bug#54691: fortune-mod propagates various non-nice things

[Maxime Devos]

On 07-08-2022 01:01, b...@bokr.com wrote:


I hope the original is preserved somewhere for history's sake.
So where can I get a copy to see what all the fuss is about? :)


It's not merged yet IIUC, so you can just use the Guix package manager 
to install the original.


For the history thing: we have "guix time-machine" and the SWH fallback.

Greetings,
Maxime.



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bug#54691: fortune-mod propagates various non-nice things

[bokr]

Hi,

On +2022-08-04 21:58:16 +0200, Tobias Geerinckx-Rice via Bug reports for GNU 
Guix wrote:
> Hi Liliana,
> 
> Liliana Marie Prikler 写道：
> > I'm not saying either option is worse than the other
> 
> I see; thanks for the clarification.
> 
> Then I *will* say that transparently upgrading to a package that does
> nothing is worse than simple removal.
> 
> In fact, all of the proposed hacks are…
> 
> Kind regards,
> 
> T G-R

I hope the original is preserved somewhere for history's sake.
So where can I get a copy to see what all the fuss is about? :)
--
Regards,
Bengt Richter
It ain't what they call you, it's what you answer to.
 -- W. C. Fields
Start every day off with a smile and get it over with.
 -- W. C. Fields

bug#54691: fortune-mod propagates various non-nice things

[Tobias Geerinckx-Rice via Bug reports for GNU Guix]

Hi Liliana,

Liliana Marie Prikler 写道：

I'm not saying either option is worse than the other


I see; thanks for the clarification.

Then I *will* say that transparently upgrading to a package that 
does nothing is worse than simple removal.


In fact, all of the proposed hacks are…

Kind regards,

T G-R


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bug#54691: fortune-mod propagates various non-nice things

[Liliana Marie Prikler]

Am Donnerstag, dem 04.08.2022 um 15:37 + schrieb Tobias Geerinckx-
Rice:
> > To me use of ‘deprecated-package’ in this case is just to ensure
> > that users who run ‘guix upgrade’ will transparently get
> > ‘fortune-jkirchartz’.  I don’t have a strong opinion though.
> 
> I believe what Liliana meant is that it's worse to 'transparently'
> upgrade to a data package that doesn't provide the 'fortune' command
> at all (or conversely, an implementation of the command that doesn't
> propagate the actual fortune data), than it is to signal to users
> through an error message that something's up and they need to stop
> and think.
> 
> (Er, that's a lot more words to put in someone's mouth than I
> intended to, sorry :-)
I'm not saying either option is worse than the other, just that we
can't pick both in a manner that provides a functioning package, and
that transparently upgrading to a package that does nothing is a pretty
bad option.  We could transparently upgrade to daikichi, but that'd
just say "no fortunes found" because FORTUNE_PATH will be empty.  Other
options would include a metapackage (also rejected by Maxime) or
providing a dummy fortune-mod package that fails at build with a
helpful message and is disabled in CI (came up as a shower thought).

Cheers

bug#54691: fortune-mod propagates various non-nice things

[Tobias Geerinckx-Rice via Bug reports for GNU Guix]

>To me use of ‘deprecated-package’ in this case is just to ensure that
>users who run ‘guix upgrade’ will transparently get
>‘fortune-jkirchartz’.  I don’t have a strong opinion though.

I believe what Liliana meant is that it's worse to 'transparently' upgrade to a 
data package that doesn't provide the 'fortune' command at all (or conversely, 
an implementation of the command that doesn't propagate the actual fortune 
data), than it is to signal to users through an error message that something's 
up and they need to stop and think.

(Er, that's a lot more words to put in someone's mouth than I intended to, 
sorry :-)

I'd suggest a news item but I really don't think this warrants it.

Kind regards,

T G-R

Sent on the go.  Excuse or enjoy my brevity.

bug#54691: fortune-mod propagates various non-nice things

[Ludovic Courtès]

Hi,

Liliana Marie Prikler  skribis:

> Am Mittwoch, dem 03.08.2022 um 15:43 +0200 schrieb Ludovic Courtès:
>> [...]
>> > -(define-public fortune-mod
>> 
>> (Perhaps also make “fortune-mod” a deprecated name for
>> “fortune-jkirchartz”.)
> I'm getting mixed messages here.  On the one hand, Maxime suggests not
> propagating daikichi from fortune-jkirchartz (which makes it a plain
> data package lacking a `fortune' command), on the other we want to mark
> fortune-mod as deprecated.  These are mutually exclusive options.

To me use of ‘deprecated-package’ in this case is just to ensure that
users who run ‘guix upgrade’ will transparently get
‘fortune-jkirchartz’.  I don’t have a strong opinion though.

>> FWIW I’m fine with this change.  Note that there’s also another patch
>> that removes the ‘off’ database of ‘fortune-mod’¹, though I don’t
>> know whether that would fully address the issues raised in this
>> thread.  It will have to closed if/once this series is applied.
> IIRC, I responded to such a patch already, though perhaps not that
> thread in particular.  To summarize, fortune-mod also propagates non-
> nice things outside of ‘off’, so removing it is not enough.

Alright, let’s remove ‘fortune-mod’ then.

Thanks for taking care of it!

Ludo’.

bug#54691: fortune-mod propagates various non-nice things

[Liliana Marie Prikler]

Hi Ludo,

Am Mittwoch, dem 03.08.2022 um 15:43 +0200 schrieb Ludovic Courtès:
> [...]
> > -(define-public fortune-mod
> 
> (Perhaps also make “fortune-mod” a deprecated name for
> “fortune-jkirchartz”.)
I'm getting mixed messages here.  On the one hand, Maxime suggests not
propagating daikichi from fortune-jkirchartz (which makes it a plain
data package lacking a `fortune' command), on the other we want to mark
fortune-mod as deprecated.  These are mutually exclusive options.

> FWIW I’m fine with this change.  Note that there’s also another patch
> that removes the ‘off’ database of ‘fortune-mod’¹, though I don’t
> know whether that would fully address the issues raised in this
> thread.  It will have to closed if/once this series is applied.
IIRC, I responded to such a patch already, though perhaps not that
thread in particular.  To summarize, fortune-mod also propagates non-
nice things outside of ‘off’, so removing it is not enough.


Cheers

bug#54691: fortune-mod propagates various non-nice things

[Ludovic Courtès]

Hi,

Liliana Marie Prikler  skribis:

> Since the addition of fortune-jkirchartz, it is no longer necessary to
> keep around a package that propagates various non-nice things.
> For a complete list, see .
>
> * gnu/packages/games.scm (fortune-mod): Delete variable.

[...]

> -(define-public fortune-mod

(Perhaps also make “fortune-mod” a deprecated name for
“fortune-jkirchartz”.)

FWIW I’m fine with this change.  Note that there’s also another patch
that removes the ‘off’ database of ‘fortune-mod’¹, though I don’t know
whether that would fully address the issues raised in this thread.  It
will have to closed if/once this series is applied.

Thanks,
Ludo’.

¹ https://issues.guix.gnu.org/56599

bug#54691: fortune-mod propagates various non-nice things

[Maxime Devos]

On 20-07-2022 18:57, Liliana Marie Prikler wrote:


Would you be willing to do a complete evaluation of this database?  If
you find that it is indeed better than the one packaged by shlomifish,
replacing them would be easy.  First, add a snippet to the origin of
fortune-mod to delete the datfiles, second add a phase to install
JKirchartz'.


I looked diagonally through the files, and almost all of them seem fine. 
The rest seems to be more a manner of difference in opinion and context 
(e.g., see Bakunin on the State and on religion). The closest thing to 
something like 'stupid users' seems to be in ComputerDictionary, but it 
seems rather mild and doesn't hint at some kind of superiority. 
FerengiRulesOfAcquisition is ... nothing I would recommend, but mild and 
doesn't really target anyone and also, context.


There's also some 'my programming language is better than your 
language', but those aren't serious IIUC.


It's not an exhaustive check, but so far the JKirchartz fortunes seem to 
be well so far, so I'm not expecting large problems with the rest, maybe 
tiny ones at worst.


Greetings,
Maxime



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bug#54691: fortune-mod propagates various non-nice things

[Liliana Marie Prikler]

Am Mittwoch, dem 20.07.2022 um 10:45 +0200 schrieb Maxime Devos:
> [...]
> Moving to a friendly fork would be an option, but we need a fork for
> that, and I'm not finding a clear choice -- I only found those on 
> , but most of the time
> they are often rather specific (e.g.: 'The #kernelnewbies fortune
> file', not an unified collection with lots of quotes on lots of
> things, so no clear fork springs out.
I think there's two problems to tackle here.  First, fortune-mod does
not support an environment like FORTUNE_PATH and it'd be difficult to
patch it to do so (trust me, I've looked at the code and it's
horrible).  Second, we need quotes replacements – once FORTUNE_PATH is
implemented, we could even have separate packages, provided that all of
them pass our QA.

In order to solve the first problem, I'll clear my mind and come up
with an alternative set of fortune tools (ideally once to which we can
apply the GPL3 rather than the BSD4).

> There's maybe , which at
> first sight doesn't seem bad and seems to have lots of things, so if
> someone wants to preserve fortune, they can write a patch to switch
> to that fortunes database?
Would you be willing to do a complete evaluation of this database?  If
you find that it is indeed better than the one packaged by shlomifish,
replacing them would be easy.  First, add a snippet to the origin of
fortune-mod to delete the datfiles, second add a phase to install
JKirchartz'.

Cheers

bug#54691: fortune-mod propagates various non-nice things

[Maxime Devos]

On 20-07-2022 06:31, Liliana Marie Prikler wrote:


I do get where you're coming from.  However, I'd argue that the issue
with the current fortune-mod is that it doesn't really have a code of
conduct, or at best a poorly conceived one.  Even if we removed
obviously bad stuff like misogyny, religious intolerance and date rape,
there are other points of contention.  For example, the user one you
mentioned was not even listed in off, even though it might be
classified as offensive (a harmless offense, if you ask me, but
anyway).  All sorts of "punching up" jokes against incompetent
politicians would also be offensive to those politicians and their
followers even if propagating them towards greater society would be a
good thing.  There's probably more to add here.

Thus, my point is that we ought to consider a code of conduct while
we're choosing which themes fortune-mod is allowed to propagate and
which not (in particular our own might be a starting point).  If we
find that patching fortune-mod is too hard as raingloom implied, we
might instead use a more CoC-friendly fork.


Like I wrote in my previous reply, I never based my reasoning on why 
things are bad here on offense (and also not on the CoC itself but on 
the principles behind those things), though it seems you are arriving at 
about the same conclusion via a different method?


Moving to a friendly fork would be an option, but we need a fork for 
that, and I'm not finding a clear choice -- I only found those on 
, but most of the time they 
are often rather specific (e.g.: 'The #kernelnewbies fortune file', not 
an unified collection with lots of quotes on lots of things, so no clear 
fork springs out.


There's maybe , which at first 
sight doesn't seem bad and seems to have lots of things, so if someone 
wants to preserve fortune, they can write a patch to switch to that 
fortunes database?


Greetings,
Maxime.



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bug#54691: fortune-mod propagates various non-nice things

[Liliana Marie Prikler]

Am Dienstag, dem 19.07.2022 um 21:20 +0200 schrieb Maxime Devos:
> On 03-04-2022 19:26, Liliana Marie Prikler wrote:
> 
> > Am Sonntag, dem 03.04.2022 um 15:09 +0200 schrieb Maxime Devos:
> > 
> > > Hi guix,
> > > 
> > > fortune-mod currently propagates (in the non-technical sense)
> > > various non-nice things like objectification, misoginy, religious
> > > intolerance, anti-mathematician-ism (?) and date rape.  That is
> > > not an exhaustive list, these are just the first few things I
> > > encountered with "fortune off".
> > Well, the purpose of "fortune off" is to provide offensive "jokes".
> > As such, if you're offended by them, you're kinda getting what
> > you've asked for. If removing them falls under what our CoC states,
> > though, then so be it, I have no horse in this race.
> My point wasn't that some individual could accidentally install a
> package that offends them.  My point was that:
> > fortune-mod currently propagates (in the non-technical sense)
> > various non-nice things like objectification, misogeny, religious
> > intolerance, anti-mathematician-ism (?) and date rape. That is not
> > an exhaustive list, these are just the first few things I
> > encountered with "fortune off".
> More concretely, consider the target audience for such "jokes"
> instead of some random individual.
>  By including such jokes:
>  * we implicitly validate that such views are reasonable (people
> holding those views get validation, unknowing people are nudged into
> considering such views and people rejecting these views are
> invalidated)
>  * As such, we contribute to keeping those vile -isms intact and
> making them more common.
> I do not believe this to be a good course of action.
> Something can be said about the individuals too, w.r.t. internalised
> $BAD-isms, negative impact on mental health, possibly some other
> things too?). I don't believe inflicting those to be a good idea
> either.
I do get where you're coming from.  However, I'd argue that the issue
with the current fortune-mod is that it doesn't really have a code of
conduct, or at best a poorly conceived one.  Even if we removed
obviously bad stuff like misogyny, religious intolerance and date rape,
there are other points of contention.  For example, the user one you
mentioned was not even listed in off, even though it might be
classified as offensive (a harmless offense, if you ask me, but
anyway).  All sorts of "punching up" jokes against incompetent
politicians would also be offensive to those politicians and their
followers even if propagating them towards greater society would be a
good thing.  There's probably more to add here.

Thus, my point is that we ought to consider a code of conduct while
we're choosing which themes fortune-mod is allowed to propagate and
which not (in particular our own might be a starting point).  If we
find that patching fortune-mod is too hard as raingloom implied, we
might instead use a more CoC-friendly fork.

Cheers

bug#54691: fortune-mod propagates various non-nice things

[Maxime Devos]

On 14-07-2022 03:30, Maxim Cournoyer wrote:


The GNU FSDG has says nothing about what programs may or may not
contain, for a good reason: the line to draw could get very subjective
(similar to how the GPL ).

I don't think we should judge our software on terms falling outside of
the Free Software Distribution Guidelines, but a simple thing we could
add here would be a note in the description to caution the user that
running

@exampleGNU licellabourlabourabournse incompati
fortune off
@end example

is intended to be offensive.

What do you think?


I believe criteria like the FSDG to be important, but not the only 
important criteria -- free software does not live in a vacuum. In this 
case, I believe the absence of misogeny, etc., to be important and 
choosing to further those (*) to be straight-out unethical.


Also, it is already policy to take such things in account, e.g. it has 
been codified in CODE-OF-CONDUCT to some degree, though I want to be 
clear that even if it wasn't codified, it should be policy anyways.  So 
far, the principles behind things like CODE-OF-CONDUCT haven't been 
applied to the contents of package but I see no reason they shouldn't be.


(*) here I consider choosing to take no action to be a choice.

Also, I would like to note that nobody here seems to actually want the 
fortune-mod or disagrees that those "jokes" are vile and serve no useful 
purpose, so it's not like removing it would cause fragmentation, so that 
potential issue you seem to be referring to (or maybe I'm reading to 
much in your response?) does not seem to apply here.


Greetings,
Maxime.



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bug#54691: fortune-mod propagates various non-nice things

[Maxime Devos]

On 03-04-2022 19:26, Liliana Marie Prikler wrote:


Am Sonntag, dem 03.04.2022 um 15:09 +0200 schrieb Maxime Devos:

Hi guix,

fortune-mod currently propagates (in the non-technical sense) various
non-nice things like objectification, misoginy, religious
intolerance, anti-mathematician-ism (?) and date rape.  That is not
an exhaustive list, these are just the first few things I encountered
with "fortune off".

Well, the purpose of "fortune off" is to provide offensive "jokes".  As
such, if you're offended by them, you're kinda getting what you've
asked for.  If removing them falls under what our CoC states, though,
then so be it, I have no horse in this race.


My point wasn't that some individual could accidentally install a
package that offends them.  My point was that:


fortune-mod currently propagates (in the non-technical sense) various
non-nice things like objectification, misogeny, religious intolerance,
anti-mathematician-ism (?) and date rape.  That is not an exhaustive
list, these are just the first few things I encountered with "fortune
off".


More concretely, consider the target audience for such "jokes" instead 
of some random individual.

By including such jokes:

 * we implicitly validate that such views are reasonable (people
   holding those views get validation, unknowing people are nudged into
   considering such views and people rejecting these views are invalidated)
 * As such, we contribute to keeping those vile -isms intact and making
   them more common.

I do not believe this to be a good course of action.

Something can be said about the individuals too, w.r.t. internalised 
$BAD-isms, negative impact on mental health, possibly some other things 
too?). I don't believe inflicting those to be a good idea either.


Csepp 


[quoted stuff]
Honestly this is dumb, it's not even practically useful software. We
have no obligation to package something that jokes about date rape and
contributes nothing of practical value.
This is very different to the reasoning behind the lack of moral clauses
in the GPL. And again, just because something is free software, we don't have to
package it.
It's a ticking PR timebomb and nothing of value would be lost if we got
rid of that file. If some snowflake gets triggered because we removed
their favorite date rape joke, they self identified as someone whose
opinion we should ignore. :P
Exactly, though myself I prefer to reason in terms of "what is / what 
changes / consequences / ..." instead of "how are our actions perceived".


(/me catches up on other responses, haven't read them all yet)

Greetings,
Maxime.



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bug#54691: fortune-mod propagates various non-nice things

[Maxime Devos]

On 14-07-2022 16:55, Maxim Cournoyer wrote:

--8<---cut here---start->8---
Those who respect women, gays, and people of color may prefer
to either remove the .dat file (which keeps the strings, but makes them
inaccessible via the fortune program), or to delete these files altogether.
--8<---cut here---end--->8---

I now think we should act on it:-)

Would you like to prepare a patch stripping out the offensive database
file?


Unfortunately, these kind 'fortunes' are not limited to the 'off' 
section, so this is not sufficient -- they also appear outside. I also 
already provided a patch for removing some of the bad fortunes, but it 
was rejected upstream. Even then, that was for only one of the fortunes, 
most likely there are a lot more bad fortunes that aren't contained in 
the 'off' section. I am not interested in going through every fortune to 
filter out the bad ones, so I will not prepare a patch.


Greetings,
Maxime



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bug#54691: fortune-mod propagates various non-nice things

[Maxim Cournoyer]

Hi Csepp,

Csepp  writes:

> Maxim Cournoyer  writes:
>
>> Hi Maxime,
>>
>> Maxime Devos  writes:
>>
>>> Hi guix,
>>>
>>> fortune-mod currently propagates (in the non-technical sense) various
>>> non-nice things like objectification, misogeny, religious intolerance,
>>> anti-mathematician-ism (?) and date rape.  That is not an exhaustive
>>> list, these are just the first few things I encountered with "fortune
>>> off".
>>>
>>> To reproduce the issue, run "fortune off" a few times.  Or just
>>> "fortune", though then it can take a bit longer.
>>>
>>> There are also a few non-nice things in the non-off set.  E.g.:
>>>
>>> $ fortune
 User n.:
A programmer who will believe anything you tell him.
>>> # ^ from 'definitions'
>>>
>>> As such, just removing 'off' doesn't seem sufficient.  Unless Someone™
>>> volunteers to remove the anti-fortunes (*), I would just remove
>>> 'fortune-mod', given that it seems to serve no practical purpose byond
>>> being non-nice.  WDYT?
>>
>> 'off' here apparently means the 'offensive' database, as explained by
>> Liliana; seems it offends alright :-).
>>
>> The GNU FSDG has says nothing about what programs may or may not
>> contain, for a good reason: the line to draw could get very subjective
>> (similar to how the GPL ).
>>
>> I don't think we should judge our software on terms falling outside of
>> the Free Software Distribution Guidelines, but a simple thing we could
>> add here would be a note in the description to caution the user that
>> running
>>
>> @example
>> fortune off
>> @end example
>>
>> is intended to be offensive.
>>
>> What do you think?
>>
>> Thanks,
>>
>> Maxim
>
> Honestly this is dumb, it's not even practically useful software. We
> have no obligation to package something that jokes about date rape and
> contributes nothing of practical value.
> This is very different to the reasoning behind the lack of moral clauses
> in the GPL. And again, just because something is free software, we don't have 
> to
> package it.
> It's a ticking PR timebomb and nothing of value would be lost if we got
> rid of that file. If some snowflake gets triggered because we removed
> their favorite date rape joke, they self identified as someone whose
> opinion we should ignore. :P

Thanks for the criticism.  I admit I hadn't run 'fortune off' myself or
researched much on what it contains; after reading more about it,
especially considering these notes about the 'Offensive' database [0]:

--8<---cut here---start->8---
[...]
In another file in this directory (Notes), the original author(s) of the
fortune distribution state that "racist, mysogynist [sic] (sexist), or
homophobic ideas" should never be included in the fortune database.
[...]
--8<---cut here---end--->8---

--8<---cut here---start->8---
[...]
I admit that I was strongly tempted to simply remove these fortunes, an
action that I might have justified by pointing to the Notes of the
original authors.  However, it appears that over the course of time there
have been those who find these sorts of prejudice amusing, and in
America, at least, even Nazi rhetoric is a protected form of speech.  So
I include them, and leave the decision to individual system administrators.
[...]
--8<---cut here---end--->8---

But the most explicit recommendation is:

--8<---cut here---start->8---
Those who respect women, gays, and people of color may prefer
to either remove the .dat file (which keeps the strings, but makes them
inaccessible via the fortune program), or to delete these files altogether.
--8<---cut here---end--->8---

I now think we should act on it :-)

Would you like to prepare a patch stripping out the offensive database
file?

Thanks,

Maxim

[0]  https://github.com/shlomif/fortune-mod/blob/master/fortune-mod/Offensive

bug#54691: fortune-mod propagates various non-nice things

[Csepp]

Maxim Cournoyer  writes:

> Hi Maxime,
>
> Maxime Devos  writes:
>
>> Hi guix,
>>
>> fortune-mod currently propagates (in the non-technical sense) various
>> non-nice things like objectification, misogeny, religious intolerance,
>> anti-mathematician-ism (?) and date rape.  That is not an exhaustive
>> list, these are just the first few things I encountered with "fortune
>> off".
>>
>> To reproduce the issue, run "fortune off" a few times.  Or just
>> "fortune", though then it can take a bit longer.
>>
>> There are also a few non-nice things in the non-off set.  E.g.:
>>
>> $ fortune
>>> User n.:
>>> A programmer who will believe anything you tell him.
>> # ^ from 'definitions'
>>
>> As such, just removing 'off' doesn't seem sufficient.  Unless Someone™
>> volunteers to remove the anti-fortunes (*), I would just remove
>> 'fortune-mod', given that it seems to serve no practical purpose byond
>> being non-nice.  WDYT?
>
> 'off' here apparently means the 'offensive' database, as explained by
> Liliana; seems it offends alright :-).
>
> The GNU FSDG has says nothing about what programs may or may not
> contain, for a good reason: the line to draw could get very subjective
> (similar to how the GPL ).
>
> I don't think we should judge our software on terms falling outside of
> the Free Software Distribution Guidelines, but a simple thing we could
> add here would be a note in the description to caution the user that
> running
>
> @example
> fortune off
> @end example
>
> is intended to be offensive.
>
> What do you think?
>
> Thanks,
>
> Maxim

Honestly this is dumb, it's not even practically useful software. We
have no obligation to package something that jokes about date rape and
contributes nothing of practical value.
This is very different to the reasoning behind the lack of moral clauses
in the GPL. And again, just because something is free software, we don't have to
package it.
It's a ticking PR timebomb and nothing of value would be lost if we got
rid of that file. If some snowflake gets triggered because we removed
their favorite date rape joke, they self identified as someone whose
opinion we should ignore. :P

bug#54691: fortune-mod propagates various non-nice things

[Maxim Cournoyer]

Hi Maxime,

Maxime Devos  writes:

> Hi guix,
>
> fortune-mod currently propagates (in the non-technical sense) various
> non-nice things like objectification, misogeny, religious intolerance,
> anti-mathematician-ism (?) and date rape.  That is not an exhaustive
> list, these are just the first few things I encountered with "fortune
> off".
>
> To reproduce the issue, run "fortune off" a few times.  Or just
> "fortune", though then it can take a bit longer.
>
> There are also a few non-nice things in the non-off set.  E.g.:
>
> $ fortune
>> User n.:
>>  A programmer who will believe anything you tell him.
> # ^ from 'definitions'
>
> As such, just removing 'off' doesn't seem sufficient.  Unless Someone™
> volunteers to remove the anti-fortunes (*), I would just remove
> 'fortune-mod', given that it seems to serve no practical purpose byond
> being non-nice.  WDYT?

'off' here apparently means the 'offensive' database, as explained by
Liliana; seems it offends alright :-).

The GNU FSDG has says nothing about what programs may or may not
contain, for a good reason: the line to draw could get very subjective
(similar to how the GPL ).

I don't think we should judge our software on terms falling outside of
the Free Software Distribution Guidelines, but a simple thing we could
add here would be a note in the description to caution the user that
running

@example
fortune off
@end example

is intended to be offensive.

What do you think?

Thanks,

Maxim

bug#54691: fortune-mod propagates various non-nice things

[Maxime Devos]

Liliana Marie Prikler schreef op zo 03-04-2022 om 19:26 [+0200]:
> I think this should be reported upstream.  From what I could gather in
> a short time, upstream appears both active (last commit 18 days ago)
> and willing to make adjustments for "political correctness" (some two
> years ago, they removed a lot of blonde jokes, though some simply got
> demoted to still sexist jokes about women instead, and off is still
> fair game for those, so...), so I think talking will get us further
> than one-sided deletion here.

Looks like upstream disagrees:
.

Greetings,
Maxime.


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bug#54691: fortune-mod propagates various non-nice things

[Maxime Devos]

Liliana Marie Prikler schreef op zo 03-04-2022 om 19:26 [+0200]:
> More importantly...
> > There are also a few non-nice things in the non-off set.
> I think this should be reported upstream. [...]

Done: 

Greetings,
Maxime.


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bug#54691: fortune-mod propagates various non-nice things

[Maxime Devos]

Maxime Devos schreef op zo 03-04-2022 om 15:09 [+0200]:
> To reproduce the issue, run "fortune off" a few times.  Or just
> "fortune", though then it can take a bit longer.

Correction: looks like just running "fortune" without "off" doesn't
include the things from 'off'.

Greetings,
Maxime.


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bug#54691: fortune-mod propagates various non-nice things

[Maxime Devos]

Liliana Marie Prikler schreef op zo 03-04-2022 om 19:26 [+0200]:
> I don't think practical purpose is a bar we can set.  What should we do
> with all of the Rust ecosystem otherwise?

Replace cargo with something else, then it can become more practical.
See, e.g., the ‘Compiling rust things without cargo (super WIP POC)’
thread on guix-de...@gnu.org.  Once it is complete, rust would have a
build system that works well within Guix, so then we could benefit from
Rust's safety features (and macros, generic types, etc.) without the
downsides of cargo-build-system.  Doesn't change the Rust bootstrap
length though ...

Greetings,
Maaxime.


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bug#54691: fortune-mod propagates various non-nice things

[Liliana Marie Prikler]

Hi Maxime,

Am Sonntag, dem 03.04.2022 um 15:09 +0200 schrieb Maxime Devos:
> Hi guix,
> 
> fortune-mod currently propagates (in the non-technical sense) various
> non-nice things like objectification, misoginy, religious
> intolerance, anti-mathematician-ism (?) and date rape.  That is not
> an exhaustive list, these are just the first few things I encountered
> with "fortune off".
Well, the purpose of "fortune off" is to provide offensive "jokes".  As
such, if you're offended by them, you're kinda getting what you've
asked for.  If removing them falls under what our CoC states, though,
then so be it, I have no horse in this race.

More importantly...
> There are also a few non-nice things in the non-off set.
I think this should be reported upstream.  From what I could gather in
a short time, upstream appears both active (last commit 18 days ago)
and willing to make adjustments for "political correctness" (some two
years ago, they removed a lot of blonde jokes, though some simply got
demoted to still sexist jokes about women instead, and off is still
fair game for those, so...), so I think talking will get us further
than one-sided deletion here.

> As such, just removing 'off' doesn't seem sufficient.  Unless
> someone™ volunteers to remove the anti-fortunes (*), I would just
> remove 'fortune-mod', given that it seems to serve no practical
> purpose beyond being non-nice.  WDYT?
I don't think practical purpose is a bar we can set.  What should we do
with all of the Rust ecosystem otherwise?
(For Rust fans, who were offended by the above, consider collecting
this and other quotes from yours truly in a new offensive/rust file and
we can both be happy.)

As for being non-nice on purpose, I disagree.  It's rather a shame if
the supposedly inoffensive set is still offensive.  And if lack of
humor is a concern, "A nuclear war can ruin your whole day." from
politics sounds just about fine to me :)

Cheers

bug#54691: fortune-mod propagates various non-nice things

[Maxime Devos]

Hi guix,

fortune-mod currently propagates (in the non-technical sense) various
non-nice things like objectification, misogeny, religious intolerance,
anti-mathematician-ism (?) and date rape.  That is not an exhaustive
list, these are just the first few things I encountered with "fortune
off".

To reproduce the issue, run "fortune off" a few times.  Or just
"fortune", though then it can take a bit longer.

There are also a few non-nice things in the non-off set.  E.g.:

$ fortune
> User n.:
>   A programmer who will believe anything you tell him.
# ^ from 'definitions'

As such, just removing 'off' doesn't seem sufficient.  Unless Someone™
volunteers to remove the anti-fortunes (*), I would just remove
'fortune-mod', given that it seems to serve no practical purpose byond
being non-nice.  WDYT?

(*) Fortunes don't have to be positive, but that doesn't mean they need
to be sexist (genderist?) or insulting either (e.g.:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fortune_cookie#/media/File:Negative_fortune_cookie.jpg).
Hence, anti-fortunes instead of fortunes.

Greeting,
Maxime


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