On Wed, Aug 1, 2018 at 10:04 PM, Robert Kern <robert.k...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Wed, Aug 1, 2018 at 8:35 PM Ryan May <rma...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> When experts say that something is a bad idea, and when the people who
>>> a CoC is supposed to protect says it makes them feel unsafe, I feel
>>> like we should listen to that.
>>>
>>> I also thought that the points made in the Jupyter discussion thread
>>> made a lot of sense: of course it's possible for people to start
>>> harassing each other over any excuse, and a CoC can, should, and does
>>> make clear that that's not OK. But if you specifically *call out*
>>> political affiliation as a protected class, at a time when lots of the
>>> people who the CoC is trying to protect are facing governmental
>>> harassment justified as "mere political disagreement", then it really
>>> sends the wrong message.
>>>
>>> Besides, uh... isn't the whole definition of politics that it's topics
>>> where there is active debate? Not really sure why it's even in that
>>> list to start with.
>>>
>>
>> So I hear all the arguments about people feeling unsafe due to some truly
>> despicable, discriminatory behavior, and I want absolutely no parts of
>> protecting that. However, I also recognize that we in the U.S. are in a
>> particularly divisive atmosphere, and people of varied political
>> persuasions want absolutely nothing to do with those who share differing
>> views. So, as a concrete example, if someone were to show up at a NumPy
>> developer summit with a MAGA ("Make America Great Again") hat, or talks
>> about their support for the president in non-numpy channels, WITHOUT
>> expressing anything discriminatory or support for such views, if "political
>> beliefs" is not in the CoC, is this person welcome? I'm not worried about
>> my own views, but I have friends of widely varying views, and I truly
>> wonder if they would be welcome. With differing "political beliefs" listed
>> as something welcomed, I feel ok for them; if this language is removed, I'm
>> much less certain.
>>
>> IMO, "political beliefs" encompasses so much more things than a handful
>> of very specific, hateful views. People can disagree about a wide array of
>> "political beliefs" and it is important that we as a community welcome a
>> wide array of such views. If the CoC needs to protect against the wide
>> array of discriminatory views and behavior that make up U.S. politics right
>> now, how about specifically calling those behaviors out as not-welcome,
>> rather than completely ignoring the fact that 99% of "political beliefs"
>> are perfectly welcome within the community?
>>
>> The CoC is about spelling out the community norms--how about just
>> spelling out that we welcome everyone, but, in the words of Will Wheaton,
>> "Don't be a dick"?
>>
>
> I agree that it's worth clarifying in the text what this clause is
> intended to do. I think it has been misinterpreted as defining a legalistic
> set of protected classes along the lines of anti-discrimination laws and
> can be interpreted by itself outside of the context of the CoC as a whole.
> But it's not that. It's an aspirational statement, and a high one, at that,
> if we interpret it at its broadest. We will fail to meet it, in its
> entirety, and that's *okay* if the spirit of the CoC is being defended. I
> am perfectly happy to keep "political beliefs" explicit in the CoC and
> still boot the neo-feudalist for making the project's/conference's
> environment unwelcoming for a more vulnerable group of people, even if just
> by their presence. I *am* sensitive to how nominally well-intentioned
> "viewpoint diversity" efforts get hijacked by regressives looking to
> (re)assert their traditional power. But that problem is mostly confined to
> conferences who need to seek speakers and has less relevance to numpy,
> which largely doesn't run much except sprints. I think we can resolve that
> elsewhere, if not another document, then at least another clause. A CoC has
> to pull a kind of double duty: be friendly enough to digest for a newcomer
> and also be helpful to project organizers to make tough balancing
> decisions. We don't have to expect each sentence to pull that double duty
> on its own. I don't quite know what the phrasing would be (because, again,
> we don't run conferences), but I think we could make a statement that
> explicitly disclaims that we will be using "viewpoint diversity" to provide
> a platform for viewpoints antithetical to the CoC.
>
This sounds like a good idea. Should be possible to express that in a
couple of sentences, which will make the CoC better.
Cheers,
Ralf
>
> None of these categorizations listed should be interpreted as
> get-out-of-jail-free cards for otherwise unwelcoming behavior, and I think
> maybe we should be explicit about that. Our diversity statement is an
> aspiration, not a suicide pact. Religion, neurotype, national origin, and
> subculture (4chan is a subculture, God help us), at minimum, are all items
> on that list that I have personally seen used to justify shitty behavior.
> Political belief is far from unique (nor the most common excuse, in my
> experience) in that list. But they all deserve to be on that list. I want
> the somewhat fringy progressive hacktivist to feel comfortable here as well
> as people more mainstream.
>
> --
> Robert Kern
>
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