DEV Community

Discussion on: Sexism, Racism, Toxic Positivity, and TailwindCSS

Collapse
 
jacobherrington profile image
Jacob Herrington (he/him)

I really appreciate your opinion on this (big fan of your work and your DIY feed).

Your points are valid and worth hearing. Especially around the network effects of people with large followings.

I'm not sure my view is quite toxic positivity, but I still don't think the initial article added anything valuable to the discourse around Tailwind. I think we agree on this, but I also agree that the response from Adam's followers was shitty and he has a responsibility NOT to use that audience in the same way he accused Sara of using her's.

Do you think there is any onus on DEV around this? I'd like to know how we can improve, being the platform that started a pretty hurtful whirlwind of opinions. I am not a big decision-maker on the team, but I want to be able to contribute to the discussions we have around content on our site.

Collapse
 
cher profile image
Cher

I believe that some of the argument that this is toxic positivity requires a previous framing of how TailwindCSS has been marketed using the same type of language the article uses to describe BEM and other "CSS best practice" paradigms. It's tough for me to separate the article's tone from the tone it's meant to be contrasting, but I do agree that there are many things about the article that make it... not a compelling or good piece of writing.

As for DEV, I think it's difficult. I think there's something to be said about being able to turn off comments when discussion is impossible to keep healthy, but I'm not sure.

But at the end of the day, I still feel like I can contribute, and folks who want to leave because they "don't want to be censored" shouldn't influence whether or not there's moderation. Self-moderated platforms are the healthiest platforms, and it's not because they are echo-chambers.

Thank you for the work you all do on this platform. I appreciate it a ton.

Some comments have been hidden by the post's author - find out more