A Community-Culture Problem With Library Names

[kikito]

Ok my take on this:

Let me start by saying that I don't like the name-calling I'm seeing. Even if I (strongly) disagree with ejmr's arguments, I believe he had good intentions. Phrases like "he's too insecure about his sexuality" should not have entered this discussion. I ask you gentlemen to behave in a more civilised manner in future interventions.

I will continue by sharing my thoughts on the matter of "personal offense".

Almost everyone is offended by one thing or the other. And usually, these "offensive subjects" are shared among social environments. So it's very easy to assume that all humanity shares that sentiment.

The thing is, we already have a collection of "things that are offensive for everyone". They are called "Violations of the Human Rights". Then there's each country's constitution, the local laws, and each individual's moral compass. When it's not a violation of the human rights, something illegal or something immoral, demanding that others behave according to a "personal offense sentiment" is egoistical.. It's also rather self-entitled ("Others must change because I feel like this). But as I have said, it's also a very easy trap to fall onto.

The fact that you can't demand others to do what you want doesn't mean that you can't do anything. Here's some actions you can take to mitigate that personal feeling of offense that you are having:

• None of the innuendo-libs is critical for making a LÖVE game. If you are greatly bothered by a library name, consider simply not using it.
• There're non-innuendo alternatives for most of them. If one library name bothers you, then look for a non-innuendo alternative.
• If you don't find a non-innuendo alternative and you absolutely need that library, you can create a non-innuendo version very easily. Renaming AnAL.lua to something like anim.lua is trivial, and you can use it by doing `local anim = require 'anim'`. You can then upload that library to the libraries page. All of the innuendo libraries' licenses allow for this (you might have to leave a small remark somewhere indicating that your libs are a fork, but that would be it).

With all these alternatives, the rest of the arguments are moot: "I am not comfortable speaking about the libraries I used" can be answered by a) don't use them or b) use an alternative or c) fork them and rename them. It's your sentiment, so it's up to you to fix it. The same goes for the "I can't teach children" argument.

I will finish by saying that I don't like the innuendo names. I'm less likely to use an innuendo library than a regular one, and have authored a couple non-innuendo alternatives myself (Although it was personal curiosity, not the naming, what made me write them. The fact that innuendo libraries existed is just a coincidence).

But I understand these feelings I have are personal, and I shouldn't impose my views upon others.

And neither should anyone. That'd be offensive.

[Azhukar]

Phrases like "he's too insecure about his sexuality" should not have entered this discussion.

But that is exactly what this discussion is about. You can call him a prude or other similar meaning words, it doesn't change the source of the problem. Naming it directly addresses the matter at hand.

Shall we stop using anything related to human skeleton because China might be browsing this website?
Shall we stop using anything blood related because it might rustle Germany?
Shall we stop using anything related to sex because America?

If you don't go "all in" there is a word that too.

[szensk]

It's a waste of time to let such names bother you.

To authors: if you're going to make an innuendo name for a library do it right. Karai17's "STI" is fine. Normal people will see Simple Tiled Implementation as a perfectly cromulent acronym. Others will see it as "sexually transmitted infection". But if they're bothered by it, it is their own fault for bringing in context from the wrong domain.

[ejmr]

I think vrld, bartbes, rude, and kikito have made some great points. There seems to be a consensus, from people on both sides of the discussion, that renaming the libraries is the easiest way to go—or to simply use something else if that renaming is not possible for whatever reasons. Personally, I feel like that is a solution to the issue I was having with regard to my own project.

Telling us to stop having our fun, or to remove our libraries form the wiki, or to have the mods start removing posts about sexual themes is just, in a word, bullshit.

I have not told anyone to stop having fun or have mods remove posts; I don’t think anyone has. I have suggested the idea of removing the contentious libraries from the wiki. I am having to bite my tongue with you because I love the civility of this community, but a number of your posts in this thread make it clear to me that you have a serious Goddamned problem with reading comprehension. Every time I’ve responded to you, I have had to point out that I did not say something which you attribute to me. Actually read and then re-read what the Hell people write before you click the ‘Reply’ button. I don’t want to just out-right ignore your posts because in a number of other threads I’ve seen you contribute very helpful, useful advice to people, and as a result I learned things about LÖVE that I didn’t know before. But in this thread it’s as if you take whatever someone with a differing opinion says, demonize them mentally, and by the time you respond it comes across like you’re in some UFC cage match. And now it bleeds over into others whose reading comprehension is worse than yours, e.g. leading to public assumptions and me being sexually insecure. These are side-effects of your immature inability to not only choose your words carefully but to carefully read the words of others.

Fucking learn to read and write, man.

</Rant>

Thanks again everyone—including Karal17—for showing me that the majority of these libraries can be renamed. From my own experience I incorrectly assumed that had a slim chance of being a viable option. That it’s not is great for me. As for the argument about using sexually contentious names for libraries at all, I feel like both sides of that opinioned have been eloquently expressed, so I have nothing more to add to that.

[Robin]

So I came in a bit late here, but I'd like to add some words of wisdom:

First, like others, including kikito, have mentioned: stop with the name calling. It doesn't help you make your case, it detracts from it. I hope we can be that civilised, at least.

Second, bartbes is right in that these names are mostly artefacts from when the LÖVE community was much smaller, and much less known in the outside world. This was a time when we were searching for an identity as a community even more than we are now.

Third, library names are not user-facing. If you advertise what technology your game is built on to the outside world, you do not know your audience. Gamers don't care about class libraries, serialisation protocols or even game engines. They care about: can I run it? How much does it cost? How much will I enjoy it? That's it. You don't tell them you used FooLib, so why should you tell them you used COCK? No-one reads LICENSE files and that's the way it should be.

Fourth, this is a cultural problem, one that sees sexuality as something shameful. It penetrates our western culture, but no-where the Victorian fog seems to be so thick as in the Anglo-Saxon nations. Germanunkol is right: almost no-one bats an eye at glorification of violence in all its forms (I personally suspect that the military-industrial complex has a hand in that, because they stand to profit the most from desensitisation to violence), especially in those self-same Anglo-Saxon nations. Yet sexuality, an important part of our humanity, is demonized. "Think of the children" falls under this too: children will only be traumatised if we pretend sex doesn't exist until they find out the hard way.

Fifth, finally addressing the issue of professionalism: here, i'm not sure. I think our informal and irreverent community culture can be a limiting factor in wider, professional adoption, but I'm not sure it will. GitHub mentioned LÖVE in their blog a few years ago, and I don't think they would have if they were appalled by the library names (the first of which had just started to arrive). No-one in /r/hawkthorne seems to mind, and they are mostly American Community-watchers, rather than an internationally diverse group of youthful programmers.

Sixth, -- and this is off-topic, but I wanted to mention it anyway --- I think the real problem of our community (and I know most of you don't agree with me here) is how we deal with gender. This isn't a LÖVE exclusive, much of the geek world has issues with that, and the three subcultures I know that have the most visible and deep struggles are Tech Startups, Open Source and Gaming. LÖVE happens to combine the last two, so it stands to reason it would be worse here. Most of the time, though, it isn't very visible, mainly because we have managed to drive away every single female member of our community. I think I've known three. I don't think any of them has been here in years.

---

I will not urge or recommend anyone to change library names, but if they want to do so, either their own libraries or that of others, I see no reason to see that as a bad thing. If you want to: go ahead. I don't think it will change anything if you do, because, like bartbes said, the history is still here.

Finally: let us not change who we are to suit other people, especially because we can still grow so much (and I want LÖVE to grow) without changing our identity. There are plenty of non-puritan, non-suit-and-tie-wearing potential lovers in the world. Let's reach out to them, instead of to people who don't like us the way we are.

[ejmr]

Third, library names are not user-facing. If you advertise what technology your game is built on to the outside world, you do not know your audience. Gamers don't care about class libraries, serialisation protocols or even game engines. They care about: can I run it? How much does it cost? How much will I enjoy it? That's it. You don't tell them you used FooLib, so why should you tell them you used COCK? No-one reads LICENSE files and that's the way it should be.

For me they are user-facing because I adamantly believe that developers whose code I use to make my livelihood deserve more than a mention in an obscure license file; they deserve to be in the credits with everyone else.

[Azhukar]

For me they are user-facing because I adamantly believe that developers whose code I use to make my livelihood deserve more than a mention in an obscure license file; they deserve to be in the credits with everyone else.

You can always just put their names/monikers there, don't have to name the libraries.

[Plu]

For me they are user-facing because I adamantly believe that developers whose code I use to make my livelihood deserve more than a mention in an obscure license file; they deserve to be in the credits with everyone else.

A noble pursuit but the number of people who read the credits usually aren't much higher than the number of people who play the game. And also, people generally check the credits after playing so even if they do check, they already played the game.

[DaedalusYoung]

"Think of the children" falls under this too: children will only be traumatised if we pretend sex doesn't exist until they find out the hard way.

Sure, but that's not up to me. I can make tutorials that will likely be seen by children without mentioning any library with a potentially offending name (there's really no ambiguity in AnAL or COCK). I can choose to rename a library (to AnimAL for example, still has the exact same meaning, but it's clearly not offensive) and let them use that instead, but then when I tell them to go check out the LÖVE wiki, they will find it themselves.
I personally don't find this a problem, I'm sure the children will have a giggle about it, but in the end, it's their parents that choose whether or not they find that suitable material to show their kids. I don't want to harm my channel because some kid's parents hear their child talk about how great AnAL is and that they wouldn't have known about it if I hadn't told them.
So the only solution is that I don't talk about developing games with LÖVE at all.

I don't care about the names, I laughed when I first saw them, I thought about what other possible sexually named libs there could be, I'm sure hardly anybody here has a personal problem with it, but when you recommend LÖVE to others, you don't know whether or not they (or their parents/guardians) will have a problem with it and if they ever take you seriously after that again. Even if you rename the libraries, or tell them you do not endorse some of the community content, if they find it on the wiki, they will associate it with LÖVE and with you.

[ejmr]

A noble pursuit but the number of people who read the credits usually aren't much higher than the number of people who play the game. And also, people generally check the credits after playing so even if they do check, they already played the game.

A lot of film audiences in my experience do not stay to watch the credits of a movie, but that's an unacceptable excuse for not crediting (for example) an overseas animation studio who contributed. I see games the same way.