In regards to mention of Nazi deathcamp imagery on 9front’s site,
they’ve removed the image in question and updated the page with an explanation:
Once upon a time, khm was searching for rails documentation and accidentally hit the Images link. In the first page of results was a photo of the train tracks of Auschwitz. Its presence among the Ruby on Rails logos was so absurd and out of place that khm memorialized it. It was made in an era before actual Nazis had re-entered the public dialogue, so it felt like Google Image Search was denigrating Ruby on Rails by including this sort of imagery in the results.
Generally speaking, 4chan types read it as an endorsement, which sucks. More recently, people who are not assholes have also begun to read it as an endorsement, which is even more unfortunate. Finally, the people who just get mad about things on social media have begun nesting in it. As a result, this image has been targeted for redaction by the 9front Internet Mob Mollification committee.
Also note the “Nazi punks fuck off” badge has been on 9front’s front page ever since I found out about them.
I don’t think they condone nazisim, or welcome fascists into their community.
With context, it does sound kind of funny, and it might be the sort of thing I would have shared privately (with context) to friends or some such. But putting it up without context on a public FAQ is a pretty big failure in understanding that without this context, it just looks weird and out of place, at best.
Something like “heil Hitler” can be a literal endorsement of Hitler, but it can also be a joke (possibly in bad taste, but a joke nonetheless), or a statement against authoritarianism. Context is everything, and I don’t know why there’s such a failure to understand this from the 9front people. I suppose some of the more outlandish “oh, they must be literal Nazis then!” probably doesn’t help.
I don’t understand what context would make someone think that image was anything other than an excessive attack on Ruby on Rails.
Do you know anyone that looks at that image and thinks “I love Rails, and therefore the juxtaposition must therefore that extermination camps are good!”?
Also added, for people who didn’t find “Nazi punks fuck off” sufficiently explicit:
ACHTUNG! 9front absolutely and unalterally opposed to racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, nationalism, ethnocentrism, religious fundamentalism, and oppressive and coercive power structures of all kinds.
For context. When 9front was still on Google Code they added tags like SOAP, cloud, enterprise, oracle (SOAP being the only thing I certainly remember, but you get the gist). They used that the same way and I am pretty sure they weren’t secretly in love with those things.
Yes, it’s easy to call call something tasteless, if your taste is different and matches the taste of majority. 9front all the way through is is doing the opposite, so I think the nazi meme stuff is similar. I mean attaching software to ideologies or vice versa (maybe other than licenses) seems odd.
It’s also not my taste. Attaching political labels to some one based on memes they find funny seems really off though.
There is a more fitting comparison maybe. Nero Burning Rom, which I have seen criticized for being named after a violent dictator and making a joke out of it. It was actually compared with Nazis as well.
I think people should judged by overall sentiment, actions, and what they actually say, not something that manages to cause such a discussion.
Of course I cannot look into someones mind, so certainly also not saying that there isn’t such a reason behind it, but since it can easily be interpreted as joke, ironically and there is nothing indicating more than that I would go by giving the benefit of the doubt.
Yes, stay vigilant, but let’s not turn this into thought police.
Yeah, sure…they put up “we’re not -ism or -phobia we swear” and took down the Nazi pr0n. After vocally arguing why they should’t have to and we’ve done nothing wrong and anyone who had a problem with it are “the people who just get mad about things on social media”. Instead of saying “Whoa! We put up a picture of fucking Auschwitz? Hey lemme delete that right now”.
When I went to the killing fields in Cambodia there was this audio tour where a survivor narrated the place as you walked around. For reference, there were children sticking their hands through the fences trying to beg money from the rich tourists wandering around the mass grave (the grave was one of very many killing fields, it wasn’t a special one or anything, the cambodian genocide was seriously super horrific). Every time it rains more bones will come out of the ground so they have a collection bucket at the exit if you find any bones while walking through. At the entrance there is a monument that is a tower full of human skulls.
The walk features such things as the tree where they killed children by bashing their heads against it (apparently more efficient than using other means) and of course there is a permanent bloodstain and the bark is eroded where the impact would happen.
As I was going through this tour I was thinking “why on earth am I here, this is literally the most horrific thing I’ve ever seen! Who would have the capacity to do this???”
But at the end of the tour the voice begs and pleads: “Please do not allow this atrocity to be forgotten, we must remember that these things have happened so that we do not grow complacent thinking that ‘nobody would do such a thing’. We must never let such a thing happen again.” (paraphrased since I don’t remember what he said verbatim).
This stuck with me and since then I have become better aware of other such events, for example visiting Rwanda you can feel the scar in the culture. “Dancing in the Glory of Monsters” is a book that if you can stomach it (I wasn’t able to) shows you how the Rwandan genocide is still ongoing in the Congo…. Speaking of, I know people from Venezuela and their refugee crysis has grown faster and further than the Syrian one and their current situation is tragic.
These countries are being torn apart by the wealth they hold (and I believe the vultures that we admire for how much money they can stockpile must be held responsible if we want to start doing anything about this - but that is another matter).
However even though I have very strong feelings on the matter and even though I have good friends from Venezuela that are affected by the crysis there, still.. I will not fault you for showing me a picture of Venezuela!
Actually. I’m quite triggered that you consider it immoral to show a picture of Auschwitz. Repressing memories is not a good way to come to terms with reality, when a loved one dies it is better to honor their memory and respect whatever force it was that destroyed them. Rather than acting like nothing ever happened while you desperately try to hold onto your ignorance of the evils in the world.
IF I ever use the word “hate” with all the weight that it holds then I will use it to describe these symptom-treating efforts that ultimately undermine any efforts at real healing.
If someone was to use one of the many horrific images from the Cambodian killing fields as a reaction image comparing different programming languages, would you consider it a good way of honoring the victims?
No admittedly not, but it’d be a good opportunity to start a reasonable discussion with whoever is responsible (probably a child[ish] person).
Deciding unilaterally where the line is and then dogmatically shaming is what I take issue with.
Edit: not advocating infinite patience but maybe one or two iterations of reserved judgment would go a long way towards defusing misunderstandings or having differing values clashing.
Actually. I’m quite triggered that you consider it immoral to show a picture of Auschwitz
Context is important here. Showing a picture on a historical/educational website is great, showing it on some edgy website for a fringe OS is completely tasteless.
Well there was further context with the ruby thing and then inertia took over. Idk it’s obviously not the appropriate context but all it would take is a caption with some platitude and a link to educational resource for it to be suddenly a brave gesture to keep the memory alive… people are fickle.
Shouts all over Mastodon how it’s not going to be removed, claiming it “provokes thought instead of dogma” and any opinion to the contrary is “breathless internet pearl-clutching” (lmao sounds like somebody’s thought ain’t being provoked!)
Removes it, adds snark towards the author of this article and attributes the removal to mollifying an internet mob
The snark isn’t entirely unwarranted, especially considering how the author of this article felt the need to include 2 paragraphs about how the 9front devs are awful, terrible people for not immediately doing exactly what he asked.
Nah: the author of the article asked a question on Mastodon that most people would have – “why is there nazi imagery associated with this project” – and after one follow up question a 9front dev[1] blew him off as “starting an internet witch hunt”.
[1]: That’d be you, yes? Typically it’s good form to say “here’s my side of things” so people know you aren’t just a dispassionate observer sharing their opinion.
(no, that is not me. I’m not involved in 9front at all, besides occasionally looking at it and booting it up on a pi to see how it’s going. I am truly a dispassionate observer here– thanks for trying to root me out though!)
It is important to look at the tone of the discussion here: the author opens with “I am now used to the FQA being frankly not worth the 1s and 0s it was written in” (a very kind dismissal of someone’s work!) and then immediately poking and prodding about who, exactly, committed the image. It’s understandable that someone would get defensive if that happened. At this point the aftermath is pointless social media bullshit and is probably off-topic to this site.
It is important to look at the tone of the discussion here
If this is really the worst thing you can pull out about what I’ve written online I’d say that’s not bad. Can you provide me an example of where I’m apparently poking and prodding about who, exactly, committed the image? Because the only person I asked about was here with reasons for asking in the question. I didn’t know when I asked but it turns out the info is publicly available anyway.
the author opens with “I am now used to the FQA being frankly not worth the 1s and 0s it was written in” (a very kind dismissal of someone’s work!)
No I don’t. This isn’t even in the linked article. It was taken from part of this mastodon conversation between two people. It’s in reference to the state of the FQA where I’d written notes to submit to fill gaps until I saw the image. I find it odd to assert a frustration shared as part of a discussion between two people is a dismissal when the document itself says:
ACHTUNG! Information provided by this document is UNOFFICIAL and may be outdated or just plain WRONG
This is certainly an accurate statement, as evidenced by section 8.3.2 of the FQA. This was one of the places where I’d written notes for the FQA. Feel free to share any insight into Acme that cyclogram image gives you.
Yes, the discussion where the maintainer got upset opened with “I am now used to the FQA…” I’m not sure why you’re being pedantic here. The article also opens with “ The FQA is more harmful than good.”, two dismissals. And you did poke and prod: I would say asking two separate times about who created and/or committed the controversial image would be somewhat hair-raising.
Yes, the discussion where the maintainer got upset opened with
The discussion opened with the “What in the actual fuck” post, and KHM replied to dogstar’s post on the thread, not to mine.
The article also opens with “ The FQA is more harmful than good.
That statement is over 400 words into the piece. It is not the opening. Stop with the obvious falsehoods.
And again, you’ve been unable to link to the poking and prodding because I already linked to the question I asked about who, which contains the reasoning for the question in the toot. Given you claim to be “truly a dispassionate observer here” it is clear you have an axe to grind. I will not discuss this with you further here as there is nothing either of us can say that would add to the conversation.
(no, that is not me. I’m not involved in 9front at all, besides occasionally looking at it and booting it up on a pi to see how it’s going. I am truly a dispassionate observer here– thanks for trying to root me out though!)
Fair enough – I thought I caught a whiff of username overlap but there’s really only 26^2 bits of information there for me to key off ;).
how the author of this article felt the need to include 2 paragraphs about how the 9front devs are awful, terrible people for not immediately doing exactly what he asked.
Please tell me where in the post I said the devs are awful, terrible people.
Please show me a link where I’ve asked for the devs to take an immediate specific course of action.
You can’t because I did neither of those things. In fact it specifically says in the article that “9Front doesn’t owe me change”. If you’re going to say things that are untrue it helps if it’s not immediately verifiable. I’ve flagged this because it’s both untrue and doesn’t add to the discussion.
“… and those feeling welcomed by it. My concerns lay with the 3rd group. The Nazi death camp joke author was so courteous…”
Emphasis mine. Come on man, are you really trying to argue that this is neutral? Where I come from, insinuating that a dev team are nazis is definitely saying that they’re bad people.
“ Update: The “9Front Internet Mob Mollification committee” huffed, puffed, some of them called me bad names then took it down.”
so this was your goal? What was your goal otherwise? In the mastodon thread, why were you trying to hold your (much desired, I’m sure) FQA additions over their heads?
If you don’t owe 9front any change, why mention them at all unless you want to punish them for some indiscretion? It doesn’t change the article in any way.
You keep cutting parts of things out, so I’ll put this here once.
There are 3 types of people who’ll see it - Those who won’t use 9Front because of it, those whose choice is unaffected by it, and those feeling welcomed by it. My concerns lay with the 3rd group.
I’m very clearly talking about people who would’ve seen the picture. Not 9Front Devs. People who look at stuff like that and think “Yeah, this is for me”.
The Nazi death camp joke author was so courteous
Look at the actual discussion thread and you will see how courteous the author was. I stand by my words, I did not say the devs were awful, terrible people as you falsely claimed.
Update: The “9Front Internet Mob Mollification committee” huffed, puffed, some of them called me bad names then took it down.
As it says, this is in a post-publish update, not the piece when you originally claimed. Just so we’re clear. The “9Front Internet Mob Moillification Committee” is a direct quote from the FQA text in Appendix L as represented in Mercurial.
Huffed and puffed, some of them called me bad names - you can see all this here as well as in the mastodon thread.
You’ve claimed to be truly a dispassionate observer. That claim is demonstrably false. You haven’t been able to link to a request for change because I never made one. You haven’t been able to show me calling the devs “awful, terrible people” because I never said that. Given that you’re obviously trolling I see no reason to engage further here, it won’t add anything to the overall discussion.
I think kjs3 is trying to say that putting up a picture of Auschwitz is so unbelievably tasteless to a lot of people, that there should not be a discussion as to why it should be removed. This place of unbelievable crimes should never be used as an edgy joke. We all must be better than that.
I take these accusations with a grain of salt, because they seem superficial. I’m yet to hear someone call them communists because they have the manifesto of the communist party in their repo. To me, it always was like a subversion of “”“optics”””, explicitly aimed at people who take one look and come to conclusions like OP, but I guess, when it doubt, people are Nazis (also known as not-“a political movement situated in the specific context of post-WW1 Germany”).
The text of the Communist Manifesto replaced the text of Mein Kampf that was in the repo earlier.
It’s easiest if everyone just assumes the 9Front developers are 4chan-inflected trolls. It doesn’t really detract from the quality of the code, but it probably makes people considering contributing pause.
In regards to mention of Nazi deathcamp imagery on 9front’s site, they’ve removed the image in question and updated the page with an explanation:
Also note the “Nazi punks fuck off” badge has been on 9front’s front page ever since I found out about them.
I don’t think they condone nazisim, or welcome fascists into their community.
With context, it does sound kind of funny, and it might be the sort of thing I would have shared privately (with context) to friends or some such. But putting it up without context on a public FAQ is a pretty big failure in understanding that without this context, it just looks weird and out of place, at best.
Something like “heil Hitler” can be a literal endorsement of Hitler, but it can also be a joke (possibly in bad taste, but a joke nonetheless), or a statement against authoritarianism. Context is everything, and I don’t know why there’s such a failure to understand this from the 9front people. I suppose some of the more outlandish “oh, they must be literal Nazis then!” probably doesn’t help.
I don’t understand what context would make someone think that image was anything other than an excessive attack on Ruby on Rails.
Do you know anyone that looks at that image and thinks “I love Rails, and therefore the juxtaposition must therefore that extermination camps are good!”?
Also added, for people who didn’t find “Nazi punks fuck off” sufficiently explicit:
For context. When 9front was still on Google Code they added tags like SOAP, cloud, enterprise, oracle (SOAP being the only thing I certainly remember, but you get the gist). They used that the same way and I am pretty sure they weren’t secretly in love with those things.
Yes, it’s easy to call call something tasteless, if your taste is different and matches the taste of majority. 9front all the way through is is doing the opposite, so I think the nazi meme stuff is similar. I mean attaching software to ideologies or vice versa (maybe other than licenses) seems odd.
It’s also not my taste. Attaching political labels to some one based on memes they find funny seems really off though.
There is a more fitting comparison maybe. Nero Burning Rom, which I have seen criticized for being named after a violent dictator and making a joke out of it. It was actually compared with Nazis as well.
I think people should judged by overall sentiment, actions, and what they actually say, not something that manages to cause such a discussion.
Of course I cannot look into someones mind, so certainly also not saying that there isn’t such a reason behind it, but since it can easily be interpreted as joke, ironically and there is nothing indicating more than that I would go by giving the benefit of the doubt.
Yes, stay vigilant, but let’s not turn this into thought police.
Yeah, sure…they put up “we’re not -ism or -phobia we swear” and took down the Nazi pr0n. After vocally arguing why they should’t have to and we’ve done nothing wrong and anyone who had a problem with it are “the people who just get mad about things on social media”. Instead of saying “Whoa! We put up a picture of fucking Auschwitz? Hey lemme delete that right now”.
The optics are less than optimal.
When I went to the killing fields in Cambodia there was this audio tour where a survivor narrated the place as you walked around. For reference, there were children sticking their hands through the fences trying to beg money from the rich tourists wandering around the mass grave (the grave was one of very many killing fields, it wasn’t a special one or anything, the cambodian genocide was seriously super horrific). Every time it rains more bones will come out of the ground so they have a collection bucket at the exit if you find any bones while walking through. At the entrance there is a monument that is a tower full of human skulls.
The walk features such things as the tree where they killed children by bashing their heads against it (apparently more efficient than using other means) and of course there is a permanent bloodstain and the bark is eroded where the impact would happen.
As I was going through this tour I was thinking “why on earth am I here, this is literally the most horrific thing I’ve ever seen! Who would have the capacity to do this???”
But at the end of the tour the voice begs and pleads: “Please do not allow this atrocity to be forgotten, we must remember that these things have happened so that we do not grow complacent thinking that ‘nobody would do such a thing’. We must never let such a thing happen again.” (paraphrased since I don’t remember what he said verbatim).
This stuck with me and since then I have become better aware of other such events, for example visiting Rwanda you can feel the scar in the culture. “Dancing in the Glory of Monsters” is a book that if you can stomach it (I wasn’t able to) shows you how the Rwandan genocide is still ongoing in the Congo…. Speaking of, I know people from Venezuela and their refugee crysis has grown faster and further than the Syrian one and their current situation is tragic.
These countries are being torn apart by the wealth they hold (and I believe the vultures that we admire for how much money they can stockpile must be held responsible if we want to start doing anything about this - but that is another matter).
However even though I have very strong feelings on the matter and even though I have good friends from Venezuela that are affected by the crysis there, still.. I will not fault you for showing me a picture of Venezuela!
Actually. I’m quite triggered that you consider it immoral to show a picture of Auschwitz. Repressing memories is not a good way to come to terms with reality, when a loved one dies it is better to honor their memory and respect whatever force it was that destroyed them. Rather than acting like nothing ever happened while you desperately try to hold onto your ignorance of the evils in the world.
IF I ever use the word “hate” with all the weight that it holds then I will use it to describe these symptom-treating efforts that ultimately undermine any efforts at real healing.
If someone was to use one of the many horrific images from the Cambodian killing fields as a reaction image comparing different programming languages, would you consider it a good way of honoring the victims?
No admittedly not, but it’d be a good opportunity to start a reasonable discussion with whoever is responsible (probably a child[ish] person).
Deciding unilaterally where the line is and then dogmatically shaming is what I take issue with.
Edit: not advocating infinite patience but maybe one or two iterations of reserved judgment would go a long way towards defusing misunderstandings or having differing values clashing.
Context is important here. Showing a picture on a historical/educational website is great, showing it on some edgy website for a fringe OS is completely tasteless.
Well there was further context with the ruby thing and then inertia took over. Idk it’s obviously not the appropriate context but all it would take is a caption with some platitude and a link to educational resource for it to be suddenly a brave gesture to keep the memory alive… people are fickle.
You seem very hard to please, context and time changes, they took it down.
nah, sounds like not much has changed at all
The snark isn’t entirely unwarranted, especially considering how the author of this article felt the need to include 2 paragraphs about how the 9front devs are awful, terrible people for not immediately doing exactly what he asked.
Nah: the author of the article asked a question on Mastodon that most people would have – “why is there nazi imagery associated with this project” – and after one follow up question a 9front dev[1] blew him off as “starting an internet witch hunt”.
[1]: That’d be you, yes? Typically it’s good form to say “here’s my side of things” so people know you aren’t just a dispassionate observer sharing their opinion.
(no, that is not me. I’m not involved in 9front at all, besides occasionally looking at it and booting it up on a pi to see how it’s going. I am truly a dispassionate observer here– thanks for trying to root me out though!)
It is important to look at the tone of the discussion here: the author opens with “I am now used to the FQA being frankly not worth the 1s and 0s it was written in” (a very kind dismissal of someone’s work!) and then immediately poking and prodding about who, exactly, committed the image. It’s understandable that someone would get defensive if that happened. At this point the aftermath is pointless social media bullshit and is probably off-topic to this site.
If this is really the worst thing you can pull out about what I’ve written online I’d say that’s not bad. Can you provide me an example of where I’m apparently poking and prodding about who, exactly, committed the image? Because the only person I asked about was here with reasons for asking in the question. I didn’t know when I asked but it turns out the info is publicly available anyway.
No I don’t. This isn’t even in the linked article. It was taken from part of this mastodon conversation between two people. It’s in reference to the state of the FQA where I’d written notes to submit to fill gaps until I saw the image. I find it odd to assert a frustration shared as part of a discussion between two people is a dismissal when the document itself says:
This is certainly an accurate statement, as evidenced by section 8.3.2 of the FQA. This was one of the places where I’d written notes for the FQA. Feel free to share any insight into Acme that cyclogram image gives you.
Yes, the discussion where the maintainer got upset opened with “I am now used to the FQA…” I’m not sure why you’re being pedantic here. The article also opens with “ The FQA is more harmful than good.”, two dismissals. And you did poke and prod: I would say asking two separate times about who created and/or committed the controversial image would be somewhat hair-raising.
The discussion opened with the “What in the actual fuck” post, and KHM replied to dogstar’s post on the thread, not to mine.
That statement is over 400 words into the piece. It is not the opening. Stop with the obvious falsehoods.
And again, you’ve been unable to link to the poking and prodding because I already linked to the question I asked about who, which contains the reasoning for the question in the toot. Given you claim to be “truly a dispassionate observer here” it is clear you have an axe to grind. I will not discuss this with you further here as there is nothing either of us can say that would add to the conversation.
Fair enough – I thought I caught a whiff of username overlap but there’s really only
26^2bits of information there for me to key off ;).You can’t because I did neither of those things. In fact it specifically says in the article that “9Front doesn’t owe me change”. If you’re going to say things that are untrue it helps if it’s not immediately verifiable. I’ve flagged this because it’s both untrue and doesn’t add to the discussion.
Emphasis mine. Come on man, are you really trying to argue that this is neutral? Where I come from, insinuating that a dev team are nazis is definitely saying that they’re bad people.
so this was your goal? What was your goal otherwise? In the mastodon thread, why were you trying to hold your (much desired, I’m sure) FQA additions over their heads?
If you don’t owe 9front any change, why mention them at all unless you want to punish them for some indiscretion? It doesn’t change the article in any way.
You keep cutting parts of things out, so I’ll put this here once.
I’m very clearly talking about people who would’ve seen the picture. Not 9Front Devs. People who look at stuff like that and think “Yeah, this is for me”.
Look at the actual discussion thread and you will see how courteous the author was. I stand by my words, I did not say the devs were awful, terrible people as you falsely claimed.
As it says, this is in a post-publish update, not the piece when you originally claimed. Just so we’re clear. The “9Front Internet Mob Moillification Committee” is a direct quote from the FQA text in Appendix L as represented in Mercurial.
Huffed and puffed, some of them called me bad names - you can see all this here as well as in the mastodon thread.
You’ve claimed to be truly a dispassionate observer. That claim is demonstrably false. You haven’t been able to link to a request for change because I never made one. You haven’t been able to show me calling the devs “awful, terrible people” because I never said that. Given that you’re obviously trolling I see no reason to engage further here, it won’t add anything to the overall discussion.
I think kjs3 is trying to say that putting up a picture of Auschwitz is so unbelievably tasteless to a lot of people, that there should not be a discussion as to why it should be removed. This place of unbelievable crimes should never be used as an edgy joke. We all must be better than that.
I take these accusations with a grain of salt, because they seem superficial. I’m yet to hear someone call them communists because they have the manifesto of the communist party in their repo. To me, it always was like a subversion of “”“optics”””, explicitly aimed at people who take one look and come to conclusions like OP, but I guess, when it doubt, people are Nazis (also known as not-“a political movement situated in the specific context of post-WW1 Germany”).
The text of the Communist Manifesto replaced the text of Mein Kampf that was in the repo earlier.
It’s easiest if everyone just assumes the 9Front developers are 4chan-inflected trolls. It doesn’t really detract from the quality of the code, but it probably makes people considering contributing pause.
Glad to learn of other ports of Plan 9 other than the 9Front one.