Do you have one single way of expressing yourself? Do you use profanity 100% of the time? Do you automatically reject all feedback on how you express yourself? ... On how you write code? ... Or how you interact with your colleagues?

Because, from your comment, that's how you come across.

All feedback can be made to be useful, even if you end up filtering it out early.

True that, I will try to get a bit less triggerable about this.

Do you have one single way of expressing yourself? Do you use profanity 100% of the time? Do you automatically reject all feedback on how you express yourself? ... On how you write code? ... Or how you interact with your colleagues?

No, of course not. I have however come into contact with quite a few people who tried to censor me before, that might be the reason why I'm so easily "triggerable" with this.

Swearing all the time is not equivalent to talking like an adult, despite what you might think.

People communicate in different ways (and with different "curse-densities") and that is completely fine. What isn't fine is trying to get everyone to conform to a certain way of communication that you personally think is agreeable.

Diversity is to be cherished, not frowned upon. It makes for a more interesting world, and I am not willing to lose that just to make my environment have a few less sharp edges.

I don't need nor am willing to be rolled up in bubble wrap for what somebody calls my "own safety", which then isn't even determined by myself.

If the effect of not censoring yourself in this regard is to work in a much less diverse environment, which side is going to give? Honest question.

And a good one, too. The honest answer is: I don't know. I think this is highly contextual. At least I can't make a generalized decision for that. If the "less diversity" bit for instance means incorporating a 'No Nazis'-rule then the choice might be clear while in other cases it might be much more nuanced. As a rule of thumb I am against limiting someone's freedom until there is no other way around it. I would for instance only vote for a 'No Nazis'-rule if there would be a real problem with Nazis without that particular rule.

If, however, we are still talking about the case of censoring out profanity, you know my opinion. The people who are filtered out (or constitute the "less diversity") are the sort of people who get offended by me making use of a basic freedom (the one of speech). I am not interested in meeting people like that - frankly I hope they stay as far away from me as fucking possible.

This is similar to the reason of why I am against anti-discrimination rules at hacker cons; They are liable to be abused at some point while not providing anything of worth.

The sort of abuse they are supposed to prevent are reason enough to throw someone out even without those rules. Any major abuse is reason enough to get thrown out of a hacker event, or really any event.

The argument I have heard a few times for anti-discrimination rules is that girls get hit on all the time. I was kind of flabbergasted when I first heard this. I mean I can understand that it gets on ones nerves, but kicking someone out of an event because they hit on somebody really is not the right thing to do. If you don't want to get hit on there's a plethora of ways to communicate that in a non-verbal fashion, like wearing a wedding ring or - less subtle - wearing a shirt that says "I don't want to get hit on" or something, you get the idea…

I can use profanity in a peaceful manner to set emphasis and if someone feels attacked, denounced or otherwise mistreated they can just talk to me. Seriously, I don't bite and if I see your point I will act accordingly. Even if you are offended by someones actions that doesn't mean that they are unyielding dogmatic assholes - Just give them the benefit of the doubt and try to reason with them. And if it works you might've just broadened your personal horizon, maybe even made a new friend.

You'd think a community consisting of some of the most intelligent people on this planet would manage to have a proper communication culture, but in many aspects we are clearly lacking. I hope for this to change and of course discussions like this are a great first step towards doing so.

This is interesting. My instinctive reaction to someone trying to censor me is pretty damn negative, and I can swear like a sailor. On the other hand, what you wrote reminded me of a super sweet, gentle guy that I worked with once who was just genuinely freaked out by my profane manner. From a different country, deeply religious, etc. etc. I found out from a third party that the guy was weirded out by the way some of us carried ourselves, since the guy was a gentleman and wouldn't/couldn't say anything.

Of course I started behaving more carefully around him, and a little more carefully in general. He was always nice to me and a very, very skilled worker, someone I respected, so it would have seemed churlish to me to do otherwise.

> If you don't want to get hit on there's a plethora of ways to communicate that in a non-verbal fashion, like wearing a wedding ring or - less subtle - wearing a shirt that says "I don't want to get hit on" or something, you get the idea…

I believe the onus is entirely on the guy who is trying to be charming (if that's what we're talking about, as opposed to simple catcalling sorts of harassment) to notice when the object of his wit does not reciprocate with a smile and a kind word and to move the fuck on before his behavior gets creepy. I suppose I'm agreeing with you, as not smiling is a pretty clear form of communication - no rings or shirts or pepper spray are required.

I'm not sure what we should do with the guys who aren't clever enough to pick up on such signals but I'm open to a Soylent Green sort of option. (attending the average hacker event seems like a punishment all its own to me, so I'm useless for envisioning rules for something like that. Punish them by making them attend more hacker events?)

This, I believe, is the wrong way to go about it. To me this seems like some sort of culture clash and in my opinion staying silent is the wrong way to go about this.

If I notice someone getting offended by my profanity I just tell them that they were not the target of that profanity and that I have no 'beef' with them. I haven't ever met anyone with whom this was a problem. I usually make a pretty good case for open communication, depending on sobriety of course. ;)

I believe the onus is entirely on the guy who is trying to be charming (if that's what we're talking about, as opposed to simple catcalling sorts of harassment) to notice when the object of his wit does not reciprocate with a smile and a kind word and to move the fuck on before his behavior gets creepy. I suppose I'm agreeing with you, as not smiling is a pretty clear form of communication - no rings or shirts or pepper spray are required.

I think the point of the "getting hit on all the time sucks"-argument for anti-discrimination rules was that even if all the guys who hit on a girl stop it after (instantly) seeing that she isn't interested it would still be a lot of input which "sucks". So the case many people skeptic of anti-discriminatory rules saw was that a girl gets hit on all the time and even if they all do so in a civil manner, the one unlucky guy who represents the 'final straw' to that girl then gets kicked out. The examples I put up for showing that you're not interesting were aimed at communicating that before you get hit on. A rough analogue for this might be a spam filter - You don't have to manually decide whether or not something is spam by reading it, you don't have to read it in the first place. :P

Harassment is obviously a reason to warn somebody or - if they repeatedly harass someone - kick them out of the event. That said, I think 'catcalling' is very nuanced, couples or people who know each other for $random_reason can catcall each other in play and fun, you can also do it in a sarcastic/parodic fashion etc. The only thing I'd generalize about catcalling is that you probably shouldn't do it to someone you don't know (and of course not to someone of whom you know that they don't like it).

But in general I think pretty much everything I said here can be succinctly shortened to "Be merry, have fun and if you feel there's a problem - talk about it - just don't do it behind someone's back."

I'm perfectly capable of expressing everything I might express with profanity, without profanity. I'm now conscious of the fact that I'm a lot more persuasive if I take half a second to edit myself. The whole thing was a valuable learning experience.

> I think 'catcalling' is very nuanced

Interesting. I'd only ever use the word to describe the kind of rude behavior that happens between strangers on the street.

> the one unlucky guy who represents the 'final straw' to that girl then gets kicked out.

I wonder. The implication is that the guy said something which in isolation would have been completely within the bounds of good taste and then got kicked out. I bet this never, ever happens.

> But in general I think pretty much everything I said here can be succinctly shortened to "Be merry, have fun and if you feel there's a problem - talk about it - just don't do it behind someone's back."

That seems well-intentioned but entirely utopian to me.

Of course, from a social engineering standpoint that makes complete sense. But the point is that around my peers I don't need to edit myself; I do when I have to (I for instance swear a bit less in the presence of my boss), but I always take it with a grain of salt. I don't want to edit myself, I like being free in that sense and think that freedom of speech is something that first and foremost starts with yourself.

Interesting. I'd only ever use the word to describe the kind of rude behavior that happens between strangers on the street.

Might be, I'm not a native speaker so what I'm thinking about might still fit under the label of flirting, but I can't really say that I know the terminology 'normal' people use to talk about social interaction.

I bet this never, ever happens.

I think it's pretty unlikely, but possible. The point was that while (at least from my perspective) anti-discrimination rules don't do anything to enable a safe environment for minorities there is the potential for abuse. In my eyes those rules are snake oil, I think the TSA might be a somewhat fitting analogy if you think about their efficiency.

That seems well-intentioned but entirely utopian to me.

Of course it is, but that's not reason not to use it as a guideline and strive for its implementation. If you don't try, you'll never get there. You can probably already find multiple examples of me violating this guideline in this thread, but that doesn't stop me from at least trying to make the way I communicate better. :)

I generally associate overuse of profanity with laziness in word selection, but that's just me.

I agree with you on overuse. The only times where profanity has any impact on me is when someone who doesn't normally use profanity uses it for emphasis.

This may be a guy thing, and a clash in behaviour of the sexes. Guys are more prone to bursts of aggressiveness, gals more adept of moderate long term aggressive stances. Which one is more difficult to handle is largely a matter of opinion. Quick bursts are automatically solved immediately, leaving bruised egos, long term allows more time to manage the underlying reason. Just because Linus' stance is flashy does not make it wrong.

Unless you posit that aggression is never warranted. Then, we'll have to disagree. Aggression is a normal behaviour, artificial suppression leads to non healthy alternatives; it's better to lay problems out in the open and fix them than to sweep them under the politically correct rug.

I'm sure there's no perfect dividing line between non-aggressive/aggressive. But it's generally clear when something is nearer the extremes.

"Alice, that's completely wrong because X, this code needs to be rewritten from scratch following principle Y." "Bob, what is this retarded shit? You stupid fool, go RTFM and do it again."

I recently witnessed some programmer going to town, blasting out a supply cabinet. Hurling rage and profane insults at a supply cabinet just seems... uncalled for, to me. My personal evaluation is that the guy needs to learn to not let little things bother him so much. Though I doubt the supply cabinet was offended.

[1] Of course, that's not to say that my brothers are unintelligent (they're very bright). However, one of the most important life skills I learned in public school was learning how to get along with those "pleasant idiots," as you put it.

[2] And I'm not disagreeing that kernel dev requires a more authoritative leadership style than most pursuits, but it seemed that this conversation had dropped into speaking in generalities about life.

[edited the obvious typo]

Fortunately for me, I'm in a position to choose exactly who I work with. (Unlike perhaps this Sarah is.)

I'm just getting a bit jittery whenever someone tries to regulate free speech.

If you think I'm an asshole you are hereby invited to meet me at the OHM in a few weeks and yell at me. :)

However, don't conflate "tech type" with "high IQ/intelligence." The tech industry has the same percentage of idiots as any other, and our idiots aren't any smarter than those others' idiots just because they can scratch out a chunk of python or haskell or whatever.