http://sarah.thesharps.us/2015/10/05/closing-a-door/
I think folks here will understand this story. http://sarah.thesharps.us/2015/10/05/closing-a-door/
I wish that we had a proven solution for that kind of issue in online communities in general. It's quite disappointing. Thanks for forwarding that post.
Pine On Oct 7, 2015 6:44 AM, "Jason Radford" jsradford@uchicago.edu wrote:
http://sarah.thesharps.us/2015/10/05/closing-a-door/
I think folks here will understand this story. http://sarah.thesharps.us/2015/10/05/closing-a-door/
http://sarah.thesharps.us/2015/10/05/closing-a-door/
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to let wikipedia NPOV also have a word, here what linus torvalds thought about it two years ago: http://marc.info/?l=linux-kernel&m=137392506516022&w=2 in a summary, torvalds argues that sarah sharp should accept that people are different and act different, she should not try to change linus torvalds.
rupert
On Wed, Oct 7, 2015 at 4:58 PM, Pine W wiki.pine@gmail.com wrote:
I wish that we had a proven solution for that kind of issue in online communities in general. It's quite disappointing. Thanks for forwarding that post.
Pine
On Oct 7, 2015 6:44 AM, "Jason Radford" jsradford@uchicago.edu wrote:
I think folks here will understand this story.
On Wed, Oct 7, 2015 at 12:44 PM, rupert THURNER rupert.thurner@gmail.com wrote:
to let wikipedia NPOV also have a word, here what linus torvalds thought about it two years ago: http://marc.info/?l=linux-kernel&m=137392506516022&w=2 in a summary, torvalds argues that sarah sharp should accept that people are different and act different, she should not try to change linus torvalds.
She didn't try to change Linus Torvalds. She left.
The question in every community is really quite simple when we talk about these things; If we want to let people be personally confrontational, unwelcoming or abusive because we want to let people who they are, then we lose people who have no patience or desire to be abused in their capacity as volunteers.
I think what Linus Torvalds is missing is empathy to others who aren't like *him* (ironically), but he's far from being the only one in the field to apparently lack that, especially in these type of discussions.
rupert
On Wed, Oct 7, 2015 at 4:58 PM, Pine W wiki.pine@gmail.com wrote:
I wish that we had a proven solution for that kind of issue in online communities in general. It's quite disappointing. Thanks for forwarding
that
post.
Pine
On Oct 7, 2015 6:44 AM, "Jason Radford" jsradford@uchicago.edu wrote:
I think folks here will understand this story.
Gendergap mailing list Gendergap@lists.wikimedia.org To manage your subscription preferences, including unsubscribing, please visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/gendergap
I'm not a member of the Lynux community, though I'm a very grateful user of their software. But I don't read that blogpost as saying that "She didn't try to change Linus Torvalds. She left".
I read her words, and especially* "I’m posting this because I feel sad every time someone thanks me for standing up for better community norms, because I have essentially given up trying to change the Linux kernel community. Cultural change is a slow, painful process, and I no longer have the mental energy to be an active part of that cultural change in the kernel."*
Those are the words of someone who has tried and tried again before deciding to leave.
On 7 October 2015 at 22:33, Moriel Schottlender moriel@gmail.com wrote:
On Wed, Oct 7, 2015 at 12:44 PM, rupert THURNER rupert.thurner@gmail.com wrote:
to let wikipedia NPOV also have a word, here what linus torvalds thought about it two years ago: http://marc.info/?l=linux-kernel&m=137392506516022&w=2 in a summary, torvalds argues that sarah sharp should accept that people are different and act different, she should not try to change linus torvalds.
She didn't try to change Linus Torvalds. She left.
The question in every community is really quite simple when we talk about these things; If we want to let people be personally confrontational, unwelcoming or abusive because we want to let people who they are, then we lose people who have no patience or desire to be abused in their capacity as volunteers.
I think what Linus Torvalds is missing is empathy to others who aren't like *him* (ironically), but he's far from being the only one in the field to apparently lack that, especially in these type of discussions.
rupert
On Wed, Oct 7, 2015 at 4:58 PM, Pine W wiki.pine@gmail.com wrote:
I wish that we had a proven solution for that kind of issue in online communities in general. It's quite disappointing. Thanks for forwarding
that
post.
Pine
On Oct 7, 2015 6:44 AM, "Jason Radford" jsradford@uchicago.edu wrote:
I think folks here will understand this story.
On Wed, Oct 7, 2015 at 3:21 PM, WereSpielChequers < werespielchequers@gmail.com> wrote:
I'm not a member of the Lynux community, though I'm a very grateful user of their software. But I don't read that blogpost as saying that "She didn't try to change Linus Torvalds. She left".
I read her words, and especially* "I’m posting this because I feel sad every time someone thanks me for standing up for better community norms, because I have essentially given up trying to change the Linux kernel community. Cultural change is a slow, painful process, and I no longer have the mental energy to be an active part of that cultural change in the kernel."*
Those are the words of someone who has tried and tried again before deciding to leave.
Yes.
She didn't try to change Linus, she tried to change the community. There's a difference. A person can be whoever they want to be, but in the context of the community, there could be basic rules of thumb that guides what the community feels should be basic decency. Like, say, "don't be a jerk" or "don't use personal insults when reviewing code".
Linus Torvalds can continue being a jerk as much as he likes, just not in the context of the community. Unless, of course, he can, in which case the community loses people. Case in point.
Beyond the other issues with what Linus is saying in general (which were explained earlier in this thread) the entire argument about not trying to "change people" or "people are people" and all that stuff is absolutely a red herring. This is not what she (and others who try to change the culture in these communities) is doing, nor what they aim to do. The hint that she was attempting to "oppress" his character is, quite frankly, extremely ironic.
If people don't think that having an abusive community is a problem, then they should understand they are *losing* the people they are abusing, and keeping the people who are abusing others. That means that we are not keeping the good contributors and weeding out the lazy/bad contributors -- it means we're keeping the jerks, whether they're effective contributors or not, and weeding out the ones who give up and don't want to be abused, whether they're awesome or not.
Everything we know about social interactions tells us that abusive behavior does not create better professionals. We see it everywhere except the army, where abusive behavior is intended for a very specific outcome that I doubt we want to reproduce in any other community.
That is the bottom line of this. What kind of community do we *want* to have, and who in this community do we want to encourage? The ones who pound their chests and bully others? If so, then we must understand we do this at the expense of others who can't stand it, even if they're much better contributors.
We need to make a choice.
On 7 October 2015 at 22:33, Moriel Schottlender moriel@gmail.com wrote:
On Wed, Oct 7, 2015 at 12:44 PM, rupert THURNER <rupert.thurner@gmail.com
wrote:
to let wikipedia NPOV also have a word, here what linus torvalds thought about it two years ago: http://marc.info/?l=linux-kernel&m=137392506516022&w=2 in a summary, torvalds argues that sarah sharp should accept that people are different and act different, she should not try to change linus torvalds.
She didn't try to change Linus Torvalds. She left.
The question in every community is really quite simple when we talk about these things; If we want to let people be personally confrontational, unwelcoming or abusive because we want to let people who they are, then we lose people who have no patience or desire to be abused in their capacity as volunteers.
I think what Linus Torvalds is missing is empathy to others who aren't like *him* (ironically), but he's far from being the only one in the field to apparently lack that, especially in these type of discussions.
rupert
On Wed, Oct 7, 2015 at 4:58 PM, Pine W wiki.pine@gmail.com wrote:
I wish that we had a proven solution for that kind of issue in online communities in general. It's quite disappointing. Thanks for
forwarding that
post.
Pine
On Oct 7, 2015 6:44 AM, "Jason Radford" jsradford@uchicago.edu
wrote:
I think folks here will understand this story.
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On Thu, Oct 8, 2015 at 1:33 AM, Moriel Schottlender moriel@gmail.com wrote:
On Wed, Oct 7, 2015 at 3:21 PM, WereSpielChequers werespielchequers@gmail.com wrote:
I'm not a member of the Lynux community, though I'm a very grateful user of their software. But I don't read that blogpost as saying that "She didn't try to change Linus Torvalds. She left".
I read her words, and especially "I’m posting this because I feel sad every time someone thanks me for standing up for better community norms, because I have essentially given up trying to change the Linux kernel community. Cultural change is a slow, painful process, and I no longer have the mental energy to be an active part of that cultural change in the kernel."
Those are the words of someone who has tried and tried again before deciding to leave.
Yes.
She didn't try to change Linus, she tried to change the community. There's a difference. A person can be whoever they want to be, but in the context of the community, there could be basic rules of thumb that guides what the community feels should be basic decency.
moriel, i do not agree to the abstraction you introduce here. a community consists of persons afaik. it is a person which feels, not a community. if there is a rule for the community its purpose is to apply to a person part of the community. sarah sharp tried to make a rule "do not curse or go away". as linus torvalds curses from time to time it is not rocket science to understand that rule as: (1) linus please change and do not curse, or (2) linus please leave the community if you cannot stop cursing.
On Wed, Oct 7, 2015 at 12:44 PM, rupert THURNER rupert.thurner@gmail.com wrote:
to let wikipedia NPOV also have a word, here what linus torvalds thought about it two years ago: http://marc.info/?l=linux-kernel&m=137392506516022&w=2 in a summary, torvalds argues that sarah sharp should accept that people are different and act different, she should not try to change linus torvalds.
On Oct 7, 2015 6:44 AM, "Jason Radford" jsradford@uchicago.edu wrote:
I think folks here will understand this story.
moriel, i do not agree to the abstraction you introduce here. a community consists of persons afaik. it is a person which feels, not a community. if there is a rule for the community its purpose is to apply to a person part of the community. sarah sharp tried to make a rule "do not curse or go away". as linus torvalds curses from time to time it is not rocket science to understand that rule as: (1) linus please change and do not curse, or (2) linus please leave the community if you cannot stop cursing.
I am simplifying the bottom line, because the bottom line is fairly simple.
When a group of individuals form a community, they are no longer completely individuals; they have set for themselves a social contract that binds them. We can discuss the minutia of the social contract forever, of course, as these arguments went for ages, from John Locke's extensive individual liberties, to Hobbes' absolute authoritative rule, to Jean Jack Rousseau's general will -- but that still leaves the conclusion the same: What type of community do we *want* to have?
I find it somewhat ironic that we are arguing for respecting an almost absolute individual rights and liberties of people in the community who are (sometimes self-professed) assholes and bully others, but we neglect the individual rights and liberties of the people who are being bullied. The entire point of having a *community* (rather than a disconnected grouping of individuals) is to find the balance to give the liberties to its members not on the expense of other members' liberties.
And yet, it seems that in the arguments that are raised, the "sides" keep being presented as the extreme choices, as if no other middle ground is available. That is false, and we don't have to read historical philosophical treatises to see that.
The option is not to either "have liberty" or "be oppressed". That is a strawman representation of our options. There are many more options, which many governments and societies around the world adapt -- some more successfully than others -- without crushing the individual rights of people who don't seem to care about the individual rights of others.
Sarah Sharp's leaving Linux' community is not about Linus Torvalds' individual rights to be an asshole. He can continue being an asshole all he wants, and he, I assume, knows the pros and cons of being an asshole in his personal life. It's his right, and he deserves to make that personal choice.
The community of people who gathered for a shared purpose, however, needs to make a conscious, collective decision about the type of community they care to have. That is the point of having a community in the first place.
It is a very simple give and take, a simple mathematical consideration: You get one thing on the expense of another, such is life. *Which is why in life, most often, we look for middle ground rather than extremes.*
If the social contract the community agrees on implicitly or explicitly results in making certain sub-groups marginalized, bullied and feel unwelcome, then these groups will not stay as part of that community.
If the community thinks this is a correct price to pay for absolute liberties, then all the John Locke for it.
If, however, we recognize that this price is too steep -- and that the "corrective step" of "don't be a jerk to others" is acceptable -- then the community should demonstrate it in its social contract and find the balance between oppressing the bullies and supporting the bullied.
I don't see what's so complicated in this concept, really. We're just making it complicated by concentrating on the small details.
So I will repeat my paragraph from my first email, the one that makes everything really really simple:
"If people don't think that having an abusive community is a problem, then they should understand they are *losing* the people they are abusing, and keeping the people who are abusing others. That means that we are not keeping the good contributors and weeding out the lazy/bad contributors -- it means we're keeping the jerks, whether they're effective contributors or not, and weeding out the ones who give up and don't want to be abused, whether they're awesome or not."
On Wed, Oct 7, 2015 at 12:44 PM, rupert THURNER rupert.thurner@gmail.com wrote:
to let wikipedia NPOV also have a word, here what linus torvalds thought about it two years ago: http://marc.info/?l=linux-kernel&m=137392506516022&w=2 in a summary, torvalds argues that sarah sharp should accept that people are different and act different, she should not try to change linus torvalds.
On Oct 7, 2015 6:44 AM, "Jason Radford" jsradford@uchicago.edu wrote: > > I think folks here will understand this story. > > http://sarah.thesharps.us/2015/10/05/closing-a-door/
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On the topic of social contracts and communities, I'd like to invite anyone who's interested to take a look at the draft version of the Code of Conduct for Wikimedia Technical Spaces - https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Code_of_conduct_for_technical_spaces/Draft. Any feedback is welcome on the talk page.
On Thu, Oct 8, 2015 at 1:11 PM, Moriel Schottlender moriel@gmail.com wrote:
moriel, i do not agree to the abstraction you introduce here. a
community consists of persons afaik. it is a person which feels, not a community. if there is a rule for the community its purpose is to apply to a person part of the community. sarah sharp tried to make a rule "do not curse or go away". as linus torvalds curses from time to time it is not rocket science to understand that rule as: (1) linus please change and do not curse, or (2) linus please leave the community if you cannot stop cursing.
I am simplifying the bottom line, because the bottom line is fairly simple.
When a group of individuals form a community, they are no longer completely individuals; they have set for themselves a social contract that binds them. We can discuss the minutia of the social contract forever, of course, as these arguments went for ages, from John Locke's extensive individual liberties, to Hobbes' absolute authoritative rule, to Jean Jack Rousseau's general will -- but that still leaves the conclusion the same: What type of community do we *want* to have?
I find it somewhat ironic that we are arguing for respecting an almost absolute individual rights and liberties of people in the community who are (sometimes self-professed) assholes and bully others, but we neglect the individual rights and liberties of the people who are being bullied. The entire point of having a *community* (rather than a disconnected grouping of individuals) is to find the balance to give the liberties to its members not on the expense of other members' liberties.
And yet, it seems that in the arguments that are raised, the "sides" keep being presented as the extreme choices, as if no other middle ground is available. That is false, and we don't have to read historical philosophical treatises to see that.
The option is not to either "have liberty" or "be oppressed". That is a strawman representation of our options. There are many more options, which many governments and societies around the world adapt -- some more successfully than others -- without crushing the individual rights of people who don't seem to care about the individual rights of others.
Sarah Sharp's leaving Linux' community is not about Linus Torvalds' individual rights to be an asshole. He can continue being an asshole all he wants, and he, I assume, knows the pros and cons of being an asshole in his personal life. It's his right, and he deserves to make that personal choice.
The community of people who gathered for a shared purpose, however, needs to make a conscious, collective decision about the type of community they care to have. That is the point of having a community in the first place.
It is a very simple give and take, a simple mathematical consideration: You get one thing on the expense of another, such is life. *Which is why in life, most often, we look for middle ground rather than extremes.*
If the social contract the community agrees on implicitly or explicitly results in making certain sub-groups marginalized, bullied and feel unwelcome, then these groups will not stay as part of that community.
If the community thinks this is a correct price to pay for absolute liberties, then all the John Locke for it.
If, however, we recognize that this price is too steep -- and that the "corrective step" of "don't be a jerk to others" is acceptable -- then the community should demonstrate it in its social contract and find the balance between oppressing the bullies and supporting the bullied.
I don't see what's so complicated in this concept, really. We're just making it complicated by concentrating on the small details.
So I will repeat my paragraph from my first email, the one that makes everything really really simple:
"If people don't think that having an abusive community is a problem, then they should understand they are *losing* the people they are abusing, and keeping the people who are abusing others. That means that we are not keeping the good contributors and weeding out the lazy/bad contributors -- it means we're keeping the jerks, whether they're effective contributors or not, and weeding out the ones who give up and don't want to be abused, whether they're awesome or not."
On Wed, Oct 7, 2015 at 12:44 PM, rupert THURNER rupert.thurner@gmail.com wrote:
to let wikipedia NPOV also have a word, here what linus torvalds thought about it two years ago: http://marc.info/?l=linux-kernel&m=137392506516022&w=2 in a summary, torvalds argues that sarah sharp should accept that people are different and act different, she should not try to change linus torvalds.
> On Oct 7, 2015 6:44 AM, "Jason Radford" jsradford@uchicago.edu > wrote: >> >> I think folks here will understand this story. >> >> http://sarah.thesharps.us/2015/10/05/closing-a-door/
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-- No trees were harmed in the creation of this post. But billions of electrons, photons, and electromagnetic waves were terribly inconvenienced during its transmission!
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FWIW, some of us attending WCONUSA are hoping to have an unconference session about incentivizing desirable user behaviors on ENWP, and I imagine that some portions of that discussion will be extensible to other habitats in the Wikimedia ecosystem. If anyone in this conversation online would like to join us at the unconference, please do.
Pine
Is there going to be a way to join remotely? I'd love to do that if possible. On Oct 8, 2015 12:39 PM, "Pine W" wiki.pine@gmail.com wrote:
FWIW, some of us attending WCONUSA are hoping to have an unconference session about incentivizing desirable user behaviors on ENWP, and I imagine that some portions of that discussion will be extensible to other habitats in the Wikimedia ecosystem. If anyone in this conversation online would like to join us at the unconference, please do.
Pine
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Maybe! Those of us who are planning to help with recording sessions cam discuss that with the organizing team once we are all in the same building.
Pine On Oct 8, 2015 1:11 PM, "Moriel Schottlender" moriel@gmail.com wrote:
Is there going to be a way to join remotely? I'd love to do that if possible. On Oct 8, 2015 12:39 PM, "Pine W" wiki.pine@gmail.com wrote:
FWIW, some of us attending WCONUSA are hoping to have an unconference session about incentivizing desirable user behaviors on ENWP, and I imagine that some portions of that discussion will be extensible to other habitats in the Wikimedia ecosystem. If anyone in this conversation online would like to join us at the unconference, please do.
Pine
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Update: remote participation appears to be unlikely at this point. We would need a room like a WMF video conference room or the great room used for the monthly metrics meetings.
Pine On Oct 8, 2015 7:41 PM, "Pine W" wiki.pine@gmail.com wrote:
Maybe! Those of us who are planning to help with recording sessions cam discuss that with the organizing team once we are all in the same building.
Pine On Oct 8, 2015 1:11 PM, "Moriel Schottlender" moriel@gmail.com wrote:
Is there going to be a way to join remotely? I'd love to do that if possible. On Oct 8, 2015 12:39 PM, "Pine W" wiki.pine@gmail.com wrote:
FWIW, some of us attending WCONUSA are hoping to have an unconference session about incentivizing desirable user behaviors on ENWP, and I imagine that some portions of that discussion will be extensible to other habitats in the Wikimedia ecosystem. If anyone in this conversation online would like to join us at the unconference, please do.
Pine
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Sarah did actually have some great suggestions on how to do things better: http://sarah.thesharps.us/2015/10/06/what-makes-a-good-community/
-Leigh
On Wed, Oct 7, 2015 at 3:58 PM, Pine W wiki.pine@gmail.com wrote:
I wish that we had a proven solution for that kind of issue in online communities in general. It's quite disappointing. Thanks for forwarding that post.
Pine On Oct 7, 2015 6:44 AM, "Jason Radford" jsradford@uchicago.edu wrote:
http://sarah.thesharps.us/2015/10/05/closing-a-door/
I think folks here will understand this story. http://sarah.thesharps.us/2015/10/05/closing-a-door/
http://sarah.thesharps.us/2015/10/05/closing-a-door/
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True, people are different. Some people I would like to work with, and some people I wouldn't (like Linus Torvalds). His argument that social norms are irreverent to creating software (or should be) rings pretty hollow, in my opinion. Collaborating on software (or encyclopedias) is a social process, and basic civility goes a long way towards lubricating social processes. I also don't buy Linus's argument that being professional is being fake. No one is asking Linus to wear a suit and tie and use marketing buzzwords. They're just asking him to chill out and not be an asshole. Of course he's welcome to act out his "normal urges", as he puts it, but I don't think he's doing any favors for the cultural health of the free software movement.
On Wed, Oct 7, 2015 at 1:49 PM, Leigh Honeywell leigh@hypatia.ca wrote:
Sarah did actually have some great suggestions on how to do things better: http://sarah.thesharps.us/2015/10/06/what-makes-a-good-community/
-Leigh
On Wed, Oct 7, 2015 at 3:58 PM, Pine W wiki.pine@gmail.com wrote:
I wish that we had a proven solution for that kind of issue in online communities in general. It's quite disappointing. Thanks for forwarding that post.
Pine On Oct 7, 2015 6:44 AM, "Jason Radford" jsradford@uchicago.edu wrote:
http://sarah.thesharps.us/2015/10/05/closing-a-door/
I think folks here will understand this story. http://sarah.thesharps.us/2015/10/05/closing-a-door/
http://sarah.thesharps.us/2015/10/05/closing-a-door/
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-- Leigh Honeywell http://hypatia.ca @hypatiadotca
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True, people are different. Some people I would like to work with, and some people I wouldn't (like Linus Torvalds). His argument that >social norms are irreverent to creating software (or should be) rings pretty hollow, in my opinion.
~~~~~~~~ Perhaps there’s some truth in AutoCorrect there ... What, exactly, I don’t know.
Collaborating on software (or encyclopedias) is a social process, and basic civility goes a long way towards lubricating social processes. >I also don't buy Linus's argument that being professional is being fake. No one is asking Linus to wear a suit and tie and use marketing >buzzwords. They're just asking him to chill out and not be an asshole. Of course he's welcome to act out his "normal urges", as he puts >it, but I don't think he's doing any favors for the cultural health of the free software movement.
I really wonder if we’re looking at this backward. It almost sounds from your interpretation that Linus (whom in fairness I have never met or interacted with, not least because I’m not a Linux groupie, so I can’t speak to the truth of this) seems to have founded an open-source software community as a place for people, uh, “on spectrum” to hang out online and work together on something in their preferred way, rather than had the idea for Linux and then, well, all these people just happened to gravitate to it. Daniel Case
On Wed, Oct 7, 2015 at 10:52 PM, Daniel and Elizabeth Case dancase@frontiernet.net wrote:
Collaborating on software (or
encyclopedias) is a social process, and basic civility goes a long way towards lubricating social processes. >I also don't buy Linus's argument that being professional is being fake. No one is asking Linus to wear a suit and tie and use marketing >buzzwords. They're just asking him to chill out and not be an asshole. Of course he's welcome to act out his "normal urges", as he puts >it, but I don't think he's doing any favors for the cultural health of the free software movement.
I really wonder if we’re looking at this backward. It almost sounds from your interpretation that Linus (whom in fairness I have never met or interacted with, not least because I’m not a Linux groupie, so I can’t speak to the truth of this) seems to have founded an open-source software community as a place for people, uh, “on spectrum” to hang out online and work together on something in their preferred way, rather than had the idea for Linux and then, well, all these people just happened to gravitate to it.
"Abusing people they have power over" isn't a behavior that's linked in any way to being on the autism spectrum, and I've not seen any mention that Linus self-identifies as being on the spectrum, so let's please refrain from Diagnosing People Via The Internet :) There's a great Geek Feminism Wiki on this particular argument: http://geekfeminism.wikia.com/wiki/Autism_is_to_blame
What Linus has stated publicly, however, tells the story:
"I am a lazy person, which is why I like open source, for other people to do work for me [...] I like to sit on the beach with a floofy drink and let you guys do all the work... I’m coasting, right now I’m coasting—I don’t have any projects I’m working on."
from http://arstechnica.com/business/2015/01/linus-torvalds-on-why-he-isnt-nice-i...
"I love open source and how all the credit comes to me"
from http://www.eweek.com/enterprise-apps/linus-torvalds-talks-linux-security-at-...
These are the words of someone who's happy to be a jackass to others, giddy with the power he has over them, all the while profiting off their work - not those of someone who's on the spectrum.
-Leigh
"Abusing people they have power over" isn't a behavior that's linked in any way to being on the autism spectrum, and I've not seen any mention that Linus self-identifies as being on the spectrum, so let's please refrain from Diagnosing People Via The Internet :)
Oh, I wouldn't say he is; certainly what's been posted here about him tends to suggest that he *does* know better (if anything, all those quotes make him sound like a narcissistic SOB, which all those people treating him like a god must not do much to discourage). But the kind of community that mentality has created is certainly hospitable to *some* people on spectrum (I have a high-functioning autistic teenage son who knows better most of the time, but still tries to rationalize some of his insensitive behavior as just playing around, or says he can't help himself) who might see an environment where little attention is paid to hand-holding or social niceties as one easier to navigate than the kind of supportive community we're trying to build.
Daniel Case
