Re: Re: Just a single Question for the Candidates
On Sat, Mar 06, 2004 at 01:34:39PM +, Helen Faulkner wrote: > >and just as you don't cure quadraplegia by breaking the arms and legs of > >healthy people, you don't cure meekness by making healthy people fearful & > >timid. > > Nice analogy. It is indeed not the fault of able-bodied people that some > people have quadraplegia. If, however, a group finds that they have a > disproportionately low representation of quadraplegics involved, it's > possible that enquiry will reveal a barrier to involvement that effects > people with quadreplegia more than able-bodied people. Maybe there are > stairs at the entry to the building. Are you really suggesting that the > able-bodied community should not at least attempt to lower that access > barrier by providing a wheelchair-ramp? I guess it depends on what kind of > community you wish it to be, and how much you value the participation of > those who are effectively denied entry by a barrier that is insignificant to > you personally. no, i'm not suggesting that at all. it is perfectly appropriate to have ramps and wheelchair access and welcoming committees and whatever else is needed to accomodate people with different needs(*). what i am *stating* (not suggesting) is that it is wrong to expect the able-bodied to act as if they are crippled merely to make the disabled fit in. ditto for meek vs non-meek people. it is wrong to expect or demand that non-meek people behave timidly and fearfully just to cater to the needs of the meek. (*) as long as they still fit the charter of the group - e.g. it would be absurd to care that people with no interest or skill in hacking or other technical fields are effectively excluded from participation in debian. > Just because some people have difficulty understanding that there are > barriers that make participation in things like the debian community more > difficult (on average) for women than men, doesn't mean the barriers don't > exist. Social and cultural barriers are more difficult to see than physical > barriers - that much is clear from some of the comments on this thread alone. > They are also more difficult to lower. It comes down to what the community > as a whole wants to do. i have no difficulty in perceiving the barriers. i just happen to think that the causes behind the barriers are nowhere near as clear-cut and one-sided as you appear to think they are. > For the record, I'm not a particularly meek person :) But whether I am or > not is beside the point. The point is that barriers exist to participation > in debian by women, and that as a result *on average* a women is less likely > to participate in debian than a man with the same level of skill. If the > debian community wish to have greater partipation from women, maybe they need > to work out how to reduce the overt barriers (eg sexist comments, harassment > etc), and provide "ramps" to lower the effect of the more subtle barriers (eg > lack of confidence). certainly there should be no tolerance for harassment or sexist comments. or racist comments. or homophobic comments. or any other kind of hate speech or group discrimination. i'm not so sure about any requirement to prop up people's confidence, though - i kind of feel that that is outside of the scope of debian, that people should have their shit together to at least a minimal degree before participating. we shouldn't be dragging each other down, but there should be no compulsion to prop each other up, either. debian isn't an emotional support group, and shouldn't try to be one. that would just divert energy from what we are about, which is the development of an operating system. and that's perfectly OK - not everything has to be an emotional support group. there is room in this world for groups that don't expend large amounts of energy on emotional issues, that focus on other things (like OS development). > How much harm can it do to make the effort?? that depends on exactly what is involved in making the effort. some actions are worthwhile, some are counter-productive. sometimes, if you try to change something too much you just end up killing whatever it was that made it worthwhile. to make a more general (albeit extreme) point: we should be very wary of creating a mono-culture of kindergarten safety, where there is no chance of offence or insult or injury. that way lies cultural stagnation and bland boredom. there are also functional, healthy adults in this world, not just children and emotional cripples, and their needs should be catered for too. craig
Re: Just a single Question for the Candidates
Craig Sanders <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > yes, bullying happens too. but meekness happens whether there is any actual > bullying or not. Meekness isn't harmful, nor does it ever justify your bullying. Thomas
Re: Just a single Question for the Candidates
On Sat, Mar 06, 2004 at 01:41:32AM -0500, Raul Miller wrote: > On Sat, Mar 06, 2004 at 09:27:30AM +1100, Craig Sanders wrote: > > meekness isn't about bullying. > > > > it's (partially) about perceiving bullying whether it's really there or not. > > it is a disability which varies in severity from being mildly shy to being > > socially crippled..it is not the fault, or responsibility, of non-meek > > people, any more than fully-abled people are at fault for the disabled. > > Except, for example, when the perceived bullying is really there, that's > obviously the fault of those doing the bullying. yes, bullying happens too. but meekness happens whether there is any actual bullying or not. craig
Re: Report from the Debian Java developers meeting at FOSDEM
This is slightly OT for -project. MFT: set to -legal On Sat, 06 Mar 2004, Etienne Gagnon wrote: > So, as Kaffe is licensed under the GPL, the combination of Kaffe + > Classpath must be licensed under the terms of the GPL (as per Kaffe's > license). No exception for linking (a la Classpath) may be allowed. Not quite. Kaffe + Classpath must be _redistributable_ in accordance with the terms of the GPL. It does not need to be licensed under the terms of the GPL. As Kaffe and Classpath are both themselves licensed under the GPL, I fail to see why this particular point is even being discussed. (Unless we're discussing the linking exception of Classpath, which in itself may actually be a no-op, at least as far as non-static linking is concerned.) Don Armstrong -- CNN/Reuters: News reports have filtered out early this morning that US forces have swooped on an Iraqi Primary School and detained 6th Grade teacher Mohammed Al-Hazar. Sources indicate that, when arrested, Al-Hazar was in possession of a ruler, a protractor, a set square and a calculator. US President George W Bush argued that this was clear and overwhelming evidence that Iraq indeed possessed weapons of maths instruction. http://www.donarmstrong.com http://rzlab.ucr.edu
Re: Just a single Question for the Candidates
On Sat, 6 Mar 2004 13:07:39 +0100 Josip Rodin <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > On Sat, Mar 06, 2004 at 09:05:27AM +, Peter Samuelson wrote: > > Is this just a game to you? > > I wondered how many messages it would take for someone to notice. I've always wondered why so many threads in Debian ended up being flamewars about correct debating etiquette, style, and reason :) -- Aruing with an engineer is like wrestling with a pig in mud. After a while, you realise the pig is enjoying it.
Re: Report from the Debian Java developers meeting at FOSDEM
On Wed, Mar 03, 2004 at 07:57:56PM +0100, Dalibor Topic wrote: > Debian-legal didn't follow the interpretation of GPL of Etienne, another > SableVM developer, the last time around, when he was asserting Kaffe > being GPLd makes Java applications undistributable. Instead, > debain-legal supported my interpretation of GPL. I do not remember debian-legal saying: "we agree with Dalibor Topic's interpretation". Or, maybe my memory is failing me? Precisely, they supported an interpretaation of derivative work or not being defined as whether app A would work with B only or with a variety of Bs from different vendors. Now, this aplied to Kaffe + Classpath: Does kaffe run with any (or many) class libraries? No. So, if Kaffe & Classpath are made to run together, do they form (as a combination) a derivative of Kaffe? Yes. Now, you will probably argue the Kaffe "runs" Classpath, but I disagree. If you type: kaffe invalidAppName You will probably get a stack trace from Classpath. So, Classpath is in fact integrated into Kaffe, to allow it to run applications. Alternatively, you can ask yourself the question: Can Kaffe do its job of executing Java programs in absence of Classpath (or its own GPLed libraries)? The answer is obviously "no". So, Kaffe is not merely executing the bytecodes of Classpath (and I'm not even talking about native code...) So, as Kaffe is licensed under the GPL, the combination of Kaffe + Classpath must be licensed under the terms of the GPL (as per Kaffe's license). No exception for linking (a la Classpath) may be allowed. > I don't see why they > would change their minds this time around, since GNU Classpath is more > liberally licensed than Kaffe's old class library. This is false. I have not changed my view. I said publicly on debian-legal that I accepted the App A/B dependency interpretation. Now, when a debian source package only works with kaffe, and this package is GPL incompatible, the independence of the app from kaffe is far from obvious, specially if you are a user running on a platform where no JDK is available from Sun. Single build-dependency or dependency of a debian package on Kaffe is what I am discussing. > Sure it did. Transvirtual and the Kaffe core developer team publicly > stated in their FAQ on the old kaffe.org website that they consider > running commercial applications on kaffe to be ok. As far as I remeber, this FAQ was pretty explicit about the fact that it had NO legal value whatsoever. If they issue a non-legally binding "opinion", underlying that it has no legal value, you should NOT propose to take such an opinion into account to interpret the legal implications of the licensing terms of Kaffe. I would pretty much like to see a clear, legally binding, statement from all Kaffe's copyright holders to the effect that they agree to your interpretation of the GPL. If you produce such a document, Debian will be able to safely go along your interpretation. Otherwise, Debian should stick to its definition of derivative works. Do not forget that Copyright infrigement is a criminal offence in many countries, including Canada, not a civil matter. In other words, you can be prosecuted even if the copyright holder has not initiated any action against you. Please, do not take my arguments as personal attacks. I am simply stating the facts as I perceive them. Regards, Etienne -- Etienne M. Gagnon, Ph.D. http://www.info.uqam.ca/~egagnon/ SableVM: http://www.sablevm.org/ SableCC: http://www.sablecc.org/
Re: Re: Just a single Question for the Candidates
From: Craig Sanders meekness isn't about bullying. it's (partially) about perceiving bullying whether it's really there or not. it is a disability which varies in severity from being mildly shy to being socially crippled..it is not the fault, or responsibility, of non-meek people, any more than fully-abled people are at fault for the disabled. and just as you don't cure quadraplegia by breaking the arms and legs of healthy people, you don't cure meekness by making healthy people fearful & timid. Nice analogy. It is indeed not the fault of able-bodied people that some people have quadraplegia. If, however, a group finds that they have a disproportionately low representation of quadraplegics involved, it's possible that enquiry will reveal a barrier to involvement that effects people with quadreplegia more than able-bodied people. Maybe there are stairs at the entry to the building. Are you really suggesting that the able-bodied community should not at least attempt to lower that access barrier by providing a wheelchair-ramp? I guess it depends on what kind of community you wish it to be, and how much you value the participation of those who are effectively denied entry by a barrier that is insignificant to you personally. Just because some people have difficulty understanding that there are barriers that make participation in things like the debian community more difficult (on average) for women than men, doesn't mean the barriers don't exist. Social and cultural barriers are more difficult to see than physical barriers - that much is clear from some of the comments on this thread alone. They are also more difficult to lower. It comes down to what the community as a whole wants to do. For the record, I'm not a particularly meek person :) But whether I am or not is beside the point. The point is that barriers exist to participation in debian by women, and that as a result *on average* a women is less likely to participate in debian than a man with the same level of skill. If the debian community wish to have greater partipation from women, maybe they need to work out how to reduce the overt barriers (eg sexist comments, harassment etc), and provide "ramps" to lower the effect of the more subtle barriers (eg lack of confidence). For the record, I make no particular assumptions about the way any specific debian person will behave towards me. However if I was inclined to do so, some of the postings on this thread would make me assume, more strongly than I would have before, that debian guys are likely to be either condescending or sexist. I have learned something through this experience! Isn't it lucky that I don't really go for making such assumptions ;) For the record all my more general statements apply to my understanding of the position of the *average* woman. There are of course people who don't fit that average. (Actually I'm one of them, but that doesn't mean I don't experience enough of the same feelings to understand the problems people have to deal with.) For the record, I am not trying to blame the debian community for the existence of barriers to women in this context. That would be like blaming able-bodied people because some people have disabilities, and anyway the causes of the problem go much wider than the debian community. However I do believe that if that community wishes to encourage greater particpation by women, making an effort to lower the subtle barriers would help. It's clear, from many of the posts to this thread, that lots of you are certainly willing to try that. How much harm can it do to make the effort?? Helen-the-unmeek :)
Re: Just a single Question for the Candidates
* Manoj Srivastava <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> [2004-03-04 01:36]: > OK. Last I heard, irc.debian.org #debian is a project > resource. Here is an example of how women are treated in Debian; and > helix tells me that this is how they are treated all the time [...] > However, #debian on irc.debian.org has become a very > unfriendly place, and not just for women. I've asked the #debian channel operators to comment on this and to explain how they'll handle situations like these in the future, and David B Harris kindly wrote the response below. From: David B Harris <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> As background for this mail, I'd like to state just a few things for the record. Though I'm currently the #debian "Contact" (the person titularly responsible for an IRC channel), I am not the most active of the #debian channel operators. While this mail has my name on it, it was provided to other senior channel operators for review and editing before it was sent. The contents of this mail are primarily a written record of a set of conversation which occured in #debian-devel, and basically document the policies #debian channel operators have held themselves to for as long as I can remember. It was prepared at the request of the Debian Project Leader. On Thu, 04 Mar 2004 01:36:39 -0600 Manoj Srivastava <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > I should say, though, that the ops did handle the situation, > and promised to take action if they notice such behaviour in the > future. The policy is that anyone deliberately offensive to anyone > else , or persistent about non-delibrate offensiveness, will be > removed from the channel. Indeed. The policy of #debian channel operators is and always has been that anybody being deliberately offensive to another (or, within reason, somebody *not* being deliberately offensive, but being persistent about it), will be banned. In this context, "banned" means unable to contribute to further conversation in the channel. Such measures are, however, typically a last resort - we live in a large world, and something said in an innocent manner might be found amazingly offensive by another. As such, #debian channel operators attempt to encourage good communication between all parties, so that further incidents might be avoided. Only when this is unsuccessful, for whatever reason, are technical measures put in place. They are not meant as punishment, nor are they intended to satisfy the desire any one individual. Rather, they're put in place in order to preserve the usefulness of the channel to others. Those technical measures are rarely permanent, however - oftentimes, people simply need to "cool off". Only repeated offenses will result in a permanent ban, in most cases. > However, #debian on irc.debian.org has become a very > unfriendly place, and not just for women. I agree that the usefulness of the channel to others has been declining recently. There are currently 12 active channel operators, and it's a very rare occasion that there are *no* channel operators watching the channel at any one time. However, the users of #debian are wide and varied, and often have differing opinions. While one may wish to jump up and ban any who are being particularly forceful in the expression of their opinion, we shouldn't fail to recognise the possibly beneficial end-results of any given debate. One of the things which we attempt to do is to encourage communication, both amongst users and between users and channel operators. The #debian channel operators are generally quite skilled at lowering the temperature of a given conversation, and have enough experience to determine to a reasonable degree the intent of the various participants. Misunderstandings abound, and often it takes a bit of experience to sort through the mess. What's more, it is often the case that a channel operator simply stepping in and "taking care" of the problem is counter-productive; many people react negatively to such shows of force. As such, channel operators walk a fine line between acting as mediator, enforcer, policy-maker, and passive bystander. By far the best course of action for anybody who feels that they have been offended (whether deliberately or not) is to simply tell those who offended them what they were offended *by*. If the results thereafter aren't satisfactory to any one individual, contacting one of the channel operators is the appropriate course of action. The list of channel operators is available via "/msg chanserv access #debian list", but most #debian regulars are already familiar with the most active from that list. -- David B Harris <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> -- Martin Michlmayr [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Just a single Question for the Candidates
On Sat, Mar 06, 2004 at 11:55:57AM +, Andrew Suffield wrote: > On Sat, Mar 06, 2004 at 11:22:06AM +, Peter Samuelson wrote: > > Not that a baby-eating example isn't a bit loaded ... but ok, I'll run > > with it: > > > > "Many orange-haired people have been observed to eat babies. ... ... > I think you just made my point better than I did. I don't want to live > in that society. I don't either. -- Raul
Re: Just a single Question for the Candidates
On Fri, Mar 05, 2004 at 09:39:50PM -0500, David Nusinow wrote: > > I can demonstrate evidence that I'm not a gerbil quite handily. On Sat, Mar 06, 2004 at 08:08:49AM +, Andrew Suffield wrote: > No you can't, because you're a gerbil and gerbils can't form rational > arguments. If it's true that gerbils can't form rational arguments (not much doubt that they can't express rational arguments, but that's not your claim), then the mere ability to form rational arguments (or, even better express those arguments) qualifies as demonstrating evidence. > It is logically impossible for you to disprove this, > because your burden-of-proof notion is backwards (in formal logic, > you've allowed a falsehood to be introduced, so it is impossible to > draw any conclusions within the current situation). You're confusing science with math. Science uses math as a tool of thought, but they are very different. It's not very hard to find descriptions of science, if you care to study up on what it is. Here's something google pulled up, ferinstance: http://www.srikant.org/core/node2.html [Though, practically speaking, I don't know of any way to falsify string theory.] That said, this thread no longer has anything to do with asking candidates any question. [Note the subject line.] -- Raul
Re: Just a single Question for the Candidates
On Sat, Mar 06, 2004 at 08:18:57AM +, Andrew Suffield wrote:
> I certainly won't tolerate it. It's fundamentally incompatible with
> getting any useful work done. Down that road leads political
> correctness (not just the word-substitution form), where you cannot
> say something that is true and technically significant because it
> might upset somebody.
"Debian includes non-free software"
Cheers,
aj
("...in its non-free component")
--
Anthony Towns <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Re: Just a single Question for the Candidates
On Sat, Mar 06, 2004 at 09:05:27AM +, Peter Samuelson wrote: > Is this just a game to you? I wondered how many messages it would take for someone to notice. -- 2. That which causes joy or happiness.
Re: Just a single Question for the Candidates
On Sat, Mar 06, 2004 at 11:22:06AM +, Peter Samuelson wrote: > > [Andrew Suffield] > > "We can't be sure whether this orange-haired person likes to eat > > babies or not. He probably does, lock him up". > > Not that a baby-eating example isn't a bit loaded ... but ok, I'll run > with it: > > "Many orange-haired people have been observed to eat babies. Here we > have an orange-haired person, and babies keep disappearing. While > there is still some argument on the point of whether or not it is > acceptible to keep losing our babies, most of us agree that this is a > Bad Thing. Maybe it is time to take steps to keep the babies away from > the orange-haired person, you know, see if that makes a difference." I think you just made my point better than I did. I don't want to live in that society. It was s/gamers/orange hair/ and s/violent/like to eat babies/, btw. > > > Is this just a game to you? Did you think there were judges on the > > > sidelines keeping notes about who was using the wrong standard of > > > proof, or making unwarranted assumptions? It's not a game to the ones > > > who started this thread. > > > > "It's not a game, therefore the rules (of logic) do not apply". > > More like - there comes a point where calling people on the carpet for > what amount to technicalities is counter-productive and useless. So an invalid argument is just a technicality? It's okay to be wrong? -- .''`. ** Debian GNU/Linux ** | Andrew Suffield : :' : http://www.debian.org/ | `. `' | `- -><- | signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: Just a single Question for the Candidates
[Andrew Suffield] > "We can't be sure whether this orange-haired person likes to eat > babies or not. He probably does, lock him up". Not that a baby-eating example isn't a bit loaded ... but ok, I'll run with it: "Many orange-haired people have been observed to eat babies. Here we have an orange-haired person, and babies keep disappearing. While there is still some argument on the point of whether or not it is acceptible to keep losing our babies, most of us agree that this is a Bad Thing. Maybe it is time to take steps to keep the babies away from the orange-haired person, you know, see if that makes a difference." > If you want to promote some action based on your guess - go > ahead. But don't try to pretend it's based on anything but a > guess. See how far you get. I'm perfectly happy to suggest courses of action based on guesses backed by anecdotal evidence but not firmly proven. I'm not doing so at this time, because I'm not the one with the ideas. > > Is this just a game to you? Did you think there were judges on the > > sidelines keeping notes about who was using the wrong standard of > > proof, or making unwarranted assumptions? It's not a game to the ones > > who started this thread. > > "It's not a game, therefore the rules (of logic) do not apply". More like - there comes a point where calling people on the carpet for what amount to technicalities is counter-productive and useless. If you're discussing going out for beer with a few friends, do you make them follow Robert's Rules of Order? > My direct point was that the argument "There are no other possible > explanations" was false. I think that's easy enough to concede. In fact, I don't remember seeing it argued otherwise. So, what alternative explanations have been offered? Occam's Razor would seem to rule out the effects of sunspots. > My indirect point was that the fact that the causes cannot be known > does not justify action based upon a guess as to what those causes > are. Action is justified on a basis weighted by the likelihood that the theory suggesting the action is correct (i.e., the action is likely to be effective), and by the urgency of the desire to address the problem. The fact that the cause of a problem cannot be known for sure does not by itself justify action, but it also does not justify *inaction*. In other words, I would suggest that the burden of proof does not, in cases such as these, rest solely with the affirmative. If you would argue that it does -- and simultaneously that hypotheses concerning social structures cannot really be proven -- then by implication, changes should not be made to social structures at all, and you may as well come right out and say it. I could be reading you wrong, but that seems to be the gist of your earlier verbiage about "not lowering one's standard for proof". But this is silly anyway. At the point I jumped in, this had become a meta-debate; now it seems to be turning to a meta-meta-debate. Since, amazingly enough, I've got other things I could be doing with my time, I'll go ahead and let you have the last word here, if you want it. Peter signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: Re: Just a single Question for the Candidates
Erinn, > -- "Erinn Clark" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> on Fri, 5 Mar 2004 02:19:29 -0500 said: > > If I may, here are three simple rules to follow when dealing with women: > 1. Don't pander to us just because we're women. > 2. Don't flirt with us just because we're women. > 3. Don't insult us just because we're women. Thank you for your involvement in this way. Might it be true to generalize so far as to say: Don't talk with us, don't do anything to us, *just* because we're women. (?) Generalizations can give powerful insights. Thanks, George Sawyer
Re: Just a single Question for the Candidates
> "We can't be sure whether this orange-haired person likes to eat > babies or not. He probably does, lock him up". > > If I have to make a guess then I do, but I don't pretend it's anything > more than a (possibly educated) guess. If you want to promote some > action based on your guess - go ahead. But don't try to pretend it's > based on anything but a guess. See how far you get. There are actions less severe than "locking someone up", and there are certainly approaches we can try that are appropriate when based on educated guesses. Hell, this is done in the real world all the time - outside the context of pure mathematics there is precious little that can be proven beyond a shadow of a doubt. b.
Re: Just a single Question for the Candidates
Peter Samuelson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > That may be true. However, you may have overlooked Erinn Clark's post > to this thread, which, fortuitously, has just the sort of information > you seem to be asking for. By no means would I ever say that the evidence isn't forthcoming. I've seen it first hand myself. All I said was that, from Helen's post, it sounded as if she were engaging in some negative stereotyping herself. Thomas
Re: Just a single Question for the Candidates
Peter Samuelson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > I think it is more than reasonable to entertain the possibility that a > similar cause is, in the present case, responsible for a similar > result. And even to take action based on that assumption. Or do you > always wait for perfect information before making a decision? You are surely right here. There is a parodoxical situation, in that the following are both true in my opinion: 1) The bullying that goes on in Debian is off-putting to a much greater percentage of women than men, and we must fix it if we want to increase the number of women who want to participate, and 2) Despite the truth of (1), it is a bad stereotype for any given woman to assume that Debian will bully her because just she is a woman and that Debian is mostly men. Thomas
Re: Just a single Question for the Candidates
[Thomas Bushnell, BSG] > I agree that Debian has a problem in this area and that it's worth > worrying about and trying to fix. I do not think that Helen has > given us any information about it; she is guessing at what men > usually do, and imputing that to us, and guessing about how women > feel. That may be true. However, you may have overlooked Erinn Clark's post to this thread, which, fortuitously, has just the sort of information you seem to be asking for. I have little to add to her post, which you can find here: http://lists.debian.org/debian-project/2004/debian-project-200403/msg00086.html All I can really add is that she's not making this stuff up. I've been on freenode::#debian for a few months now and I've seen the harassment, the unwelcome advances, the juvenile behavior, the abuse, that she's talking about. It's not all sexual in nature, to be sure - the #debian channel sometimes drives away potential *male* users as well. WRT mailing list behavior, I don't have a lot of grounds to comment - I haven't been actively following the lists for nearly as long. Peter signature.asc Description: Digital signature
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Re: Just a single Question for the Candidates
On Sat, Mar 06, 2004 at 09:05:27AM +, Peter Samuelson wrote: > > [Andrew Suffield] > > Psychology and sociology are fuzzy "sciences" for the most part, > > where very little is proven. That does not mean that the standards > > for proof should be lowered, it means that their conclusions should > > be treated with the usual skepticism and not as things which have > > been conclusively proven. > > As may be. > > All your pontificating about data and proof is a fine way to avoid the > actual issue under discussion, which is that a social system (the > Debian Project) is exhibiting the same symptom (fairly extreme > under-representation of women) as other systems which have been studied > and are similar to the Project in other ways. > > I think it is more than reasonable to entertain the possibility that a > similar cause is, in the present case, responsible for a similar > result. And even to take action based on that assumption. Or do you > always wait for perfect information before making a decision? "We can't be sure whether this orange-haired person likes to eat babies or not. He probably does, lock him up". If I have to make a guess then I do, but I don't pretend it's anything more than a (possibly educated) guess. If you want to promote some action based on your guess - go ahead. But don't try to pretend it's based on anything but a guess. See how far you get. > > Correlation across a large number of systems does *not* demonstrate > > that the same thing will happen in any individual system. > > Is this just a game to you? Did you think there were judges on the > sidelines keeping notes about who was using the wrong standard of > proof, or making unwarranted assumptions? It's not a game to the ones > who started this thread. "It's not a game, therefore the rules (of logic) do not apply". I don't accept that. I can't imagine why anybody would. Logic is for dealing with the real world. > If you'll recall, this started with a simple > question about what can and should be done about the gender imbalance > in the Project. Surely it would be more productive to search for > hypotheses about the causes for this imbalance, than to offer silly > theories like sunspots to illustrate your point that, because the > science is inexact, the real causes can never be known. That was not my point. My direct point was that the argument "There are no other possible explanations" was false. My indirect point was that the fact that the causes cannot be known does not justify action based upon a guess as to what those causes are. > Any of those would be preferable to "insufficient data, therefore we > have no choice but to ignore the issues". I don't know where you pulled that one from. I'll guess that you got it from Manoj, though. -- .''`. ** Debian GNU/Linux ** | Andrew Suffield : :' : http://www.debian.org/ | `. `' | `- -><- | signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: Just a single Question for the Candidates
[Andrew Suffield] > Psychology and sociology are fuzzy "sciences" for the most part, > where very little is proven. That does not mean that the standards > for proof should be lowered, it means that their conclusions should > be treated with the usual skepticism and not as things which have > been conclusively proven. As may be. All your pontificating about data and proof is a fine way to avoid the actual issue under discussion, which is that a social system (the Debian Project) is exhibiting the same symptom (fairly extreme under-representation of women) as other systems which have been studied and are similar to the Project in other ways. I think it is more than reasonable to entertain the possibility that a similar cause is, in the present case, responsible for a similar result. And even to take action based on that assumption. Or do you always wait for perfect information before making a decision? > Correlation across a large number of systems does *not* demonstrate > that the same thing will happen in any individual system. Is this just a game to you? Did you think there were judges on the sidelines keeping notes about who was using the wrong standard of proof, or making unwarranted assumptions? It's not a game to the ones who started this thread. If you'll recall, this started with a simple question about what can and should be done about the gender imbalance in the Project. Surely it would be more productive to search for hypotheses about the causes for this imbalance, than to offer silly theories like sunspots to illustrate your point that, because the science is inexact, the real causes can never be known. If you say "nothing should be done, because the essential nature of the Project is conflict, and those who cannot deal with conflict would be best advised to stay away from the Project in any case" - then that's at least taking a stance. Likewise if you say "nothing *can* be done, because enforcing a more civilised standard of behavior on our developers and members of our support channels is effectively impossible." Alternatively, you might say "what should be done is to take surveys and collect anecdotes of people's experience interacting with the Project, so as to form a clearer picture." Any of those would be preferable to "insufficient data, therefore we have no choice but to ignore the issues". Peter signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: Just a single Question for the Candidates
On Fri, Mar 05, 2004 at 07:06:50PM -0600, Manoj Srivastava wrote: > > On Fri, Mar 05, 2004 at 03:35:03PM +, Andrew Suffield wrote: > >> On Fri, Mar 05, 2004 at 08:21:08AM -0600, Manoj Srivastava wrote: > >> > You have an alternate theory explaining the low incidence of > >> > women in male dominated activities like Debian, free software > >> > coding, coding in general, and CS overall? > >> > >> Sunspots. It's at least as convincing. > > If that is the best theory you can advance, forgive me if I > prefer to stick to one with some scientific backing, and which tends > to actually explain the empirically observed data. The pattern of > behaviour, and the pattern of inclusion is not random, so your theory > is a very poor fit. You're welcome to pick a default assumption (although I'll point out that assumptions invariably play people false). But you can't claim that it's true because it's the only possibility. Nor can you claim that it's true because it's been proven, because it hasn't. -- .''`. ** Debian GNU/Linux ** | Andrew Suffield : :' : http://www.debian.org/ | `. `' | `- -><- | signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: Just a single Question for the Candidates
On Fri, Mar 05, 2004 at 06:26:44PM -0600, Manoj Srivastava wrote: > On Fri, 5 Mar 2004 19:58:03 +, Andrew Suffield <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> said: > > > On Fri, Mar 05, 2004 at 01:16:43PM -0500, David Nusinow wrote: > >> On Fri, Mar 05, 2004 at 03:35:03PM +, Andrew Suffield wrote: > >> > On Fri, Mar 05, 2004 at 08:21:08AM -0600, Manoj Srivastava wrote: > >> > >You have an alternate theory explaining the low incidence of > >> > > women in male dominated activities like Debian, free software coding, > >> > > coding in general, and CS overall? > >> > > >> > Sunspots. It's at least as convincing. > >> > >> Way to completely ignore the problem, as well as testimonials by > >> those involved. What a productive attitude. > > > The plural of "anecdote" is not "data". > > Yes, very clever. And also very silly. When collated in large > numbers, anecdotes _do_ become data -- ask any psychologist or > sociologist. No, I refuse to accept this. Psychology and sociology are fuzzy "sciences" for the most part, where very little is proven. That does not mean that the standards for proof should be lowered, it means that their conclusions should be treated with the usual skepticism and not as things which have been conclusively proven. If somebody were to demonstrate that the majority of people with orange hair liked to eat babies, then it might be reasonable to allocate more resources to watch them more closely. It would not be reasonable to assume that because a given person had orange hair, they liked to eat babies. Most things that come out of sociology and psychology take this form - they can give you "probably", or "N% of this group will do X", but they can't usually give you "true in this particular case". This is the difference between proof and circumstancial evidence. > And there have indeed been documented studies of the > barriers women face breaking into male dominated institutions and > workplaces -- and debian certainly qualifies as the former. That doesn't prove anything. It's not even particularly convincing. "Debian is like another system where this happened, therefore it will behave in the same way, because most other ones did". That just indicates there is a plausible argument with a not-insignificant probability of being accurate, it does not intrinsically indicate that the argument is accurate. Correlation across a large number of systems does *not* demonstrate that the same thing will happen in any individual system. What about all the systems where it didn't happen? -- .''`. ** Debian GNU/Linux ** | Andrew Suffield : :' : http://www.debian.org/ | `. `' | `- -><- | signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: Just a single Question for the Candidates
On Sat, Mar 06, 2004 at 02:39:17PM +1100, Matthew Palmer wrote: > With our underlying culture, I'm not sure if any attempts to change us will > truly ever succeed in making us the caring, sharing, non-confrontational > group that will make every person happy to work with us. Hell, if we become > non-confrontational, we'll probably lose some of the people who enjoy the > confrontation - so we still won't be able to claim we're all-inclusive. I certainly won't tolerate it. It's fundamentally incompatible with getting any useful work done. Down that road leads political correctness (not just the word-substitution form), where you cannot say something that is true and technically significant because it might upset somebody. People cannot usefully participate in a debate unless they grow a skin, or while they are emotionally attached to an argument. Providing crutches for them will only make things worse. -- .''`. ** Debian GNU/Linux ** | Andrew Suffield : :' : http://www.debian.org/ | `. `' | `- -><- | signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: Just a single Question for the Candidates
On Fri, Mar 05, 2004 at 09:39:50PM -0500, David Nusinow wrote: > On Fri, Mar 05, 2004 at 09:48:13PM +, Andrew Suffield wrote: > > The alternative is that there is nothing interesting here. It's not a > > very interesting alternative. Occam's razor says we go with it until > > we have a reason to do otherwise. > > Translation: "LALALALALA! I'M NOT LISTENING!" [No response, I just think I'll quote this in case anybody missed it] > > I hypothesise that you are a gerbil. Gerbils can't form rational > > arguments. Therefore you are wrong. > > > > Your burden-of-proof notion is completely backwards, and the above is > > an example of why. The burder of proof rests upon the one who wants to > > introduce an assertion. > > I can demonstrate evidence that I'm not a gerbil quite handily. No you can't, because you're a gerbil and gerbils can't form rational arguments. It is logically impossible for you to disprove this, because your burden-of-proof notion is backwards (in formal logic, you've allowed a falsehood to be introduced, so it is impossible to draw any conclusions within the current situation). > >On Fri, Mar 05, 2004 at 08:21:08AM -0600, Manoj Srivastava wrote: > >> You have an alternate theory explaining the low incidence of > >> women in male dominated activities like Debian, free software coding, > >> coding in general, and CS overall? > >Sunspots. It's at least as convincing. > > Manoj was talking about "free software coding, and CS overall" in > addition to Debian as a whole. He asked for an alternative. His suggestion was that there was only one possible explanation, which is clearly false. This isn't very interesting, it's foundational logic. > The HOWTO you reference also deals with > the larger scope as an example. Which is apropos of nothing. -- .''`. ** Debian GNU/Linux ** | Andrew Suffield : :' : http://www.debian.org/ | `. `' | `- -><- | signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: Just a single Question for the Candidates
On Sat, Mar 06, 2004 at 09:27:30AM +1100, Craig Sanders wrote: > meekness isn't about bullying. > > it's (partially) about perceiving bullying whether it's really there or not. > it is a disability which varies in severity from being mildly shy to being > socially crippled..it is not the fault, or responsibility, of non-meek > people, any more than fully-abled people are at fault for the disabled. Except, for example, when the perceived bullying is really there, that's obviously the fault of those doing the bullying. -- Raul
