Comments on: Say NO! to discrimination

By: Lynoure Braakman

Lynoure Braakman — Wed, 23 May 2007 20:10:35 +0000

Even RTFM is not discrimination… People who say it tend to say it to everyone asking something. It however is massively rude.

However, I’m still curious which of these are acceptable, if any:

1. googling for the user, then telling where the result is and how they could have found it.
2. telling user how to find the answers themself
3. not helping* if you know the answer
4. not helping* if you know you could find the answer

*) reasons vary

By: עברית בלינוקס » ארכיון הבלוג » גרסה חדשה של Skype

עברית בלינוקס » ארכיון הבלוג » גרסה חדשה של Skype — Wed, 23 May 2007 15:32:35 +0000

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By: nixternal

nixternal — Tue, 22 May 2007 17:06:33 +0000

Newbie wasn’t the reasoning behind this post. The point to it was to stop discrimination against everything. The main point evolved from the discrimination we are seeing against the women in the IT world, and in our case the FLOSS community. I am sticking with “Say NO! to discrimination.” And I am not using this to prevent someones free speech. People are free to say what they want, but we as a community shouldn’t tolerate it. It has been tolerated for to long and it is time to put a stop to it.

By: tsaylor

tsaylor — Tue, 22 May 2007 16:24:17 +0000

@nixternal: Newbie could hurt someone, but is that enough to warrant censoring ourselves? The denotation of the word is someone with little experience or knowledge in a subject. The connotation is clearly a matter of debate, as that’s peripherally what we’re arguing here. The censorship itself could also offend someone, so who’s more important?

Would it also be offensive to call someone an apprentice? That carries with it the same lack of knowledge and experience. What about a neophyte? If not, we’re drawing arbitrary distinctions between words with very similar meanings based on feelings. If so, we’re shunning people for expressing that someone’s unfamiliar with a topic.

I say don’t Say NO! to discrimination, Say NO! to assholes. You can tell if a person’s use of the word “newbie” is pejorative, just like you can tell if someone’s using the word “jew” or “homosexual” pejoratively. Say NO! to that, not to the word itself.

By: Dan

Dan — Tue, 22 May 2007 13:52:07 +0000

Jumping on the “newbie is ok” train. Making fun of someone for not knowing something is always rude and a sign of insecurity, no doubt. However, depending on how you use it, it can be just fine. Of course don’t use it to discourage people.

I should also add that unlike gender, race, religion, etc, being a newbie does in fact make you less than equal, by definition. Again you shouldn’t make fun of someone for it, just like anything, and of course they should be treated with equal respect, given equal opportunity to get involved, etc. However, I don’t think it’s correct to say that they’re “equals”.

Also, I guess I’m fortunate enough to be amongst decent enough guys at our GLUG that I’ve never seen any of the bizarre attitudes toward women in Open Source mentioned in the article you linked. Do people really act like that toward female programmers?

By: Chris Rohde

Chris Rohde — Tue, 22 May 2007 11:47:54 +0000

I can personally attest to the fact that Nixternal is always very patient with the newer, less experienced type… if it hadn’t been for him, I would have given up at the first sign of a struggle when I jumped into linux myself. That is the kind of equality he is talking about: the equal chance to make this change and learn this world for yourself.

As for n00bage, I Think it should always be taken in context… I tend to call myself a noob, especially when I am in the slackware channels. lol. And I have been called one quite a few times, but never in a hurtful way.. not that it is all that hurtful, but you get what I mean. It has always been joking, and generally said at the same time as the person was helping me through my issues.