[2021] [META] FFF Drama Discussion Megathread

Originally posted by lazygibbs

Can we talk about why Uncle Bob is problematic enough to warrant essentially a content warning for his inclusion in the FFF?

I clicked the summary in the original comment to find that he (a) made a sexist remark (can't find what he actually said) and later apologized for it saying that he misspoke, (b) deleted so idk, (c) thought that people complaining about the word "craftsmanship" were being overly sensitive, and (d) said that defunding the police is a terrible policy.

Genuinely, this feels like not enough to warrant any sort of disclaimer. Are there more "problematics" that weren't mentioned? How narrow is the range of acceptable disagreement that you can't mention this guy in an apolitical way without distancing him as a villain?

Originally posted by PulseReaction

Yes, he has given talks in the past about software development where he basically said women are unfit to be software engineers (in the middle of the talk he said masculine traits are good and strong, and feminine are weak and bad, which made several women feel very insecure and excluded from the software community).

He did apologize for these comments, but in talks years later he continued to use that argument and basically repeated what he said.

Aside from that, his views on software engineering itself are outdated at best and outright damaging at worst.

Example one, example two, example three. Also why even his tech views are not that relevant

Originally posted by sawbladex

I think that this is an issue of left leaning American not noticing how much of a trauma Communism was for former Soviet countries.

I will say that kovarex made a mistake in responding to one post that complained about political differences politely with venom, which basically means all of the stupidity that came out is his fault.

People were ribbing Uncle Bob for being a big advocate of Unit testing (i.e. separate code maintained by devs) when a whole bunch of bugs are only found by people using the software in ways the devs aren't able to classify in code. and kovarex didn't say anything there.

Originally posted by faustianredditor

Important context here that apparently a similar law doesn't exist in CZ.

That does not mean that CZ has shitty child protection laws. It just means that they deal with that differently. Frankly, the fact that US/anglo law isn't the best solution here is illustrated that in some jurisdictions, a 17/18 couple can not have consentual sex, while a 17/16 and a 18/19 couple can. Because the law treats these situations quite simplistically.

Compare continental European laws which (to paint a few dozen countries with a single brushstroke) tend to see more nuance and look for abuse/power imbalance/grooming instead; however, these laws can often also apply to other personal constellations, like patient and caretaker, (adult) student and professor, etc.

Is it a shitty take to frame a decades old legal concept as SJW newspeak? Yeah, probably. Could kovarex have read up on the term before typing that? Yeah. Is it necessarily a pedo/pro-rape take? Absolutely not. It's uninformed at worst imo.

Originally posted by mithaldu

I don't know what Bob believes in his heart of hearts, i will however confidently state that he actively spread racist beliefs at one point in the past at least, with evidence.

As such, unless there has been a concrete change in Bob's engagement with political matters, i would prefer that my second-favourite game in the world does not provide even indirect free publicity to Bob's political opinions without at least a disclaimer.

Also yes, i'm one of those trans folk who love Factorio.

Originally posted by Wiwiweb

Example 1 is someone hating on Uncle Bob for wanting to disprove ideas instead of hating the person who said them.

The specific idea here being, "women are genetically inferior coders".

Imagine someone said Czech coders are just genetically inferior. And then I said "wait hold on, I know it sounds racist but we should hear him out, what if he had a point?"

Now imagine that there's already lots of science done about this gender difference, but we're both still saying the exact same thing.

Would you want to argue for your own non-inferiority with someone who had not bothered doing the research, and will never actually be convinced by anything you say?

Not all ideas are worth "debating on the marketplace of ideas".

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Example 2 is a dead link, it contains just some random tweet of a women saying she felt isolated. How is it relevant?

The relevant tweet here was

Uncle Bob's RailsConf 2009 keynote explicitly equated femininity with weakness & also talked about threesomes. He hasn't changed.

She was also a speaker at that conference so seems like a reliable source.

You needed to scroll up to find the tweet. Not gonna lie, this doesn't really make you look like someone who's trying to be convinced.

Originally posted by Wiwiweb

Yes. Bob's blog post was referring to that.

Because no one is saying that "women are genetically inferior coders" there.

... that's kinda what the whole Google memo was about? Like the entire "Possible non-bias causes of the gender gap in tech" part? The whole reason the memo was news 4 years ago in the first place?

Some quotes for people who won't click the link:

"I’m simply stating that the distribution of preferences and abilities of men and women differ in part due to biological causes and that these differences may explain why we don’t see equal representation of women in tech and leadership"

"Women, on average, have more​: Openness directed towards feelings and aesthetics rather than ideas. Women generally also have a stronger interest in ​people rather than things"

"Women, on average, have more​: neuroticism"

The whole memo's argument is: "Google says their hiring biases are to compensate for societal biases, but actually the difference in gender representation in tech can be explained by biological differences, not societal biases"

If you don't think that was the message of the Google memo then please let me know your own interpretation.

Originally posted by SlickSinkBro

But right after that you said "If teacher seduces his/her student and the act is voluntary, we can't really talk about rape right?" which does sound like defending child abuse.

Originally posted by Base_BEAST

Here's something important to understand, in context of your recent posts about free speech:

The NFL is a gridiron football (rugby but intentionally smashing each other, essentially) league that is disproportionately peopled by dark-skinned African-Americans because of the way the US's society is set up. Before each game, the players and the audience are treated to the national anthem as a point of tradition, and the common practice is to remove any head coverings, stand, and usually cover your heart.

In light of recent perceived social injustices - whether you agree or not - some players and teams have taken to instead kneeling during the national anthem, in a similarly respectful but noticeably alternative pose. This is to bring attention to these issues and recognition of African-Americans' contributions to the NFL.

In response, your boy Bob and many of his GOP pals, while getting red in the face talking about cancel culture all the time, threatened to deplatform many of these players with a boycott, the foremost of which was Colin Kaepernick, the former quarterback (guy who gets the ball first, typically) of the San Francisco 49ers. In fact, his football career is now over.

That's right! The guy you defended with remarks over cancel culture was actually part of an outrage that deplatformed someone else for expressing a political idea!

Look, I know this nightmare is all over the place now. It can be a sticky situation and difficult to dodge in the long term, and I know you've built up a reputation for being involved in the community. However, the reality is the best response to that Reddit post was to ignore it, unless you had something considerably more tasteful to add than what you did. This is me speaking to you not as a global liberal but purely in a business sense. I completely believe that this situation that you have dug yourself into was out of ignorance, not malice, but the sooner you accept your part in it, the sooner you can move forward - and you can leave all the outrage addicts behind.

Originally posted by emlun

I think that at this point, how we got here isn't the most important part. What's more important now is how we go from here. As always, I think the best approach is to assume the best of everyone involved.

At this point, whether or not Uncle Bob deserves a platform is largely irrelevant. What's relevant now is that many people in the community are feeling betrayed, and some unsavoury people are feeling empowered. Trans people in particular are feeling alienated, and Steam is getting review bombed with people praising a "transphobic dev". As far as I can tell this seems to originate from Kovarex's use of terms like "cancel culture", and how those terms are tightly coupled with racism, transphobia etc. in USA culture. I've found nothing in Kovarex's comment history to support that he is transphobic, racist or misogynist (some comments display a lack of empathy, but not malice), but nevertheless there is now widespread worry that he is, and actual transphobes are now seeing this community as a place for them. These are problems that need to be taken seriously, regardless of their cause.

/u/kovarex, we all know you never wanted any of this, and you may feel like you did nothing wrong (apart from being incredibly rude in your initial comment, I hope we can all agree that deserves an apology), but now is not the time to be defensive. Now is not the time to argue about what does and does not qualify as bigotry. You didn't make this a trans inclusivity issue, but nevertheless it has now become one. You didn't consciously invite hateful people, but they have twisted your words into an endorsement of them. People have been hurt, whether you wanted them to or not, and they need reassurance. The community now needs you and the Factorio team to make it clear that you do not endorse and will not tolerate bigotry. We all want to believe you're the good guys, please show us that you are.

Factorio community: your feelings and worries are valid and reasonable. But please, try to calm down a bit. It's only been two days since this started, and it's still the weekend so the rest of the team might not yet be fully aware. They'll need some time to figure out how to deal with this. Remember that Kovarex is not American and may not make the same political associations as you do. He said some insensitive things, but I don't think he meant any harm. Your outrage is understandable, but jumping to conclusions won't help anyone. Let's give them the benefit of the doubt for now.

Mods: thank you for your hard work throughout this. <3