly misrepresent
| them not because a rational reason to fabricate them, but
| just because of one or the other irrational psychological
| reason to do so. People are not rational, and the mere fact
| that they wouldn't get anything doesn't mean that they would
| do it.
| shadowgovt wrote:
| > why nothing has been done
|
| Felleisen is a project founder. People often feel extremely
| uncomfortable holding open source founders to task for their
| behavior.
| jefft255 wrote:
| I think verbal abuse, when done a certain way, is tolerated in
| a way that other forms of bullying aren't. Unless there are
| threats or sexual harassment, people in power will usually get
| away with being a complete ass with no consequence (and even
| then!). Good to know that your workplace isn't like this, at
| least that's your perception, but some places allow people like
| this to thrive. This has to change.
| Tomte wrote:
| > why nothing has been done
|
| Probably because without Felleisen there is no Racket. He's
| obviously not the only team member, but he's been working on it
| for decades. If you censure him, the whole thing might fall
| apart.
|
| And, of course, confronting people is uncomfortable. The
| article's author even arranged himself with it: "The rest, I
| ignore. For me so far, that compromise has sufficed."
| markus_zhang wrote:
| I don't think it's easy to get proof for this kind of things.
| Basicaly you have to wear a recorder (or keeping a recorder app
| open all the time) whenever you meent with him. Doable but
| still, PIA.
| agumonkey wrote:
| human groups are really not optimal for these. I've now
| witnessed (and my radar is not wide) at various degrees insane
| amount of silence.. if people have a solution, or hints, I want
| to hear/read about it
| amznthrwaway wrote:
| Responses like yours are one of the biggest reasons that people
| often allow such abuse to continue.
|
| They know that even if they're privileged white males etc, that
| there will still be people like you whose first reaction is to
| question the veracity of the accusation, and to implicitly side
| with the accused unless solid proof is provided.
|
| Your cause for doubt (surely something would have been done if
| he was really this bad) shows naivete on your side. People
| rarely hold powerful abusers to account; there's so much
| downside to doing so, and comparatively little upside.
|
| I respect the poster for being honest, even though he surely
| painted a target on his back, and will face more hostility than
| if he had remained quiet.
| mark_l_watson wrote:
| I don't know either of the two people involved so I have no
| judgment of either person, but it is in any case a sad story.
|
| I went to the yearly Racket (virtual) get together about 6 weeks
| ago - it was great! No sign of anything but nice people sharing
| their projects.
| velcrovan wrote:
| Yep, same! That event was organized by a community member
| (https://racketfest.com/). Matthias was not involved in that
| event... and Matthew Butterick was a sponsor.
|
| My experience with the community has been 100% positive. But
| I've also never had to deal with Felleisen. We're worse off if
| good people who invest a lot more of their time and money in
| Racket are going to be subject to pointless abuse by the
| project's founder.
| muyuu wrote:
| I think it's a bit dangerous to pass judgment without having
| first-hand account of the facts. Having said that, a lot of
| people are in the wrong here if this account is accurate.
|
| If volunteers are invited to teach, then everybody needs to be
| onboard and agree beforehand, and no considerations regarding
| previously known qualifications can be raised after this process
| is over.
|
| Boundaries need to be clearly set so these situations cannot
| arise.
|
| OTOH taking unwarranted criticism is also not a good thing. If
| you see something like this you need to tell the big honcho to
| STFU, esp. when it's volunteer work anyway. Perhaps not in
| everybody's character to do this but once one has had some
| experience of this sort (I have) and given it some thought, it
| should come naturally.
| Sr_developer wrote:
| Just 2 comments.
|
| Life has taught me that no matter how noble, pure, well-intended
| or just a cause is you will find exactly the same interpersonal
| dynamics that you will find in most organizations, including many
| despicable ones. Our extremely thin varnish of civilization is
| not strong enough to stop millions of years of evolution fine-
| tuning us to be hierarchical tribal apes living in small
| groups.Remember that every time you join a movement, you will
| have to deal with the same bullshit than in everywhere else.
|
| The second one, quoting the author: ". I've navigated plenty of
| difficult people--LA lawyers, SF venture capitalists, et al." I
| would say that the author must have experienced a very narrow
| window of human types if those are the examples he came up with.
| I just found it funny, no need to make a drama about it.
| scabarott wrote:
| If you've dealt with VC's or lawyers before you'll understand
| this example. Of course many probably worse examples from
| Academia or restaurants or military or whatever but if you're a
| software entrepreneur these are very good examples.
| Sr_developer wrote:
| I guess I agree, with the caveat that this applies to white
| middle-class Americans.Otherwise those VC/lawyers are not
| even on the top half of "dificult people" you can face on
| earth.
| leafmeal wrote:
| In case OP shows up, we believe you and support you! Speaking out
| like this is hard but it's the best way to help the community you
| love.
| Ashanmaril wrote:
| > we believe you and support you!
|
| Not that I think he's lying, but... why?
|
| I don't know who any of these people are but I don't like the
| idea of hearing one person's account and automatically assuming
| it's true. At least not in the case of assertions that are
| potentially career-ruining.
| leafmeal wrote:
| Am I being naive? I think it would be pretty absurd to lie
| about this.
|
| I don't think anybody want this to be career ruining. It is
| really hard to check assholes with authority. The least we
| can do is take this person's complaint seriously.
| velcrovan wrote:
| > I don't know who any of these people are
|
| That's the key point right there. The target audience is the
| Racket community, who do know who these people are. No one is
| out to ruin Felleisen's career, he will be fine no matter
| what. But the Racket community has an interest in his effect
| on that community. We are much worse off without Butterick's
| involvement.
| ImprobableTruth wrote:
| >No one is out to ruin Felleisen's career, he will be fine
| no matter what
|
| I mean, why do you assume that? I don't know the Racket
| community, but if he is "the self-styled leader of the
| Racket project" being potentially forced to step
| down/ousted seems like it would very much impact him
| personally.
| plorkyeran wrote:
| He is a tenured professor, and his work on Racket is only
| tangentially related to what he's actually paid for. His
| research work doesn't rely on him leading the project or
| even being involved in it. He would presumably be very
| unhappy about being forced out of a leadership position,
| but that's about it.
| ImprobableTruth wrote:
| I'm not sure what you mean by 'his work on Racket being
| only tangentially related to what's he actually paid
| for", as far as I know all his research for like the past
| two decades has been on Racket, though I'm not familiar
| with what he's been doing exactly. Now, it could be that
| his involvement with the project isn't necessary for his
| research to continue without issue, but I at least don't
| think that's a given and would depend on what research
| he's been doing specifically.
| ajarmst wrote:
| Felleisen is an ACM Fellow with a senior tenured position
| at Rice. American, white, middle-aged. Doesn't have a
| presence in social media. He'll be fine.
| velcrovan wrote:
| You're apparently walking into this with zero knowledge,
| so any of this would be assumption _for you_ until you
| learned more. _I_ am assuming nothing. I 'm telling you
| the facts as I am aware of them. Feel free to do your own
| verification, for sure.
|
| Felleisen is very secure in an academic career and his
| status on the Rackt development team does not affect his
| position or his paycheck in the slightest. You can google
| him and look up his wikipedia entry.
| ImprobableTruth wrote:
| No, I'm not walking into this with zero knowledge - I'm
| familiar with some of his (old) papers and know that he's
| been working on Racket/PLT Scheme for quite a long time,
| though my knowledge of Racket is mostly limited to some
| gradual typing/DSL papers and I'm not aware of what the
| dynamics of the Racket organization or community are.
|
| And yes, he won't lose his job or end up destitute, but I
| find the insinuation that this means "he will be fine no
| matter" quite strange. If it prevents him from continuing
| his current research work (I don't know whether that's
| the case), I'd very much count that as impacting him
| personally.
| dleslie wrote:
| As an aside: I'd _really like_ to purchase Beautiful Racket in
| dead-tree form. I much prefer having a book open on my work bench
| to follow along to, than a website. Monitors are tiring to look
| at for long periods.
| newaccount2021 wrote:
| Whatever happened to just telling people to go f*k themselves?
| kelvin0 wrote:
| There can only be 1 Linus. Copy cats need not apply.
| dtornabene wrote:
| Seeing a lot of "no evidence" and such from comments and just
| putting it out there that I had heard of behavior like this over
| ten years ago living in Boston and meeting former students of
| Felleisen. I've been a lisp person for many years and worked
| right down the street from NEU. I use racket, and use tools that
| are built on Racket fwiw.
| Gimpei wrote:
| My first job out of college was at a magazine. The two editors
| there were in their 70s and notorious for being bullies (although
| for what it's worth, one of them mellowed out after their
| editorial assistant committed suicide). There wasn't a day when I
| wasn't yelled at repeatedly, and the taint seeped down, with
| everybody lower down the rung yelling at anybody below them. It
| was easily the most toxic environment that I've ever experienced,
| and I've worked in academia! People were breaking down in tears
| all the time. Ex editorial assistants would send in letters
| written in crayon from insane asylums. The funny thing was that
| instead of resenting their tormenters, most people adopted a very
| protective stance towards these editors, as if they were
| children. Sadly, the impression that I got was that a lot of
| other publications had similar problems--smart but extremely
| neurotic bosses who regularly demeaned their employees. This was
| in 2000, around the time when "The Devil Wears Prada" came out.
| The one upside was that it permanently scared me out of
| publishing, which turned out to be an excellent career choice.
| neilv wrote:
| I'm very sorry to hear that Matthew Butterick had some bad
| experiences. He's been a brilliant and energetic contributor to
| the Racket community. Clearly, something went wrong.
|
| For what it's worth (looking at some of the comments from people
| not very familiar), my own experiences with Matthias Felleisen
| have been positive. (I started contributing to what was then
| called PLT Scheme around 2000, have had lunch with him twice, and
| a few times over the years have had some mutually-candid
| conversations with him, about concerns affecting the
| project/community.)
|
| While I might describe Matthias as a freethinker and straight-
| talker, everything I'm aware of that he's said or done in the two
| decades I've been around seems to come from altruistic
| intentions.
|
| I know Matthias cares about the community. (He was very welcoming
| when I started, and we've discussed it over the years.) I think
| he'll want to personally investigate and consider what happened
| that resulted in alienating Matthew B., and try to correct any
| problems that he can.
|
| This isn't just about Matthew B., but also about constantly
| seeing how we can be the best community for everyone. That's not
| a solved problem, and I suggest it's best approached as an
| ongoing process of humility, honesty, and support -- everyone
| feeling safe to raise concerns/problems, and everyone feeling
| safe to examine how we can improve.
| velcrovan wrote:
| > I think he'll want to personally investigate and consider
| what happened that resulted in alienating Matthew B., and try
| to correct any problems that he can.
|
| Given MB's level of investment in Racket and its community,
| you'd expect that it would have been addressed in January, when
| he told the Racket team he was out. Whatever you think about
| Felleisen it seems pretty likely that he was aware before now
| and had already made up his mind not to address it.
| antattack wrote:
| Most if not all responses here appear to target Matthias,
| however, it seems to me that author is also blaming Racket
| community for witnessing first hand the bullying and doing
| nothing. Tolerating Matthias alleged behavior is in a way
| condoning his abusive streak.
| desine wrote:
| Beautiful Racket was one of the sites that helped me learn the
| language/toolset, along with HTDP, by Felleisen. This is
| troubling, but the lack of detail and context is also troubling.
| I would wager most of us in the CS community have experienced
| personalities that deliver harsh criticism. The types of people
| that often don't realize how vicious their tone comes across. I
| also have no doubt that I on occasion have been more abrasive
| than I intended to. There's many in this community that are "on
| the spectrum", but there's an even broader spectrum that exists
| in programmers of people that are too in their own heads, or just
| not properly socially adjusted, with no medical definition. I
| don't wish to make excuses for bad behavior, but there's also the
| potential cultural differences of Felleisen being German, and the
| stress involved with trying to organize a convention. Even after
| being degraded by Felleisen, Butterick received a high rating for
| his teaching by Felleisen? This sounds like a stereotypically
| "cold" German personality and and a soft kind American
| personality just generating friction. I've seen it other times
| within my teams (without the specifically German cultural
| aspect); instances where one abrasive person doesn't realize how
| much they've affected one softer, kinder person. And instances
| where a sensitive person (not even overly-so) feels personally
| slighted by what was just a bad mood or an bad moment.
|
| I'm disappointed to hear that a great Racket contributor feels
| wronged and slighted, especially to the point of reducing his
| passion for contributing to the project. But the linked post
| doesn't give me enough to go to my pitchfork closet either. I
| guess it's something to keep an eye on for other signs
| jgwil2 wrote:
| > Even after being degraded by Felleisen, Butterick received a
| high rating for his teaching by Felleisen?
|
| I believe you've misunderstood a sentence from the article. The
| author meant he received higher ratings than all other
| teachers, including Felleisen, _from students_ , not that
| Felleisen himself rated the author's teaching highly.
| desine wrote:
| Ah, you're right, thank you. That does change the context a
| bit.
| CoastalCoder wrote:
| > Even after being degraded by Felleisen, Butterick received a
| high rating for his teaching by Felleisen?
|
| I think you may have misread this part: "At the end, the
| students gave me the best evaluation scores of all the
| instructors--Felleisen included."
| parenwielder wrote:
| Firstly, the high rating that Butterick received for his
| teaching (the highest of all the instructors) was given by the
| students, not Matthias.
|
| Secondly, Matthias has lived in the United States for virtually
| his entire adult life. Longer than probably the majority of the
| posters here have been alive. The issue is not one of cultural
| differences or a misunderstanding. Matthias behaves this way
| consistently, is unapologetic for it, and when pressed will
| explain that his "challenging behavior" (i.e. abuse) is some
| kind of test of your ideas, your willpower, or your capacity
| for success.
| desine wrote:
| >Matthias behaves this way consistently, is unapologetic for
| it, and when pressed will explain that his "challenging
| behavior" (i.e. abuse) is some kind of test of your ideas,
| your willpower, or your capacity for success.
|
| This would also change the context, but I haven't heard
| anything else about this, which again is why I'm deciding to
| pay more attention, but not quite ready to demand any sort of
| community uprising against him.
| watwut wrote:
| So, you know nothing about the situation, but are confident
| to claim that it is all misunderstanding, that Matthew
| Butterick is essentially not understanding situation and so
| on.
|
| It is unfair to Matthew Butterick and to anyone in his
| situation.
| parenwielder wrote:
| Frankly, if you haven't heard anything about it, it's
| because you are not a part of the community that Matthias
| is in (whether that be Racket or Academic Programming
| Languages). It's very far from a secret, though obviously
| people's individual tolerance for his behavior varies.
| desine wrote:
| Yeah I just started picking up Lisp with SICP during the
| lockdown. AFAIK this is the first time it's hit the front
| of HN or any other pages I follow
| watwut wrote:
| > I would wager most of us in the CS community have experienced
| personalities that deliver harsh criticism. The types of people
| that often don't realize how vicious their tone comes across.
|
| Often it is actually _content_ that is bad and not just _tone_.
| Also, not every aggressive jerk has autism.
|
| Many autists do put a lot of work into not be assholes. Where
| they fail, they also do comparatively much less harm then
| neurotypocal person who takes pleasure in mistreating you.
| moocowtruck wrote:
| I been around Matthias a long time and don't really see it.
| Perhaps Matthew can identify some examples that prove he's not
| the fragile flower he says he isn't?
| yladiz wrote:
| Perhaps you can use language that doesn't belittle others to
| make your point?
| moocowtruck wrote:
| I am using matt's own words, didn't realize that was
| belittling someone
| a1369209993 wrote:
| > language that doesn't belittle others
|
| Whether you agree with them or not, they are _literally
| quoting_ TFA there.
|
| > Why? It's not because I'm a fragile flower. I've navigated
| plenty of difficult people - LA lawyers, SF venture
| capitalists, et al.
|
| Edit:
|
| > What I don't understand is why they are asking for
| examples... that are literally in TFA.
|
| Beats me, I'm just complaining about the spurious "belittling
| others" accusation.
|
| > If the author was a 'fragile flower', would that make this
| described behaviour then acceptable?
|
| Why are you asking _me_ that and not moocowtruck? They 're
| the one who implied it would.
| velcrovan wrote:
| What I don't understand is why they are asking for
| examples...that are literally in TFA.
| moocowtruck wrote:
| where? i see general statements
| mcherm wrote:
| Try reading paragraphs 3-7. Whatever else you may feel
| about them, they are clearly quite specific about the
| behavior experienced.
| jodrellblank wrote:
| Say for a moment that the events happen as described:
|
| > " _Felleisen eventually swiveled his rage in my
| direction, verbally impugning my skills and qualifications,
| and suggesting that however bad things were, I would only
| make it worse. [...] Felleisen clearly took pleasure in
| demeaning and belittling me in front of this group._ "
|
| If the author was a 'fragile flower', would that make this
| described behaviour then acceptable? Parent commentor is
| not asking "prove that there was an outburst of insults
| directed at you", they're asking "prove that you didn't
| fall apart because you are weak", and that seems pretty
| irrelevant - weak or strong people should be able to attend
| a conference by invite without being told by the organisers
| they are incompetent and will make everything worse, right?
|
| (The use of the author's words in that context doesn't
| change much; imagine author: "before you say I'm a moron, I
| have built XYZ" going to commentor: "prove you aren't a
| moron?" - it's an insult, because the author used it in an
| insulting context while disclaiming its applicability)
| _pmf_ wrote:
| About 80% of my university professors (CS and otherwise) were
| similar to this. I don't know what's wrong with this profession.
| kybernetikos wrote:
| I think it may be because of the teacher / student power
| dynamic. I expect you get used to treating everyone like
| they're much younger than you and that you can treat them
| disrespectfully without any major consequences.
| lamontcg wrote:
| Big Fish / Small Pond rules may also apply.
|
| And as the professor ages their best research may be behind
| them, and the ones who can't take a bitter pill like that may
| start punching down on people below them.
| DonaldPShimoda wrote:
| FWIW, Matthias is known for being especially egregious in this
| respect even among other academics. But you absolutely have a
| point about there being a problem endemic throughout the
| profession.
| gkya wrote:
| So I went over and looked around this Felleisen person's personal
| website, and... how do I put this, he is one unpleasant
| insufferable dude. Enter the rabbit hole:
| http://www.ccs.neu.edu/home/matthias/
|
| > - personal site
|
| > Warning You are about to leave campus and visit a web site
|
| > with centrist views that may offend readers used to safe
| spaces.
|
| I followed the link, and felt too much cringe to be able detect
| offense per se.
|
| Personally I am avoiding Racket so long as this man is anywhere
| near it. Luckily I didn't invest any significant time in it
| before. I feel deeply sorry for his grad students and underlings,
| despite knowing none. It must've been an ordeal for each and
| every one of them.
| muyuu wrote:
| I wouldn't read too much into people's personal sites tbh.
| People are multifaceted. BTW the site does seem a bit
| unnecessarily political, but this is far from rare these days.
| nomrom wrote:
| he seems to have many faces, most of them suck tho.
| gkya wrote:
| "Unnecessarily political" is a nice abbreviation of "his
| politics are hurtful, hateful, and part objectively wrong".
| Tade0 wrote:
| My litmus test is climate change denial - for some reason truly
| insufferable people consistently have this one thing in common.
|
| Sure enough among the quotes is an excerpt form a 1974 Time
| magazine article about global cooling, which is a dog whistle
| for "the science is not settled".
|
| My sister had to suffer through a few courses with a professor
| who gave such enlightened opinions as "men should be paid more,
| because they eat more than women".
|
| Fortunately the students managed to make him lose his position
| as a lecturer on the grounds that he ranted instead of actually
| giving the lecture.
| Graffur wrote:
| The link on centrist views wasn't that bad although the other
| link leads to a site without HTTPS. Bad stuff indeed.
| parenwielder wrote:
| The link to the personal site was a byproduct of what he
| described as a "social experiment" in which he published the
| James Damore memo on his office door, and was offended that
| students reported him to the dean for acting to create a
| hostile work environment, rather than engage with him directly
| about the scientific merits of Damore's memo.
|
| He describes this himself here:
| https://felleisen.org/matthias/Thoughts/Free_Speech.html
| [deleted]
| watwut wrote:
| If you want scientific debate, you seek studies and seek
| people who study same area.
|
| Manifest on doors (no matter what manifest) to me sound like
| a statement of conviction and thus pointless to debate.
| Partly as dont feed the trolls and partly that it is
| unreasonable to expect such person to listen.
| lliamander wrote:
| 1) It's not a manifesto.
|
| 2) Damore's memo does cite scientific research
|
| 3) at least some experts in the fields of psychometrics and
| sex differences believed the memo to be substantively
| correct
|
| 4) Trying to get someone fired for holding beliefs that are
| well within the scientific mainstream is the antithesis of
| a good academic environment.
| gkya wrote:
| So he was offended and needed a safe space for his
| logorrhoea, I see...
|
| I did read the entire website (didn't mean to, it was an
| accident, one that I resent). The guy's basically full of
| himself and bordering on alt-right if not just that.
|
| If you hover his photo on his homepage, it has a quote from a
| climate change denier. The whole thing is like a red flag
| wholesaler shop.
| afavour wrote:
| Seems like a strange course of action. What if someone just
| wants to come and see you and _not_ debate the scientific
| merits of Damore 's memo? The man is a computer science
| professor, after all. I don't know about "hostile work
| environment" but it seems needlessly antagonistic to me.
| parenwielder wrote:
| needlessly antagonistic is a fair characterization of his
| approach to the world at large
| brudgers wrote:
| It is not needless. It is self serving. It expresses his
| privilege and power in the explicit environment where
| they matter most. It amplifies them.
| lliamander wrote:
| > What if someone just wants to come and see you and not
| debate the scientific merits of Damore's memo?
|
| How about ignore it and _not_ report it to the dean?
|
| The observations made in Damore's memo are rather anodyne
| (and essentially correct). The folks making a scene about
| it are contributing to a hostile environment.
| afavour wrote:
| In what world is posting the memo on your office door
| _not_ "making a scene about it"?
| lliamander wrote:
| The asymmetry here is really quite simple. On the one
| hand, you have an academic sharing a set of views that,
| while intellectually unfashionable, are well within the
| scientific mainstream. On the other hand you have people
| trying to get him fired, rather than ignore him or
| politely try to change his mind.
|
| Did he expect the kind of response he received? Sure,
| though I think hoped for better. But that's not making a
| scene. That's just not being completely acquiescent to
| unreasonable people.
| mattgreenrocks wrote:
| This is sad to read, as Felleisen has done some great research
| (I'm thinking of A-Normal Form). However, this doesn't excuse the
| conduct outlined here.
| chmaynard wrote:
| Sounds like the Racket project badly needs a Code of Conduct and
| a governing body to enforce it. Many FOSS projects have already
| done this, I believe.
| sqrt17 wrote:
| So, delegating both responsibility and power to people with an
| agenda (because those are the only ones to step up when they
| get formal power, in addition to or rather than just informal
| responsibility), rather than adopting practices of de-
| escalation that everyone is responsible for? Paring down non-
| constructive and non-called for should be the responsibility of
| everyone in the room and not a special distinct set of people.
|
| I'm all for training project members (i.e. people who are
| involved in organizing conferences or summer schools) in
| practical techniques for better organizing the community, and I
| think holding everybody responsible leads to better results
| than having activists with an agenda write the rules and just
| delegating authority to them.
| sigstoat wrote:
| FYI
|
| racketcon 2018 had a "Friendly Environment" policy:
| https://con.racket-lang.org/2018/
|
| so did 2017. i can't find anything for 2019. didn't look for
| 2020.
|
| the project as a whole has https://racket-
| lang.org/friendly.html
|
| > a governing body to enforce it.
|
| here's the project management team
|
| https://racket-lang.org/team.html#management
| fungiblecog wrote:
| I seems to be a modern idea that if you can just write down
| rules for everyone to follow everything will be ok. This guy
| knows his behaviour is unacceptable and no code of conduct will
| change that. What's needed is more people prepared to call out
| this kind of behaviour
| toolz wrote:
| Are you aware of any studies that find a CoC to improve or
| change the behavior in a community? I'm probably overly
| skeptical, but a CoC to me always seems useless since it's not
| legally binding in any sense and no open source community can
| afford to formally judge accusations to begin with. I had a
| sudden urge to read up and see what all evidence exists, so I
| figured I'd ask you - no worries if nothing comes to mind.
| krastanov wrote:
| In many community forums I have seen this dynamics: New
| member says something rude but factual or just misrepresents
| what another member had said; Moderator says something along
| the lines of "please be more polite or restrict
| bikesheding/flamewars to the appropriate subforum"; The new
| member starts litigating how come the moderator can demand
| that if it is not in the "official rules".
|
| Codes of conduct deal with these self-absorbed members (they
| are not trolls necessarily). CoC probably help with many
| other things, but taking care of this low hanging fruit is
| already an incredible improvement.
|
| It is sad that we need to make rules like "do not be a jerk",
| but sometime ago I was disillusioned from the idea that such
| rules are self-evident. They mean very different things to
| different people, so defining them ends up being useful.
| Arnavion wrote:
| CoCs have a bad reputation because many of them are written
| without a clear set of rules, often intentionally so that
| the authors have leeway to adapt the vague rules for new
| behaviors they want to ban. This can be considered a good
| thing (don't need to amend the CoC for what is "obviously"
| bad behavior that the original didn't account for) or a bad
| thing ("it's not obviously bad behavior, you just made it
| up so you can ban me via the CoC because you disagree with
| me").
| zxzax wrote:
| If you think those rules are vague and unclear, it's even
| worse when there is no code of conduct and the project's
| entire policy is "we do whatever the moderators feel that
| day."
| Karrot_Kream wrote:
| > It is sad that we need to make rules like "do not be a
| jerk", but sometime ago I was disillusioned from the idea
| that such rules are self-evident.
|
| It's not about the _rule_ being non-self-evident, it's
| about enforcement being uneven. Most humans will tend to
| perceive lower negativity and rule-breaking behavior in
| viewpoints they agree with than in viewpoints they don't. A
| formal statement of rules allows a community to try to do
| away with this bias. A documented set of rules also allows
| a community to reflect on their own norms and allows them
| to make changes to their norms as the viewpoints of the
| community change.
| quanticle wrote:
| >A formal statement of rules allows a community to try to
| do away with this bias
|
| I'm not sure I would state it as trying to do away with
| bias. Bias is inescapable. In fact, I'd go so far as to
| say that bias is a good thing, insofar as we want
| communities to be biased towards things that they
| prioritize and biased away from things that they don't.
| What a code of conduct does, in the best case, is allow a
| community to be explicit about its biases, allowing
| prospective contributors to see up-front exactly what
| kind of community they're joining.
|
| Of course, there are plenty of cases communities
| implement codes of conduct poorly, usually in response to
| some crisis.
| Karrot_Kream wrote:
| > Bias is inescapable
|
| Sure
|
| > I'd go so far as to say that bias is a good thing,
| insofar as we want communities to be biased towards
| things that they prioritize and biased away from things
| that they don't
|
| I'd argue that this depends on the community. For some
| communities, sure, but for others not necessarily. A
| discussion/debate club or a book club is probably more
| interested in plural viewpoints. A game discussion site
| probably much less so, and a support group probably has a
| very narrow set of allowed viewpoints. But it depends.
|
| > What a code of conduct does, in the best case, is allow
| a community to be explicit about its biases, allowing
| prospective contributors to see up-front exactly what
| kind of community they're joining.
|
| Indeed. But also, communities aren't unified or static
| things. Different members of a community, even founding
| members (as we can see with TFA), will have different
| viewpoints on what the community means for them. A formal
| statement of rules lets everyone agree on an explicit,
| documented set of common rules that they feel accurately
| represent their community.
|
| When I was younger I ran or helped run many small and
| medium size organizations and I've never been in one with
| unanimous opinions, even among very friendly founding
| members. Creating explicit rules has always been an
| improvement in pretty much any community I've been in
| with over 10 members. Leaving rules and procedures
| undocumented always resulted in games of shadow politics
| where there were tacit holders of power and tacit power
| groups and frustrated newcomers.
| wearywanderer wrote:
| So, "No."
| toolz wrote:
| The rules being defined would attempt to be useful, I'm
| sure. I'm curious if they actually are. So many things are
| done socially with good intentions that people just assume
| are working. Society is complicated though. As I understand
| it, well meaning, reasonable actions don't always have the
| intended outcomes.
|
| Now I'm certainly not claiming a CoC has unintended
| outcomes, but surely as often as I see them recommended
| (and at times even demanded), I would hope there exists
| decent evidence of their usefulness.
| nicoburns wrote:
| I think like many formalisation, they are a tool that is
| useful within the right culture, but are useless in the
| absence of that culture. The Rust Community is an
| excellent example of a community with an effective and
| well-enforced CoC that has contributed towards creating a
| community that is renowned for being welcoming. But I
| suspect that has at least as much the attitude of early
| community leaders (Graydon Hoare, Brian Anderson, Huon
| Wilson, Aaron Turon, etc) on these issues and ongoing
| excellent moderation of community platforms from a
| dedicated team of moderators.
| [deleted]
| quanticle wrote:
| >Codes of conduct deal with these self-absorbed members
|
| Do they? It seems to me that a Code of Conduct just gives
| these sorts of people an entirely new set of rules to
| litigate/bikeshed. If the Code of Conduct prohibits
| personal attacks, for example, the sorts of people who will
| harangue mods for admonishing them to be nice will,
| instead, harangue the mods about how their statement wasn't
| actually a personal attack.
|
| >It is sad that we need to make rules like "do not be a
| jerk"
|
| I don't think the problem is in the rules or lack thereof.
| I think the problem is there in the (lack of) enforcement.
| Many internet communities are allergic to anything that
| smacks of "censorship", and thus find themselves at a loss
| whenever someone comes along and willfully violates
| community norms. We should remember that "well kept gardens
| die by pacifism" [1], and no matter how detailed and
| elaborate the rules, someone needs to be willing to
| actually enforce them. A Code of Conduct (or some other
| formalized set of rules) can help here insofar as it allows
| the moderator to point to something outside their own
| thoughts as a justification for why they're taking action
| against a transgressive community member.
|
| However, it's possible to go too far. Wikipedia is a great
| example of what happens when rules become too elaborate.
| There are many trolls on Wikipedia who are around simply
| because they've mastered the arcana of the various rules
| and procedures Wikipedia has built up in its efforts to
| create an "objective" standard of community behavior.
| Whenever they're brought up for discipline, they can point
| to some previous case where superficially similar behavior
| was excused.
|
| [1]:
| https://www.greaterwrong.com/posts/tscc3e5eujrsEeFN4/well-
| ke...
| zxzax wrote:
| >the sorts of people who will harangue mods for
| admonishing them to be nice will, instead, harangue the
| mods about how their statement wasn't actually a personal
| attack.
|
| The solution there would be to make clear what
| constitutes a personal attack. No reason to bikeshed over
| it.
| JoshTriplett wrote:
| > no open source community can afford to formally judge
| accusations to begin with
|
| Some communities do have formal "moderation teams" with this
| responsibility.
|
| One major advantage of this is that such a moderation team
| doesn't have to be reserved for egregious cases; that team
| can also step in when things get somewhat heated and provide
| lighter feedback to keep things from escalating.
|
| > it's not legally binding
|
| It's not intended to be. The goal of a CoC is to state
| community norms and serve as a point of reference to reduce
| relitigation of those norms. It's also to help people feel
| that a community cares about those norms and will actually
| enforce them. (This stops holding true if a community has a
| CoC on paper but refuses to enforce it, which unfortunately
| does happen sometimes. But on balance, it's a useful signal.)
| jagger27 wrote:
| I wasn't able to find any papers or studies on your exact
| question.
|
| One[0] short overview paper outlines the roles CoCs play in
| open source. Perhaps some of the works that cite it[1] could
| be of use to you.
|
| 0: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Alexander_Serebrenik/
| pu...
|
| 1: https://scholar.google.com/scholar?cites=60262987089572129
| 14...
| toolz wrote:
| I also haven't been able to find anything yet, thanks for
| the links, I guess the first study at least implies there
| isn't much (any?) research on the effectiveness yet.
| Karrot_Kream wrote:
| CoCs are just a form of explicit rule documentation. You can
| call these Bylaws or a Constitution, but they serve the
| purpose of making rules clear and clean.
| blacktriangle wrote:
| The problem is they are also most often adopted by highly
| informal organizations. In this environment CoCs are most
| often tools to for the project leaders to carry out
| personal vendettas rather than equal enforcement of the
| code.
| Karrot_Kream wrote:
| Sure, CoCs aren't panaceas (nothing is when humans
| organize), they're just tools to help increase
| transparency and get alignment. Much like a nation's
| constitution is useless if the de facto ruling structure
| doesn't actually listen to the rules in its own
| constitution; we shouldn't abandon codified rule of law
| because some polities refuse to respect their own
| codified rules.
|
| In this particular case I agree, a CoC would be too-
| little-too-late. But if there had been a CoC it would be
| easy grounds for dismissing Felleisen (assuming the
| allegations are true) with little (but still some, since
| power abusers die hard) fanfare. Now there will be a
| whole bunch of witch hunt politics and the community will
| suffer the more for it.
| shakow wrote:
| At this point, it's sad that people would need a CoC just to
| follow the most elementary of courtesies.
|
| Everyone can have a bad day and jump at the throat of someone
| for no reason at all; but basic politeness would require them
| to flatly apologize later on.
|
| I wonder if it's linked to the current social trend of "being
| the greater person" and "not escalating the argument", but it's
| regrettable in any case.
| acdha wrote:
| The problem is that "later on" often means "never" -- and
| doesn't do anything to help with the damage before it
| happens. Abusive people are also commonly adept at finding
| ways to imply they did that without really doing so
| sincerely, as well as pushing boundaries so there's more
| chaff for them to hide behind ("<other person> joked about x,
| why is y worse?").
|
| What a CoC does is give clear expectations for everyone in
| the community. It makes the discussion easier because it's a
| simple "Don't do this, rule #3" rather than having to lawyer
| about whether something is a problem after things have
| already become heated. This doesn't solve everything, of
| course, but setting a baseline cuts out a lot of tedious
| lower-level stuff and helps set a climate which discourages
| bad behaviour by removing the lower level stuff which can
| encourage it. That guy who infamously used a porn image in a
| conference slide probably didn't just wake up one morning and
| decide to do that but was in a subgroup where sexualized
| comments & humor was normalized.
| shakow wrote:
| > What a CoC does is give clear expectations for everyone
| in the community.
|
| That's my whole point; that CoCs might be a necessary step
| for social changes that quite many people don't understand
| and/or master yet (e.g. custom pronouns) is understandable.
| But apologize after you hurt someone is something I (and, I
| assume, most people) was taught when I was 4 y.o. and
| should be widely applied. What will be next, a little panel
| reminding you to say "hello" and "goodbye" when you come in
| and leave, or "don't forget to say thank you" next to the
| cashier?
| acdha wrote:
| My point was simply that these aren't necessarily as
| universal as people might think, especially in a large
| multi-national community like open source. There's a fair
| amount of cultural variation on what's considered worthy
| of an apology and a CoC can be helpful simply by getting
| people to think about that up front rather than after
| something happens.
| faitswulff wrote:
| The world is a much less friendly place than most
| kindergartens. Saying sorry both acknowledges culpability
| and results in losing face. An adult issuing a true
| apology to another adult is very rare.
| shakow wrote:
| > Saying sorry both acknowledges culpability and results
| in losing face.
|
| That sounds awfully weird for me coming from an
| environment where accepting your errors and apologizing
| is seen as the only honorable option; "noblesse oblige"
| and catholicism-impregnated traditions I assume.
| andrewaylett wrote:
| We try, for ourselves and with our children, to make a
| distinction between "I'm sorry" and "please forgive me"
| -- saying "I'm sorry" is an expression that you wish that
| something hadn't happened, or had happened differently.
| It's not (or at least it shouldn't be) an admission of a
| moral failing.
|
| Asking for forgiveness, on the other hand, is admitting
| that what I did was wrong. That's not necessarily the
| same thing that I'm sorry about -- as an example, "I'm
| sorry that ball hit you on the head, please would you
| forgive me for not being careful enough?". This separates
| my actions from their consequences in a way that
| acknowledges their affect on other people.
|
| And I'm quite glad that in most situations I find myself,
| someone being willing to admit when they are wrong is
| considered a positive. It builds trust, and shouldn't
| result in losing face.
| gjs278 wrote:
| you don't need to say thank you to the cashier. there are
| self checkouts. the cashier is a pointless job and should
| be abolished. I should not be forced to talk to them
| because some company isn't willing to upgrade their
| infrastructure.
| [deleted]
| sdesol wrote:
| Edit: Ignore what I posted as it clearly highlights I was
| wrong
|
| I removed the analysis as I contributed effort to the wrong
| person, which invalidates my argument.
| parenwielder wrote:
| The person you've highlighted as doing everything is
| Matthew Flatt, a professor at the University of Utah, not
| Matthias Felleisen, whose contribution in code is not the
| reason he is indispensable to the project.
| sdesol wrote:
| Shit my BAD! I'll update my post to correct things.
| 523asdfas wrote:
| Wow it's almost like we shouldn't be doxxing people in
| case we have mistaken identities?
| sdesol wrote:
| Is it really doxxing? I made what was publicly available
| and it wasn't slanderous, it just invalidates my
| argument.
| parenwielder wrote:
| For what it's worth, if you wanted to make the argument
| that Racket the programming language would not exist
| without Matthew Flatt, you'd be undoubtably correct. He
| is more-or-less the sole maintainer of the compiler, but
| fortunately for everyone involved is a very nice guy.
| threatofrain wrote:
| Who is Matthias Felleisen to Racket?
| parenwielder wrote:
| Matthias was the PhD advisor of Matthew Flatt and Shriram
| Krishnamurthi at the time where (what would eventually
| become) the Racket project started. Virtually all of the
| core contributors are either his PhD students over the
| years, or students of his former PhD students after they
| became professors. He's the project's steward, being the
| person primarily responsible for securing grant funding
| for the work that goes into Racket, and the project's
| "visionary" (as much as such a thing can really exist),
| being the one who has most explicitly philosophized the
| concept of "language-oriented programming" (though there
| are plenty of other researchers now interested in the
| subject, including independently from Matthias' lineage).
| It'd be difficult not to understate the importance he has
| had to the careers of his former students (both in terms
| of the research they've done and in terms of his support
| in doing the politics necessary to have a successful
| career in academia).
| Zelphyr wrote:
| I'm all for taking the high road and not escalating but
| sometimes, with people like this person appears to be, you
| have to get in their face when they attack you. They
| perversely respect that.
| KaiserPro wrote:
| > At this point, it's sad that people would need a CoC just
| to follow the most elementary of courtesies.
|
| If the body tasked with enforcing the CoC is the same one
| being an abusive penis, its not going to change things.
|
| However, I agree that its pretty shocking that people seem to
| struggle with the basics of human interaction. Yes social
| conditions are indeed real(the autism spectrum et al), but
| that's not a cover for being a weapons grade tool.
|
| more importantly the is no excuse to indulging these
| behaviours. If you see it, call it the fuck out. I don't mean
| "be the ally" pussy footing around. Empathise with the
| belittled party and redress the person(s) being a shit. Yes
| it will be touch and go, but unless you set boundaries,
| "founders" and "thought leaders" will continue to be
| obnoxious shits who chase the fun out of everything.
| beaconstudios wrote:
| Personally, I think trying to understand why the dynamic is
| occurring is more helpful. Sure, sometimes people are just
| assholes and need a dressing down, but more often things
| are a bit more complex - they should still be confronted
| about their behaviour, but just giving them a lashing may
| not help the situation compared to talking through why they
| are acting that way.
| blacktriangle wrote:
| This story at face value is so far beyond what is necessary for
| a code of conduct to address. From the author's description,
| nobody is defending Felleisen, the project has just decided
| that they are better off with him regardless of his assholeness
| than they are without him. Whether that is true or not is up
| for debate.
|
| This is not a CoC issue, this is an issue of enforcement, and
| in the absence of enforcement a CoC isn't worth the paper its
| written on.
| mjburgess wrote:
| Indeed, soviet russia had the freedom of speech in its
| constitution.
| comex wrote:
| > the project has just decided that they are better off with
| him regardless of his assholeness than they are without him.
|
| A CoC is at least in theory a commitment to not make such a
| decision.
| truffdog wrote:
| Sure, but the core team already knows about this, and
| already knows that it's bad. If they had signed a pledge to
| not tolerate bad things back in 2019 when CoCs were cool
| I'm not sure how that would change anything. More ways for
| people to play at rules lawyering?
| parenwielder wrote:
| This is absolutely the key point, and the one that all the
| discussion here is missing. Nobody defends Matthias'
| behavior, they just suggest that you should tolerate or
| ignore it. The reason is clear when you realize that "the
| Racket community" is more-or-less analogous with "Matthias'
| academic descendants." The people who are working on Racket
| as a language owe immense professional debts to Matthias.
| DonaldPShimoda wrote:
| > "the Racket community" is more-or-less analogous with
| "Matthias' academic descendants."
|
| For people who don't know, the Racket project was started
| by Matthias Felleisen in the early '90s. The next people on
| the project were all his PhD students:
|
| - Matthew Flatt
|
| - Robby Findler
|
| - Shriram Krishnamurthi
|
| - Cormac Flanagan
|
| Later additions who are top contributors to
| github.com/racket/racket:
|
| - Sam Tobin-Hochstadt (Felleisen's student)
|
| - Jay McCarthy (Krishnamurthi's student)
|
| - Vincent St-Amour (Felleisen's student)
|
| - Ryan Culpepper (Felleisen's student)
|
| - Asumu Takikawa (Felleisen's student)
|
| - Eric Dobson (Krishnamurthi's undergraduate student)
|
| In the top 10 contributors listed on GitHub, only 2 are not
| academic descendants of Felleisen:
|
| - Eli Barzilay
|
| - Matthias Felleisen
|
| EDIT: I originally listed Eric Dobson as "not an academic
| descendant of Felleisen" because I hadn't been able to find
| information on a dissertation or the like, but a comment
| informed me that they were an undergraduate student of
| Krishnamurthi so I have updated the comment to reflect
| this.
| bhickey wrote:
| > In the top 10 contributors listed on GitHub, only 3 are
| not academic descendants of Felleisen:
|
| Eric Dobson and I were undergrads studying under Shriram.
| I don't contribute to Racket, but it has nothing to do
| with Felleisen being an asshole.
| DonaldPShimoda wrote:
| Ah, apologies for the misinformation. I had tried to find
| information on Dobson's academic background and came up
| blank, so I assumed they weren't in academia (and, thus,
| no direct connection to Felleisen). Thank you for the
| correction!
| wearywanderer wrote:
| War is a continuation of politics by other means. But diplomacy
| is a continuation of war by other means. And now verbal bullying
| is a continuation of violence by other means.
|
| By the principle of explosion, I think we're on the precipice of
| everything being a continuation of everything by other means.
| useragent86 wrote:
| Well, drive-by downvoting, effectively censoring comments one
| doesn't like, is certainly a continuation of bullying by other
| means. Of course, cleverness is frowned upon 'round here.
| eigenhombre wrote:
| I've followed Racket and the OP's work from a distance for some
| time. This post rang bells for me, based on similar interactions
| with a few bad apples over about twenty years in the field of
| physics.
|
| I applaud the poster for the clear and measured language of his
| post, for his bravery in calling out this kind of behavior, and
| for taking steps needed to remove himself from the situation. I
| hope the Racket community takes steps to eliminate the problem at
| the root.
| mkl95 wrote:
| Felleisen is an academic, and his behaviour is very common in
| academia. It's trivial for college professors to get away with
| bullying people. In comparison, the software industry is
| relatively friendly and rewarding.
| ska wrote:
| I don't think this is actually more common on academia than
| elsewhere, really - but I do think that once you have reached a
| certain level in academic career, there are few consequences
| for it. This makes it stand out.
| leafmeal wrote:
| Hopefully this isn't what you meant, but behavior like that
| isn't acceptable regardless of how common it is.
| [deleted]
| parenwielder wrote:
| I can assure you that while it certainly is easy for faculty to
| get away with this behavior (Matthias himself being evidence of
| that fact), his behavior is well outside of the range of what
| could reasonably be considered normal, at least within
| computing academia in general.
| aidenn0 wrote:
| I suppose it depends on your definition of "normal." Just
| reading a couple of anecdotes about Matthias pattern-matches
| well against more than one faculty member I've encountered;
| if, say, 5% of faculty openly act this way with near zero
| repercussions, is it really "abnormal?"
| sigstoat wrote:
| huh, felleisen didn't strike me as any pricklier than your
| average college professor when i met him. certainly wouldn't have
| been in the top 10 racket contributors i'd expect to drive anyone
| away.
| plorkyeran wrote:
| I had pretty uniformly positive experiences with him as both a
| student and a TA for one of his classes, but the very important
| bit of context there is I was a student who did well enough in
| his class to be asked to TA. In retrospect I can remember him
| being pretty awful to some of the other students.
| parenwielder wrote:
| Matthias is virtually always the prickliest person in the room
| at academic programming languages conferences, by quite a bit.
| DonaldPShimoda wrote:
| I think you must not have interacted with him much, or have not
| talked with people who know him more closely.
|
| I was explicitly advised to avoid applying for my PhD at
| Northeastern unless I had incredibly thick skin to withstand
| the way he berates his students. So I didn't apply -- I'm not
| signing up for that.
| sgt wrote:
| That's terrible - I wonder if it's just a lack of empathy from
| Matthias site. That's no excuse to behave like that in public and
| especially ridiculing you in front of a group.
|
| Maybe nobody tells him about his personality flaw. Or at least in
| a way that he comprehends it.
|
| Interestingly, from a review on ratemyprofessors.com:
|
| >I hated his guts while in his class, but in retrospect he's
| almost certainly the best teacher I've ever had. As somebody said
| above, this guy is absolutely brilliant. He will kick your butt,
| but it's all for your own good in the end. He seems to really
| care about teaching, and it shows.
|
| I've had a professor like that and it takes a while to realize
| that those people are needed. For lazy students it may be a
| proper wake up call to the real world.
| nomrom wrote:
| >I've had a professor like that and it takes a while to realize
| that those people are needed. For lazy students it may be a
| proper wake up call to the real world.
|
| I'm sure we can aspire to better approaches that are not
| bullying.
| CoastalCoder wrote:
| [deleted]
| velcrovan wrote:
| That would have been deeply silly and accomplished nothing.
| mikestew wrote:
| Another commenter asks, "have you ever punched someone in the
| face?" Well, I have, and on more than one occasion (no, I don't
| advocate it, either). This would not have been one of those
| occasions. It's not going to take him down a notch, it's not
| going to make him rethink his position. At best, your hand will
| hurt more than you thought it would, and you might even get
| arrested. But, hey, you won't have to worry about contributing
| to Racket anymore.
|
| In this instance, I would have told Professor Ivory Tower to
| piss off until he wants to climb down to do some real work with
| the rest of us. Because some of us don't have all day to sit on
| our ass and pontificate about the failings of others. But
| that's me. Because all that stuff Professor Asshole said is
| stuff he's afraid people are saying about him. And that's going
| to sting more than a fist to the face.
| threatofrain wrote:
| And what is the moral wisdom in contemplating this scenario if
| you've already rejected the means as unworthy?
| CoastalCoder wrote:
| > And what is the moral wisdom in contemplating this scenario
| if you've already rejected the means as unworthy?
|
| A fair question. I guess there are several answers:
|
| (1) I was concerned that just because I mentioned being
| curious how that approach would play out, some readers would
| assume that I was advocating violence, and respond
| accordingly. I wanted to be very clear that that's not the
| case, because that would end all discussion.
|
| (2) I was mostly just wondering aloud how that would play
| out, because I'd like to understand human behavior better.
| I.e., I was doing a thought experiment, and realized that I
| didn't have any good guess for what the _actual_ aftermath
| would be. So I was hoping to get other people 's thoughts on
| the matter.
|
| EDIT: It seems I chose the wrong forum for the question, or
| made some other error. I'll delete the post, as it seems to
| not be contributing to meaningful discussion.
| jgwil2 wrote:
| I mean, have you ever punched somebody in the face? I'll admit
| the thought occurred to me as well but in practice, I think
| most people have a strong aversion to violence, not to mention
| the potential criminal liability.
| xyzzyz wrote:
| Not to mention the fact that you might also end up getting
| beaten up by the person you assaulted, which would make you
| even worse off.
| mikelevins wrote:
| I've punched many people in the face many times, and been
| punched in the face and in other body parts many times, too.
| Hard-contact martial arts was once one of my favorite
| hobbies, and I owned a martial arts studio for some years.
|
| Like other commenters, I do not generally advocate punching
| someone in the face for saying something rude or cruel,
| especially if you're well-adapted to fights and they aren't.
| It's probably unethical and definitely likely to cause you
| legal grief.
|
| I will say this, though: in twenty years or more of a hobby
| that involved punching people in the face, kicking them hard
| enough to knock outlines of their bodies into the drywall,
| and choking them to the edge of unconsciousness, I never saw
| the kind of thoughtless cruelty and bullying that is
| described here. Mostly I saw a lot of mutual courtesy and
| respect, with exceptions on rare occasions.
|
| I will say that people who like to punch down seem to lose
| their enthusiasm when they discover unexpectedly that they're
| actually punching up. Perhaps it will amuse you, as it did
| me, to hear about a fellow I know who is large and strong and
| skilled who dropped by to visit in person someone who had
| been bullying and abusing him online. No violence ensued, but
| the bully experienced an epiphany about the value of courtesy
| and discretion.
| buttholesurfer wrote:
| The author sounds whiney tbh. Why type all of that?
| fredrikholm wrote:
| Wasn't there a similar post by another former contributor
| expressing the same thing last year?
| qart wrote:
| I think this is the first time I'm seeing Felleisen mentioned
| in the main post. Some comments here mentioned him, but the
| main post kept his name out.
| jboynyc wrote:
| You're probably thinking about this video:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_wY7FBtr7_c
|
| Leandro submitted it to HN but it didn't get any traction:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25620711
| rebelshrug wrote:
| Several years ago, I worked on some open source projects that
| involved Racket. The community and Matthew Felleisen in
| particular were very helpful, and it sticks with me that the
| project founder took time to teach me idiomatic/correct ways to
| write Racket code and tests.
|
| Not condoning Matthew Felleisen's behavior towards Matthew
| Butterick - people deserve to be treated with dignity and respect
| - but there does seem to be a side to M.F that enjoys teaching
| and evangelizing Racket.
| DonaldPShimoda wrote:
| Felleisen's entire goal with the Racket project has been
| teaching-focused from the beginning. I don't think anybody in
| the community doubts that he cares about teaching and
| evangelizing Racket.
|
| The problem is that he has a very... how to put it. Matthias
| seems to believe that you must fight and struggle your way
| through academia and prove your worth to earn respect at even
| the most basic level. He is known for verbally abusing his
| students regularly. As I wrote elsewhere, I was explicitly
| discouraged from applying to Northeastern if I didn't feel I
| could withstand certain kinds of regular verbal abuse at his
| hands. That's unacceptable behavior, regardless of the "true
| intent" underlying it.
| throw7 wrote:
| "The only workable tactic was to distance yourself"
|
| No. You stand up for yourself and call out the dick. He attacks
| you and you haven't even presented yet. When you are right, don't
| let bullies bully.
| chrisseaton wrote:
| > No. You stand up for yourself
|
| Do you feel this is an acceptable way to respond to someone
| who's telling you they feel bullied? Shouting 'no' at them and
| telling them what they should have done instead, when
| presumably they felt they couldn't do that because they felt
| intimidated?
| ImprobableTruth wrote:
| Well, that might work when talking about a situation where
| power is about equal, but when it's someone higher up in the
| chain, it's going to be much much harder.
| andrewflnr wrote:
| That's the ideal, but is often not _workable_ , for instance if
| you're a kid who is not good at violence, or if the dick is
| surrounded by people who are already determined to tolerate his
| dickishness. They already know.
| [deleted]
| ljm wrote:
| This is only going to end negatively if the bully has the tacit
| approval of all their peers. It's made clear by Matthew that
| the bully's behaviour was tolerated, so all likelihood is that
| he would be criticised for rocking the boat, potentially
| ostracised. At best he would get approval for it, but only in
| private with a "I will deny this if you say it out loud"
| disclaimer.
|
| Ultimately this would reflect worse on Racket's leadership team
| than it does on Matthias alone. They're all okay with it. If
| this was operated as an organisation then there would be some
| accountability.
|
| This is all innocent until proven guilty, of course, so it
| boils down to how the racket team responds, if they do.
| macintux wrote:
| That's quite disappointing. It's unfortunate that bullies
| continue to thrive in society and many communities.
| alexfromapex wrote:
| They will only thrive if their cohort agrees to do nothing or
| encourages them in response to the bullying
| zarkov99 wrote:
| Good lord. Why not hash things out with Mathias forceably and
| directly right then and there? Why this victim pantomime? Mathew
| is a grown men, surely he can find more direct ways to stand up
| for himself instead of obliquely trying to cancel the guy to whom
| we owe racket.
| nnf wrote:
| You might be surprised to learn some people aren't comfortable
| "hashing it out forcibly and directly right then and there." I
| would venture to guess most of the people here would not do
| that, especially when caught completely off guard and in a
| group of their peers who aren't sticking up for them.
| agumonkey wrote:
| good luck to matthew
|
| there's a lot to say about these situations
|
| - principles are not enough, investing in FOSS may bite you later
| if you feel hurt by the destination.. be sure to only stay where
| you're happy right now and don't assume an ideal won't be bad
| (not a judgement, just sharing a late realization)
|
| - 'show must go on' seems to be a deep reflex in humans.. should
| we teach stronger sense of respect ? what if matthew or anybody
| had stepped in vocally during that session and asked M.F. to tone
| it down or apologize right away ? (my 2cts: it should be a
| mandatory school lesson for most of us)
|
| - how can one form a side group to keep enjoying his time on
| whatever topic without having to deal with corrosive people ?
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