MikeeUSA’s code, now available on geekfeminism.org

Trigger warning: some linked pages contain hate speech and threats of violence against women.

While I completely support SourceForge’s decision to remove MikeeUSA‘s code for violation of their Terms of Service, I can’t help kinda feeling sorry for the guy, because apparently he didn’t have any other copies.

Let’s face it, he’s not a very experienced developer, and he can’t be expected to understand advanced topics like, oh, keeping backups, especially since he spends so much time on his activism, which no doubt distracts him from real coding.

Good thing us feminists are here to help him out. It just so happens that we had a copy of some of the code that was deleted, so we’ve forked it under the terms of the GPL, and made it available at:

http://code.geekfeminism.org/mikeeusa/

It’s a Mercurial repository, and you can either browse it over the web, or clone it using your favourite Mercurial client. I know distributed version control can be a bit daunting for newbie developers, but perhaps Mikee can find a friend to help him out with it.

But we didn’t just post his code as-is. We’ve improved it! As a Perl developer and veteran CPAN contributor, I was able to make a start at cleaning up the worst bits of his slots game, though I must admit that my work was slowed down by the urge to send almost every line of it to TheDailyWTF.

$htmlsave =~ s/./__________THISISAPERIOD__________/g;
$htmlsave =~ s/W//g;
$htmlsave =~ s/__________THISISAPERIOD__________/./g;

And we also improved his Crossfire maps, especially one set in Russia which we switched to Ponyland, where you help the Pony Liberation Army free Ponyland from the trolls. Everyone loves ponies, right?

We think you’ll especially enjoy the new textures we’ve added:

Ponies - a vast improvement!

They might not improve playability, but from what we’ve heard, there wasn’t much playability to start with.

As Free Software developers, we honour the Four Software Freedoms, and gladly recognise Mikee’s right to run these programs, study and learn from them, redistribute copies, and even modify them — provided, of course, that attribution is given to the geekfeminism.org developers.

ETA: Comments on this post are now closed — yes, early — as we seem to have reached the point of nothing new being added to the discussion.

104 thoughts on “MikeeUSA’s code, now available on geekfeminism.org”

Flewellyn,

I beleive I addressed that in my previous comment. The behaviour you refer to happened on blogs did it not? He was not sending messages through SF was he(not including the content of his code, as that is not what I am referring to)?

Skud,

If you read my original comment, I noted that everything was in agreement with the license, but that did not make it right. IMO.

Rick,

I do apologise if I did not understand the situation. I read a blog post “not in my neighbourhood” which, to me, implied that the blog author had some power at SF. The neighbourhood being SF.

As I said earlier, the fact that anys ervice can kick any user for any reason does not make it right. I’m sure there a heap of offensive projects on SF, but SF is happy for them to stay there, unless enough noise is raised.

That is what happened in this case.., and unless SF was used as a conduit for his behaviour, then the account should have been left alone.

Flewellyn on 2009/10/26 at 10:38 pm said:

It’s not for you to decide whether or not the account should have stayed or not. SF are well within their rights to forbid certain behaviors via their terms of service, which they did, and which he engaged in nonetheless.

His freedom of speech is not curtailed; he can go elsewhere, find other hosting, run his own server if he so chooses. There are all sorts of places on the internet where such bigoted and odious speech is not only tolerated, but encouraged. He could voice his opinions there.

I find it very curious that bigots and hatemongers, when they finally face consequences for their actions, so often find “devils-advocate” defenders in the average man* on the internet, while people of marginalized groups, such as women, who try to speak out and find themselves attacked and harrassed, even sent death threats, until they are forced to close down their blogs for their own safety and sanity find no such defenders. Where were the stalwart champions of free expression when Kathy Sierra was forced off the net by a mob of misogynist trolls posting threatening messages?

Where, indeed.

* Choice of gender deliberate.
- Josh on 2009/10/26 at 11:46 pm said:
  
  Flewellyn,
  
  I feel you are misrepresenting what I said, and the point I was trying to make. I never said or implied it was for me to decide if the account should stay or not. I simply stated that I thought the decision to remove the account was in bad taste, as his actions occurred on different services. If I insult you from a Gmail account, my Yahoo account should remain untouched, as an example.
  
  I also think you were exaggerating what my point is. Once again, I feel I have to explain that I am not ‘siding’ with the guy, who I agree was a bigot. However, I don’t believe the action taken was a correct one.
  
  Two wrongs do not make a right. I am not defending a bigot, but defending what I believe to be an import right, fairness and equitable treatment for all, and everyone accoutanble to the rule of law. In an ideal world.
  
  No doubt he was deserving of some punishment. In that case, notify his ISP, since you have his information. Notify the admins of the services he is abusing etc.
  
  There is/was no need to have his accounts on unrelated services shut down, simply because you don’t like the guy or approve of his content. However legal and permissible such actions are, they are still in bad taste. Of course, no where near as bad as what he did..
  
  I won’t be replying again, as I would rather this not turn into an argument. Thankyou for the conversation thus far.
  
  All the best,
  Josh

Josh on 2009/10/26 at 10:26 pm said:

Flewellyn,

I beleive I addressed that in my previous comment. The behaviour you refer to happened on blogs did it not? He was not sending messages through SF was he(not including the content of his code, as that is not what I am referring to)?

Skud,

If you read my original comment, I noted that everything was in agreement with the license, but that did not make it right. IMO.

Rick,

I do apologise if I did not understand the situation. I read a blog post “not in my neighbourhood” which, to me, implied that the blog author had some power at SF. The neighbourhood being SF.

As I said earlier, the fact that anys ervice can kick any user for any reason does not make it right. I’m sure there a heap of offensive projects on SF, but SF is happy for them to stay there, unless enough noise is raised.

That is what happened in this case.., and unless SF was used as a conduit for his behaviour, then the account should have been left alone.
- Flewellyn on 2009/10/26 at 10:38 pm said:
  
  It’s not for you to decide whether or not the account should have stayed or not. SF are well within their rights to forbid certain behaviors via their terms of service, which they did, and which he engaged in nonetheless.
  
  His freedom of speech is not curtailed; he can go elsewhere, find other hosting, run his own server if he so chooses. There are all sorts of places on the internet where such bigoted and odious speech is not only tolerated, but encouraged. He could voice his opinions there.
  
  I find it very curious that bigots and hatemongers, when they finally face consequences for their actions, so often find “devils-advocate” defenders in the average man* on the internet, while people of marginalized groups, such as women, who try to speak out and find themselves attacked and harrassed, even sent death threats, until they are forced to close down their blogs for their own safety and sanity find no such defenders. Where were the stalwart champions of free expression when Kathy Sierra was forced off the net by a mob of misogynist trolls posting threatening messages?
  
  Where, indeed.
  
  * Choice of gender deliberate.
  - Josh on 2009/10/26 at 11:46 pm said:
    
    Flewellyn,
    
    I feel you are misrepresenting what I said, and the point I was trying to make. I never said or implied it was for me to decide if the account should stay or not. I simply stated that I thought the decision to remove the account was in bad taste, as his actions occurred on different services. If I insult you from a Gmail account, my Yahoo account should remain untouched, as an example.
    
    I also think you were exaggerating what my point is. Once again, I feel I have to explain that I am not ‘siding’ with the guy, who I agree was a bigot. However, I don’t believe the action taken was a correct one.
    
    Two wrongs do not make a right. I am not defending a bigot, but defending what I believe to be an import right, fairness and equitable treatment for all, and everyone accoutanble to the rule of law. In an ideal world.
    
    No doubt he was deserving of some punishment. In that case, notify his ISP, since you have his information. Notify the admins of the services he is abusing etc.
    
    There is/was no need to have his accounts on unrelated services shut down, simply because you don’t like the guy or approve of his content. However legal and permissible such actions are, they are still in bad taste. Of course, no where near as bad as what he did..
    
    I won’t be replying again, as I would rather this not turn into an argument. Thankyou for the conversation thus far.
    
    All the best,
    Josh