TheEmpath repping 4over with class

gistfile1.txt

~ #node.js
[20.16.16] < TheEmpath> so
[20.16.34] < TheEmpath> anyone else have a hot programmer girl in their office? o____O
[20.16.42] < Lorentz> I wiiish
[20.16.48] <@Nexxy> not appropriate.
[20.16.57] »¡« Signoff caaakeeey: #Node.js (Ping timeout: 260 seconds)
[20.17.32] < joshwnj> yeah guys, grow up
[20.17.38] < jerrysv> Nexxy: olynode was fun, you should have gone
[20.18.03] < TheEmpath> my boss came by and said "Here, a new subodinate" and its a very attractive female. the otherwise painfully quite engineering room suddenly came to life and its a problem :X
~~~~~~~
[20.16.51] »¡« Irssi: Starting query in freenode with TheEmpath
[20.16.53] <Nexxy> please be respectful.
[20.17.02] <TheEmpath> wat
[20.17.02] »¡« TheEmpath ~TheEmpath@hsrp-bgp.4over.com
[20.17.02] »¡«  ircname  : TheEmpath
[20.17.02] »¡«  channels : #Node.js 
[20.17.02] »¡«  server   : pratchett.freenode.net [Rennes, France]
[20.17.02] »¡«  account  : TheEmpath
[20.17.02] »¡« End of WHOIS
[20.17.08] <TheEmpath> your perception is mucked
[20.17.17] <Nexxy> you're discussing "hot girls" in your office
[20.17.31] <Nexxy> not something that is appropriate for #node.js
[20.17.41] <TheEmpath> oh no, im talking about objectively beautiful features on a female based on human evolution
[20.17.45] <TheEmpath> scold me with a flail
[20.18.10] <Nexxy> I'm not going to hash it out with you. be respectful or leave :)
[20.18.32] <TheEmpath> plenty of conversations go on in node.js that are not appropriate
[20.18.34] <TheEmpath> yet you jumped on this one
[20.18.39] <TheEmpath> watch too much political TV or something?
[20.18.56] <TheEmpath> aww did little baby liberal get a nice hard on exercising power?
[20.19.01] <TheEmpath> AAWWW POOR WITTLE BABY!
[20.20.08] <TheEmpath> i bet it felt good
[20.20.10] <TheEmpath> yessssss
[20.20.18] <TheEmpath> take out your frustrations on the demons in your head
[20.20.20] <TheEmpath> yeeeeeeeah
[20.20.28] <TheEmpath> so powerful
[20.20.29] <TheEmpath> so noble
[20.20.33] <TheEmpath> OMG SO RESPECTFUL
[20.20.46] <TheEmpath> you saved 100,000 womyns rights everywhere
[20.20.54] <TheEmpath> monuments will be built in your name!
[20.21.18] <TheEmpath> BEHOLD THE MIGHTY DEFENDER OF THE FEMALE, NEXXY!  HE PERSONALLY SAVED 10 TRILLION BLACK WOMEN
[20.21.22] <TheEmpath> WITH HIS PINKY
[20.21.24] <TheEmpath> HER?
[20.21.38] <TheEmpath> who care, gender is a social construct ROFLROFLROFLRFOL

here is the formula:

- person makes statement in IRC chat room that is viewed as inappropriate by an op
- op asks them to stop
- person responds indignantly
- op temporarily bans them

welcome to IRC! if you don't like the rules what you should do is raise issues in a civilized way. each op is a different person, yes, but was given op powers exactly because of this fact.

I don't know why it's relevant to bring up what regions of your psyche your actions originated from. You did a bunch of offensive shit. All that is required to be in the node IRC channel is civility. What you shouldn't do is go on offensive sexist rants because someone questioned your entitlement.

You know what... just shut up. I'm not an american (not by a long shot) and most node.js folks aren't either. So you're judgements aren't being merited on "american" rules. To be a member of the community you need to respect others in the community, regardless or race, sex, creed, religion or anything else. If you're not willing to do that, you won't be in it... suck it up (princess) ([that's some brit humor for you]). The only thing you can go by in an internet world is a universal "humanism".

I am assuming you were kicked from the channel because nexxy didn't think making remarks about distracting hot girls wasn't appropriate for the node irc channel. I agree that this is a subjective judgment call. The way IRC ops govern issues like these is by reprimanding ops who misuse power. In this case nobody (including every other OP from the node.js irc channel.) except you seems to believe it was a misuse of power, especially after observing the actions you took after the initial incident.

Lets say the situation goes like this: "person makes comment, op says comment isn't appropriate, person protests, op kicks person, person logs in with different username and continues discussion of objectionable subject, op kicks second username". This is the point at which someone in the channel would say "hey op that was unfair". In your case this didn't and won't happen because the underlying issue is keeping the node.js irc channel a nice place to be for everyone and have proven yourself (through the sum of your actions) to be detrimental to that goal.

s/wasn't appropriate/was appropriate

gah! s/and have proven/and you have proven

you could do something in your own country and "win"... but really... would it be a win if everyone else said "feck off" ?

Again, you're initial thing was "questionable", but your reaction was atrocious. Just leave it there.

my opinion: nexxy made no irrational decisions. you are delusional. good day sir

I fully support Nexxy, @konobi and Max here. You demonstrated sexism (let's skip discussion about whether phrases you used were sexist, Nexxy didn't feel good about that and that's enough of a reason for me) on a public forum. You were asked to stop. At this point, it'd probably be fine if you just said "sorry". We'd all move on and forget about it.
However, you continued to behave inappropriately (insulting Nexxy in private, accusing her of misusing op status). In real world, you'd probably get slapped in the face for that kind of behavior (I certainly would do that if I saw that happening).
Results of that behavior were posted online, which is completely appropiate - most of that was happening on public forums like GitHub or IRC anyway. Your pseudo-legal talk is worth nothing here. No law was broken. Have fun with trying to prove otherwise.

I strongly dislike what happened, especially since this is very new to me in node.js community. I hoped that will never happened. However, only thing we can do now is explaining to others that the behavior was bad and that if repeated, will lead to consequences. I think that everyone wants node.js community to be as welcoming as possible.

Rule 0: Don't be a dick.

Rule 1: Be excellent to each other.

From this point onwards

NO-ONE SHOULD RESPOND TO THIS THREAD

This is a masterclass in not letting something go.

For the record, this is the official policy in the #Node.js IRC channel: http://blog.izs.me/post/30036893703/policy-on-trolling

Here's the log of the event, captured by irssi when I was not around: http://static.izs.me/irclogs/node.js/2012-08-23.txt

There are probably many other logs showing what happened.

Pro-tip: If you are actually going to take legal action, you don't say you're going to take legal action, you just smile, and act natural, and call your lawyer. The minute someone says something like that, you know they're full of shit.

What's offensive is that he was in an IRC channel about Node.js and this sad aspie amateur nonsense was the only means of trolling it that he could come up with. I'm sure all those hot chicks are going to be throwing themselves at his monogrammed sneakered feet for the chance to go talk about yarn bombing in the suburbs any day now.

'sad aspie amateur nonsense'

Please don't put down people in the asperger spectrum by saying things like this, and especially by lumping them in with the shitty behaviour that we're all upset about. I think we're trying to move towards an inclusive environment for everyone, and this is a step in the opposite direction. 'amateur nonsense', without the 'sad aspie' part, would do just fine to describe the offending jerk. :)

That's cool. Disagree with asshattery and for extra emphasis, use a stigmatized neurological condition as a slur. You're really striking a blow for decency there.

As a female developer who doesn’t usually consider appearance-related compliments sexist, let me try to explain why that dude’s comments were actually sexist:

1. He wouldn’t ask this question in person if women were present in the group (I'm not going to go into whether that’s a good thing). He asked because he thought he was among men. The assumption in itself is sexist and it's what keeping a lot of women out of tech. If everyone talks as if you're not there, you start wondering if perhaps you shouldn't be there.
2. Calling adult women "girls" is a diminutive. It indicates lack of respect. You wouldn’t call your male colleagues "boys", in most contexts. You certainly wouldn’t call someone you admire a "boy". Caroline Drucker put it much better than me in this short talk: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TUvRPmL61SI

Personally, I wouldn’t be the least bit offended if someone referred to me in the way @jesusabdullah suggested. It’s very different. It indicates that he does see her as a colleague, he does respect her as such, but of course, it's hard to ignore that she's also cute. That's human and not offensive at all. In fact, it's quite flattering. What’s douchey in TheEmphath’s behavior is that his wording indicates that he just sees a "hot girl" and not a colleague.

Ironically, it strikes me as way more power-exercising to call your team "subordinates". To be honest, I would be a bit pissed if my manager referred to me this way. Thankfully, he's not insecure like that, and he told me from the beginning I should see him as a colleague and not as a boss. I would guess that would be unthinkable for TheEmpath.

I'm very confused reading this thread. It doesn't seem to flow at all... were a lot of comments deleted?

yes, every comment made by the troll has been deleted, along with his account (which he is now accusing me of doing in an attempt to "alter perceptions" (if you figure out how to delete other people's git accounts (and gist comments), let github know).

Luckily, he has reposted only his original comment, while leaving out the rest of his responses: http://12dcode.blogspot.com/2012/08/the-tale-of-whiteknightjs.html

All of his subsequent responses have been conveniently left out of his blog post, interesting to note is the fact that he chose to omit the part where he directly states his intention to pursue "legal action"

@spacebeers That's one of the biggest understatements I've read in a while.

I can't imagine the kind of life and mental issues one would need to have to not only start a weird crusade like this but keep the intensity of such a cause going for this long.

Color me jealous here. It must be awfully fun to be that insane.

Ostracism is scary. We can quickly empathize with the ostracized, because it is a pain that we've all felt before, especially us nerds.

The pain is acute. We see someone being kicked and we feel that pain in our gut. A kick can have the apperance of vindictivness, because Ostracism is used as a punishment in the real world.

However, this is not the real world. This is the Internet.

Playing the victim and appealing to people's sense of fairness is what trolls do when they get called out. What he said could have been taken as an innocent comment, poorly worded, because that's exactly the sort of comments that master trolls make. The ride the crest of a wave, a fine point where the community is divided, where two good friends will hear two different things, and begin a troll moderated debate of troll chosen issue. They strike a nerve, then backpeddal and claim to be misunderstood when they anger people, counting on the sympathy of people who are afraid they'll make same misake.

On a completely unrelated note...

We had a new hire go through orientation this morning. She's going to share the server room with me. Did you ever have to share a small quiet workspace with someone who is so incredibly good looking, age and gender appropriate for you, and quite possibly single? (No ring. Yeah, I checked.) I'm finding it hard to concentrate on work today.

That this fellow was kicked so quickly is a testament to the moderator-fu of #node.js, because he immediately proceeded to squeal all around the Internet like a stuck pig. Stalking the kicker on other social networks. Archive photos of the KKK to represent those that kicked him. Equating his kicking with lynching. Threating to sue people. Yup, that's a troll all right. Someone was able to spot that troll in a single bleat. Bravo. I feel safer; my time and attention isn't going to be incinerated by drama in the Node.js community. (I've seen many a forum implode due to trolling, or rather, implode because the community wanted to be fair to people who were actually just trolling.)

Oh, the paragraph before last? Yeah, a dreamy co-worker can be a distraction, especially for you kids with your gushing hormones and disposable incomes. It's probably like Grey's Anatomoy in your West Coast startups. You'll find romance at work. You can talk about it. It is super easy to do so in a way that allows people of different genders and orientations to relate their experiences to you so you can connect with lots of different people on a personal level. Empathy, they call it.

So, if you're a young straight man who programs node, you could probably talk about your crush on your co-worker without being accused of sexism because, deep down, you're not a bad person, just a guy a crush on his co-worker. An opening line in IRC is probably the worst possible place to seek advice, of course, but the dividing line between personal and professional is a valid topic for grown-ups to discuss.

So, don't worry about being kicked out of the club or saying one little wrong thing. That's not what happened here.

And don't worry about our troll. He'll be fine. Node.js is not for him. Our troll doesn't like the community, but that's okay, because there is probably coven of brogrammers out there somewhere that he can crush PHP with.

If you want to teach this guy to respect women, allow him to rejoin #node.js and give him a chance to apologise for his ranting.

If you want to teach him to hate women, keep those twitter mob torches burning.

You have the power to change someone's life.

An important part of trolling is trying to convince someone you believe one thing when in fact you don't. The trickery is the key to a troll.

I know this guy in real life. I was invited to his wedding. He is not trolling you, because he believes every word he says, no matter how crazy it may seem to you. He's a good guy who I believe was honestly trying to start an intelligent conversation, and reacted with a vengeance as he's known to do.

@shangxiao We are very lenient towards inappropriate comments. In the logs, you can see that Nexxy told him his comment wasn't appropriate. He reacted disrespectfully and was kicked (but not banned - note the immediate -b taking away the ban flag after he leaves.) Then he came back and started causing more trouble, and only then was he set to auto-kick.

It wasn't all that that long ago that I was a teenage boy, and it was right around the time that the internet was just becoming a thing. I spent a few years as an insufferable troll; despite being to all appearances a pretty nice kid (albeit painfully nerdy). Firm and just moderation was an important part of my development. It is our social responsibility as adults to create the sort of communities we want, and we want communities that are compassionate, inviting, and friendly.

So, we use words first, then /kick only if the words fail, then /ban only if the /kick fails, and if someone cools down and comes back later with a better attitude, we remove the ban. What we don't do is give people what they want just because they throw a temper tantrum. The moderators of the various node.js community forums are all on the same page about this.

I know this guy in real life. I was invited to his wedding. He is not trolling you, because he believes every word he says, no matter how crazy it may seem to you.

You know, I don't really care if he's earnest or lying or crazy or a good guy or anything else. I'm not qualified to comment on Patrick's mental states, and I doubt any of you are, either. He was promoting an atmosphere I don't want to see in the #Node.js IRC channel, and is now harassing one of our admins across several different social networks. He's been banned because (a) he behaved badly, and (b) asking him nicely didn't work. End of story.

Luckily, people can change. It's really not my job to fix Patrick. It IS my job to help promote a friendly atmosphere in the node community, and Nexxy has proven herself to be very helpful in that regard. If he decides to be friendly, and convinces us that he's going to play nice, then he can come and play nice. So far, he's been very rude and aggressive, so it'll take a lot of convincing that he's not going to just throw another tantrum next time an admin takes him to task.

I completely understand what you're trying to promote in the channel. I get it, really. Pat's actions after the fact warrant such a response. I just don't want people thinking he's doing this just to be a troll. I am not defending him, either... It's your channel and you get to decide who is allowed to join. Just think of me as a character witness I guess.

In my opinion, as someone who has been in nexxy's position before elsewhere, kicking someone for a mostly private conversation is a bit much. She didn't exactly give him a chance to correct his tone in channel before giving him the boot. As operators, part of the responsibility is to be objective, and it is my opinion that nexxy's personal agenda played a bigger role than channel rules, due to the private nature of the conversation.

We aren't talking about trolling here. We are talking about an argument with accusations of sexism coming from both sides. I see someone feeling the pressure from modern popular perceptions of being the "inferior" gender.

I dream of a world where both men and women respect each other as equals. I just don't see this happening. I see vicious cycles instead. I would like to see an outcome where Nexxy and TheEmpath shake hands and forgive each other. Can you help me with this?

Kainazzzo has it completely correct. Man years ago, he was there when our high school tried to shut down an everything/nothing website project we were working on loosely. (Over equally nonsense pretenses, btw) I escalated the affair until the state police and major county newspapers were involved. That school never touched another student's website again after that.

I don't do the peon/serf/grovel/kowtow thing, especially when the "authority" is unjust. You go personal, I go personal, and I don't care how may special "powers" you have. You try to revise history multiple times to make yourself sound just, I'll just focus on the details proving that to be completely untrue. Welcome to the human species.

Thanks, Kain, for trying to wade into this. It's not your job to get involved, and you even run the risk of the community lashing out at you, and I recognize that, so thank you. But you don't have to do this. They've set their line, they've held their policy, no matter how ridiculous the detailing/revision of it. They'd rather play the white knight to a private conversation, delete/memory hole my interactions, spin the presentation with the intent to slander, and wrap it up as a policy than face the fact that they are defending the reactionary whims of a person addicted to political fantasy.

If they actually had a "channel policy" then they would have banned half the community by now and I have proof of that. I'll be posting detailed logs of #node.js's much more politically offensive comments made by veteran users and operators throughout the month, highlighting their "policy" failure.

There's no need for you to get involved on this one, sir. They are just emulating the behavior of their favorite liars and hiding behind a false pretense of morality. They, literally, do not know anything else.

Sorry, the established and provable intent to libel, not slander. Wrong phrase.