removing toxic emailers

[Eric S. Raymond]

Adrian via Gcc <gcc@gcc.gnu.org>:
> Eric S. Raymond <esr@thyrsus.com>:
> > there is actually a value conflict between being "welcoming" in that
> sense and the actual purpose of this list, which is to ship code.
> 
> Speaking as a "high functioning autist", I'm aware of the difficulties that
> some of us have with social interactions - and also that many of us
> construct a persona or multiple personae to interact with others, a
> phenomenon known as "masking".
> 
> I understand why "Asshole" can function as a viable mask for many people,
> because there are cultures where it's tolerated, particularly in
> remote-working groups like mailing lists, where physical altercations are
> unlikely and no-one has to confront the results of their interactions with
> others if they don't want to.
> 
> It doesn't necessarily follow that "smart" == "asshole" though.

I did not intend that claim.

I intended the weaker observation that driving away a large number of
smart autistic assholes (and non-assholes with poor social skills)
is not necessarily a good trade for the people the project might
recruit by being "more welcoming".

Possibly that *would* be a good trade.  I have decades of experience
that makes me doubt this.  I think the claim needs to be examined
skeptically, not just uncritically accepted because we value being
"nice".

In general, I think efforts to guilt-bomb hackers into being "more
inclusive" should be resisted without a clear grasp on what we might
be throwing away by accepting them.  Just because you live inside a
culture doesn't mean you can predict what mutating its assumptions
will do to it, and we have work to do that should not be casually
disrupted.

Note: I am not an autist myself, so I'm not guarding my own flanks
here.  I'm sort of autist-sympathetic, in that I think it is a good
thing autists can join the hacker culture and have a place where their
quirks are useful and tolerated.  I would be a little sad if that were
lost.
-- 
		<a href="http://www.catb.org/~esr/">Eric S. Raymond</a>