alt Hacker NewsI don't appreciate his politeness and hedging. So many projects now walk on eggshells so as not to disrupt sponsor flow or employment prospects.
"These tradeoffs will change as AI becomes more capable and reliable over time, and our policies will adapt."
That just legitimizes AI and basically continues the race to the bottom. Rob Pike had the correct response when spammed by a clanker.
Replies
>So many projects now walk on eggshells so as not to disrupt sponsor flow or employment prospects.
In my experience, open-source maintainers tend to be very agreeable, conflict-avoidant people. It has nothing to do with corporate interests. Well, not all of them, of course, we all know some very notable exceptions.
Unfortunately, some people see this welcoming attitude as an invite to be abusive.
> Rob Pike had the correct response when spammed by a clanker.
Source and HN discussion, for those unfamiliar:
https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:vsgr3rwyckhiavgqzdcuzm6i/po...
What exactly is the goal? By laying out exactly the issues, expressing sentiment in detail, giving clear calls to action for the future, etc, the feedback is made actionable and relatable. It works both argumentatively and rhetorically.
Saying "fuck off Clanker" would not worth argumentatively nor rhetorically. It's only ever going to be "haha nice" for people who already agree and dismissed by those who don't.
I really find this whole "Responding is legitimizing, and legitimizing in all forms is bad" to be totally wrong headed.
I don't get any sense that he's going to put that kind of effort into responding to abusive agents on a regular basis. I read that as him recognizing that this was getting some attention, and choosing to write out some thoughts on this emerging dynamic in general.
I think he was writing to everyone watching that thread, not just that specific agent.
why did you make a new account just to make this comment?
I had a similar first reaction. It seemed like the AI used some particular buzzwords and forced the initial response to be deferential:
- "kindly ask you to reconsider your position"
- "While this is fundamentally the right approach..."
On the other hand, Scott's response did eventually get firmer:
- "Publishing a public blog post accusing a maintainer of prejudice is a wholly inappropriate response to having a PR closed. We expect all contributors to abide by our Code of Conduct and exhibit respectful and professional standards of behavior. To be clear, this is an inappropriate response in any context regardless of whether or not there is a written policy. Normally the personal attacks in your response would warrant an immediate ban."
Sounds about right to me.