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Notepad++ repository is being spammed after “Free Uyghur” release (github.com/notepad-plus-plus)
82 points by Reventlov on Oct 30, 2019 | hide | past | favorite | 34 comments



https://web.archive.org/web/20191030102751/https://github.co...

A pretty funny suggestion. I notice a lot of anti China copypasta spam in the issues also.


There are some government-backed propaganda, but from my observation, the vast majority of them in incidents like this one is a true grassroot phenomenon. Usually it's the result of a bunch of pro-governments activists and anti-government activists organizing themselves on social networks and raid their targets, believe they are fighting for a righteous cause, similar to 4chan's modus operandi.


There was a time when I thought China would eventually open up and be more democratic like the rest of the world. I really thought it was inevitable.


Well, it's not unique to China.

Authoritarianism is rising all around the world. Turns out there's lots of people in current majority populations that really feel threatened when minorities start getting rights, and their anxiety about having to compete in a meritocracy means they will throw democracy under the bus as long as they can keep their majority status.


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The arguments in those links are nonsense as far as I am concerned. I don't think you were expressing your opinion, I think you were just saying that this is how it is now. You got downvoted anyway. Some people just can't see what's going on around them.


"compete in a meritocracy"

You're clearly behind on the times. Nobody wants meritocracy. People want what they consider fair and that's usually a leg up over everyone around them. Big 4 have started giving points for diversity when hiring. This is the new normal.


youre just restating my point


I didn't mean to restate your point. I think you did not understand me at all.

I was saying that the people you think want everything to be a meritocracy, do not. The minorities that want equality do not want equality at all and the system is starting to give them preferential treatment.


oh I see now, you're one of those people I was talking about.


Of course just dismiss my actual experiences because it doesn't match your political bias. I had a hiring manager LITERALLY say he liked me but has to hire a woman to balance out the team.

I was LITERALLY told to give minority candidates 5 extra points on CV scoring when I was a senior manager at Deloitte.

We now have management programs and other trainings available exclusively as part of women's networks where the same training is not available to men. I know plenty of people that could do with presentation training, why did only the women get it?


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Can you map any of what you said to the role I applied for? I can't. Can you map anything you just said to the roles I was interviewing when I was hiring at Deloitte? I can't.

You really think that many places aren't doing diversity for the sake of diversity? You're so naive.

Deloitte have no reason to give women extra points on their CV / resume scoring.

Oracle have no reason to turn down males sales execs in an attempt to balance out the male heavy teams.

All male teams are not always toxic and hiring women doesn't guarantee that you'll end up with a less toxic team. I've worked with toxic men and toxic women.

I hope you get rejected over your gender so you know how it feels.


I have been rejected for diversity reasons. But I'm not ignorant and selfish enough to assume that any and everything that hurts me personally must inherently be wrong.

If you don't see why any company would benefit having diversity then I don't know what to tell you. That's like saying you don't see any benefit to a company's employees having diverse ideas and backgrounds.


I can see value in diversity, I championed diversity from my senior position at Deloitte. It is illegal to reject someone over something they can't control like gender especially when there is no legally valid reason for doing so. I would be annoyed if my daughter couldn't attend her University of choice because she is female just as much as I would if that happened to my Son.

Our laws, morals and ethics have said, for a long time, that we should not discriminate based on gender, race or a multitude of other factors UNLESS there is a clearly defined and accepted reason for doing so for a specific role e.g. a female care worker to look after female patients. Lofty research around diversity of thought amongst gender balanced teams is not a legal reason for gender discrimination.

If you're telling me that I cannot get a job purely because of my gender, you need a very very good reason why and a vague notion that any given team having more women will make everything better is nowhere near a good reason.

I say this as an author of many papers showing the benefits of diverse teams. Papers that have been published in the trade press, academic journals and Deloitte 'thought leadership' publications.

Your current understanding of diversity if very immature and harmful to the overall cause.


You have an option you might not have thought of - go work where you are the diversity.

If you apply somewhere that you are the only man or only white person on the team, you will generally not be asked about your commitment to diversity and politically correct thought. The people who want to fight or show off about that sort of thing are elsewhere.


What a great idea, I'll find a software or consulting firm, that pays well, that has openings and is based in my city with flexible work options THAT IS NON-MAJORITY WHITE.

You're telling me to work for a company based mostly (or at least partly) on the other races of people that work there.

I swear to god HN is mostly white Americans that have never left their own country.


You misunderstood me, possibly due to not reading carefully.

I didn't say find a company that is non-majority white, as in 51% non-white over the whole company. I said find a position in a department that is nearly all female, or nearly all non-white. It is entirely possible to find an IT job for a competitive salary in such a place.

And it seems a little ironic to swipe at people who have never left their country if you can't even leave your city. It's true that I have the perspective of an American, who has in the past answered an ad for a job 100 miles away, and after I got it, loaded a U-Haul and put my car on a trailer, and gone there.

What country are you in other than the US that is so oppressed by the forces of political correctness and diversity anyway? Or do you experience American companies as bringing that sort of mentality in an imperialistic way?


So I have to move my kids to a new school and tell my wife her career needs to move to a different town? We've already made 2 big moves in our married life one of which was international. Our kids are stable at school now so not sure why I need to force the family to do another move?

So you're saying I should be able to find a team where I am not the majority (religion, gender, or race etc) and I should apply to work there? How would I go about identifying that company and the composition of their teams?

I've spent over 17 years building my career around consulting to the Oil and Gas industries around operational excellence and software systems implementation. What if I can't find the type of team you are telling me about in that industry? I'm currently working for a strategy consulting firm and I lead the Oil and Gas practice, I'm not sure that I could easily move to another career track and make the same money. Why can't I just continue to work in my current field for the type of companies I have always worked for?

Your advice comes down to this:

1. try and find a team where I am the minority and work there 2. Move to another city if I need to in order to find that job

I have no idea why I should follow any of that advice? I can't even imagine how I would sell this to my wife or kids. There's just no upside for me or my family here. This has to be strangest advice I have ever read. I'm not 24 anymore, I'm in my forties and carry a serious amount of responsibility at home, at work and in my industry. Should I also sell our house at a loss or maybe rent it out and hope the tenants will look after our 1/2 acre properly?

What city should I move my family too? We're doing well in Perth and that's the epicentre of my industry. I think Brisbane has some mining companies so I could try there but there are a lot less jobs and higher house prices. Sydney and Melbourne don't really have many jobs in my industry, I could always move to another practice and take a pay cut but the property is even more expensive in those two cities. Maybe you can call my wife and explain why we need to do this?

Maybe I should move my family back to the UK, my kids don't remember it because they were only 1 and 3 at the time. Maybe my 14 year old daughter can drop all of her friends and just go to the UK though; that would probably require an industry change too.

Are you just trolling me?


>Your current understanding of diversity if very immature and harmful to the overall cause.

Oh that's rich, coming from someone who appears to have a very low effort, white majority view of race and diversity.


Many (maybe most) of us in the West thought that about China. And Russia for that matter. The fact that that's not coming to fruition has been one of the biggest mental shifts in my understanding of the world in the past few years.


I'm still optimistic and patient. But the democracy won't be in the exact form as the ones stemmed from Greek traditions.


Unfortunately, Xi's policies are highly NPD (narcissistic), so I don't have high hopes.


What a mess. It looks like a mix of government propagandists and anti-government activists.

The lead dev of Notepad++ does this political stuff a lot and should understand what the results will be. I guess that's what he's decided to do with his time.


If I was a lead dev of a widely used program there is definitely power in my position to be the voice of demographics I believe are being silenced.

Although I wonder if the logistics means that China cannot use Notepad++'s latest release? (Admittedly, I think the release just adds it in...)


Standing up for causes in which you believe is a good use of time.


Agreed. I never said it was bad. Just that he will have to clean up the mess.


I think you’re underestimating the dev if you think he didn’t know what could happen.


I think he would already know from experience. He's dealt with controversy before. https://notepad-plus-plus.org/news/apology-for-sexist-jokes/


He did the same after terrorist attacks in Paris.


I love the China shills suggesting that he make a yellow west release (a suggestion meant as an attack), misunderstanding that political controversy in the West is not a forbidden topic

and then as is turns out, almost a year ago, this

https://notepad-plus-plus.org/downloads/v7.6.2/

haha


The issues page is https://github.com/notepad-plus-plus/notepad-plus-plus/issue.... Spam started 16 hours ago with issue #6286. The issue count stands at #7480 at the moment. ~1200 issues in 16 hours!


It appears his site is being DDOSed, too; I'm getting the cloudflare, "Checking your browser". Can anyone else confirm?


Yes. I can't download the installer as well.



Why have so many threads discussing this issue been removed from this site today?




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