Re: Tone policing by a member of the community team [Was, Re: Statement regarding Richard Stallman's readmission to the FSF board]
On 2021/04/11 01:28, Bernd Zeimetz wrote: > Although I really prefer not to have them in the project, its is not the > Debian project's task to rule about political believs, opinions, religions, > fetishes and whatever else. But I expect that people keep these things out of > Debian and especially the public discussion as far as possble. So long as > Debian is not getting involved, it absolutely does not matter to us what > people do outside of Debian. Let's focus on creating the best distribution > instead. Not true, if someone identifies with fascist doctrine, even if they keep those views off of the project channels, then they are not welcome here, no matter where they engaged in those kind of activities. -Jonathan OpenPGP_signature Description: OpenPGP digital signature
Re: Tone policing by a member of the community team [Was, Re: Statement regarding Richard Stallman's readmission to the FSF board]
Le lundi 12 avril 2021 à 14:56:34+0200, Jonathan Carter a écrit : > On 2021/04/11 01:28, Bernd Zeimetz wrote: > > Although I really prefer not to have them in the project, its is not the > > Debian project's task to rule about political believs, opinions, religions, > > fetishes and whatever else. But I expect that people keep these things out > > of > > Debian and especially the public discussion as far as possble. So long as > > Debian is not getting involved, it absolutely does not matter to us what > > people do outside of Debian. Let's focus on creating the best distribution > > instead. > > Not true, if someone identifies with fascist doctrine, even if they keep > those views off of the project channels, then they are not welcome here, > no matter where they engaged in those kind of activities. +1 -- Pierre-Elliott Bécue GPG: 9AE0 4D98 6400 E3B6 7528 F493 0D44 2664 1949 74E2 It's far easier to fight for principles than to live up to them. signature.asc Description: PGP signature
Re: Tone policing by a member of the community team [Was, Re: Statement regarding Richard Stallman's readmission to the FSF board]
On Mon, Apr 12, 2021 at 02:56:34PM +0200, Jonathan Carter wrote: On 2021/04/11 01:28, Bernd Zeimetz wrote: Although I really prefer not to have them in the project, its is not the Debian project's task to rule about political believs, opinions, religions, fetishes and whatever else. But I expect that people keep these things out of Debian and especially the public discussion as far as possble. So long as Debian is not getting involved, it absolutely does not matter to us what people do outside of Debian. Let's focus on creating the best distribution instead. Not true, if someone identifies with fascist doctrine, even if they keep those views off of the project channels, then they are not welcome here, no matter where they engaged in those kind of activities. Does that go for all extremist ideologies or just the one?
Re: Tone policing by a member of the community team [Was, Re: Statement regarding Richard Stallman's readmission to the FSF board]
On 2021/04/12 15:37, Michael Stone wrote: >> Not true, if someone identifies with fascist doctrine, even if they keep >> those views off of the project channels, then they are not welcome here, >> no matter where they engaged in those kind of activities. > > Does that go for all extremist ideologies or just the one? Probably all of them. I don't have anything specific in mind, but my guess is that there would be some edge cases where we disagree on what would constitute an extremist ideology, I've thought that we should probably amend our CoC at some point to explain what kind of people are /not/ welcome in Debian, but that's a matter for another GR :) -Jonathan
Re: Tone policing by a member of the community team [Was, Re: Statement regarding Richard Stallman's readmission to the FSF board]
On Mon, Apr 12, 2021 at 02:56:34PM +0200, Jonathan Carter wrote: > Not true, if someone identifies with fascist doctrine, even if they keep > those views off of the project channels, then they are not welcome here, > no matter where they engaged in those kind of activities. Would you care to put that to a vote? I think you'll lose -- and if you win, you'll fracture the Project. I say it with all respect, Jonathan, as someone who admires you and judges you to have been a tactful, prudent, competent, energetic, effective Leader; but politicization of Debian has gone far enough. We are not going to bar persons who identify with fascist doctrine or any other doctrine from the Project if I have anything to say about it. Someone might reply by citing the Code of Conduct and Diversity Statement, but such citations do not impress me. The Code and Statement were adopted to smooth the Project's work, not to menace political undesirables, nor to empower the easily offended. In my strong opinion, Diversity includes everyone, even, especially fascists. And do you know what? The text of the Diversity Statement agrees with me, unless one were determined to twist its adverb "constructively" to authorize mischievous *deconstruction* of the Project along ideological lines. For all I know, a handful of Members might be determined to do just that. I hope not. If so, though, then I'll warrant that the deconstructors are in the minority, and a small minority at that. Given an up-or-down vote, they would lose. Meanwhile, regarding the GR, I have no comment except that I have cast my vote, same as everyone else. However, your statement as quoted above cannot be supported. The time for the tail to wag the dog is over. It's time to get back to the open source. signature.asc Description: PGP signature
Re: Tone policing by a member of the community team [Was, Re: Statement regarding Richard Stallman's readmission to the FSF board]
On Mon, Apr 12, 2021 at 03:30:21PM +, Thaddeus H. Black wrote: >On Mon, Apr 12, 2021 at 02:56:34PM +0200, Jonathan Carter wrote: > >Someone might reply by citing the Code of Conduct >and Diversity Statement, but such citations do not impress me. The Code >and Statement were adopted to smooth the Project's work, not to menace >political undesirables, nor to empower the easily offended. In my >strong opinion, Diversity includes everyone, even, especially fascists. >And do you know what? The text of the Diversity Statement agrees with >me, unless one were determined to twist its adverb "constructively" to >authorize mischievous *deconstruction* of the Project along >ideological lines. Umm. Our diversity statement and CoC define agreed expectations of behaviour and communication within the project; people espousing fascist ideologies are surely not going to fit those standards. Do you somehow think they're compatible? -- Steve McIntyre, Cambridge, UK.st...@einval.com You lock the door And throw away the key There's someone in my head but it's not me
Re: Tone policing by a member of the community team [Was, Re: Statement regarding Richard Stallman's readmission to the FSF board]
On Mon, Apr 12, 2021 at 04:55:28PM +0200, Jonathan Carter wrote: On 2021/04/12 15:37, Michael Stone wrote: Not true, if someone identifies with fascist doctrine, even if they keep those views off of the project channels, then they are not welcome here, no matter where they engaged in those kind of activities. Does that go for all extremist ideologies or just the one? Probably all of them. I don't have anything specific in mind, but my guess is that there would be some edge cases where we disagree on what would constitute an extremist ideology, I've thought that we should probably amend our CoC at some point to explain what kind of people are /not/ welcome in Debian, but that's a matter for another GR :) Marxists? Maoists? Stalinists? Anarchists? Zionists? Anti-zionists? Militant Quebec nationalists? Royalists? Imperialists? Indigenous resistance groups? Ecoterrorists? Anyone that someone calls a terrorist? Speciesists? Anti-speciesists? Eugenicists? Any government that comes to power via a coup? Any government that maintains power while suppressing popular revolt? Anyone who participated in genocide? Anyone descended from someone who participated in a genocide? Anyone who denies a genocide? Anyone repeating a false genocide narrative? (By the way, you had better be very, very careful about creating the appearance that debian (via the DPL) is taking a position on some of those, because you could get debian banned in various places if you say the wrong thing.) The idea that "nazis" or "fascists" represent the full spectrum of what can go wrong in human systems, or that understanding complex and emotional conflicts is as simple as "blame the nazis" is simply wrong. I'd go so far as to posit that the only common element in extremist ideologies is the certainty that their own beliefs and tactics are both superior to their opponents', and unimpeachable. I'd further posit that it's possible to have extremist positions on any side of any issue humans can argue about, and also that it's generally impossible to identify a specific point on a continuum of beliefs at which a position changes from "reasonable disagreement" to "extremism". The idea that debian should or even could create a list of acceptable and unacceptable beliefs in all facets of any participant's life is preposterous. All we can reasonably do is require certain standards of behavior within forums we control or which are immediately adjacent. Even from people who have declared that their opponent is a "nazi".
Re: Tone policing by a member of the community team [Was, Re: Statement regarding Richard Stallman's readmission to the FSF board]
On 2021-04-12 Steve McIntyre wrote: > On Mon, Apr 12, 2021 at 03:30:21PM +, Thaddeus H. Black wrote: [...] >> Someone might reply by citing the Code of Conduct >> and Diversity Statement, but such citations do not impress me. The Code >> and Statement were adopted to smooth the Project's work, not to menace >> political undesirables, nor to empower the easily offended. In my >> strong opinion, Diversity includes everyone, even, especially fascists. [...] > Umm. Our diversity statement and CoC define agreed expectations of > behaviour and communication within the project; people espousing > fascist ideologies are surely not going to fit those standards. Do you > somehow think they're compatible? Thaddeus responded to | if someone identifies with fascist doctrine, even if they keep | those views off of the project channels, so your question seems to be beside the point since the explicite premise was that the hypothetic project member did not act fascist within the project. cu Andreas -- `What a good friend you are to him, Dr. Maturin. His other friends are so grateful to you.' `I sew his ears on from time to time, sure'
Re: Tone policing by a member of the community team [Was, Re: Statement regarding Richard Stallman's readmission to the FSF board]
> "Steve" == Steve McIntyre writes: Steve> On Mon, Apr 12, 2021 at 03:30:21PM +, Thaddeus H. Black wrote: Steve> Umm. Our diversity statement and CoC define agreed Steve> expectations of behaviour and communication within the Steve> project; people espousing fascist ideologies are surely not Steve> going to fit those standards. Do you somehow think they're Steve> compatible? In general, no, probably not. But compared to judging which ideologies are automatic bans and which we will tolerate, focusing on whether someone can work consistently with the CoC and the diversity statement seems easier to evaluate and to defend. I don't want to see us developing and debating (even within delegated teams) a set of organizations we'll have no part of. I'd rather see us focusing on whether members of our community follow standards such as the CoC, diversity statement etc. Some members of our community have claimed that others were Nazis or fascist in ways that were not obvious to me. I wrote the following remarks earlier today and decided not to send them because I was hoping this discussion would die down. It hasn't, so here's my attempt to balance focusing on creating a welcoming community while respecting political freedom of our members. I understand I'm disagreeing with somemembers of the project. I find that what Jonathan said today is too far for me. But I find that the practical difference between what Jonathan advocates and what I'd be comfortable with is small to non-existent. I'm sharing this in the hopes that others can find middle grounds in what I say. First, to define extreme views. I'd like to focus on views that deny the dignity of some, or that treat some people as lesser than others. My personal desire for the project would be to approach extreme views that are incompatible with treating everyone with dignity and humanity as follows: 1) As Russ said, and I agree, we should not police thoughts. What stays inside your own head is none of our business. 2) If your statements (even outside of Debian) commit you to a path that denies dignity, it's entirely reasonable for us to talk to you about whether you'll be able to act in accordance with the CoC and diversity statement. Please convince us that you will be able to treat everyone in Debian with dignity consistent with how we view dignity; convince us that your actions in Debian will create a welcoming community and treat all our members with respect. If you can answer that question, then we should hold you to that answer. If your answer is good, I don't think statements outside of Debian should get in the way of your participation beyond raising the discussion of how you will meet our community standards within Debian. I do think if you affiliate yourself with an extreme ideology in your statements outside Debian, it's reasonable for us to be highly skeptical and to ask you to show us how it's going to work. I understand some people in the project disagree with me and would like to kick people out for their statements outside of Debian. That's just further than I can go right now. 3) going around within Debian saying you are a political extremest following a party that does not treat everyone with dignity is likely to be incompatible with the CoC in and of itself. It might depend on the context, but most contexts I can see would reasonably make the classes of people your extreme ideology considers lesser feel unwelcome. 4) Actions, especially actions within Debian that are inconsistent with treating everyone with dignity need to be taken seriously. If you have claimed affiliation with a group that advocates such actions, I think it makes it even more serious. I think the practical effect of the above is that if you're acting as a fascist , you won't be welcome here. I'd prefer to make that determination based on actions rather than affiliations. --Sam signature.asc Description: PGP signature
Re: Tone policing by a member of the community team [Was, Re: Statement regarding Richard Stallman's readmission to the FSF board]
On 2021/04/12 17:30, Thaddeus H. Black wrote: > On Mon, Apr 12, 2021 at 02:56:34PM +0200, Jonathan Carter wrote: >> Not true, if someone identifies with fascist doctrine, even if they keep >> those views off of the project channels, then they are not welcome here, >> no matter where they engaged in those kind of activities. > > Would you care to put that to a vote? I think you'll lose -- and if > you win, you'll fracture the Project. Whether I'd like to put that to a vote? Good question! I'll have to come back to you on that. At the very least, I hope that we get to the point where we can have better information gathering and decision making within the project, and that if we do need to make a formal, project-wide poll, that we have something better than a GR as our only blunt instrument for that. > I say it with all respect, Jonathan, as someone who admires you and > judges you to have been a tactful, prudent, competent, energetic, > effective Leader; but politicization of Debian has gone far enough. We > are not going to bar persons who identify with fascist doctrine or any > other doctrine from the Project if I have anything to say about it. *blush* uhm, that's a lot of nice words from someone I haven't even met yet, so thanks for cushioning the blow. I'm pretty sure that you're familiar with the paradox of tolerance, so I'm not going to bore or patronize you by explaining it, but at some point we have to draw a line at what kind of people we allow inside our community. Thankfully, to the best of my knowledge, we have no neo-nazis or similar extremists within our community. I'd like to keep it that way. Sometimes people with opposing views are valuable, but other times they are just destructive. Bigots in all shapes and form will ultimately only hurt the project if we allow them in. And ultimately, I guide my decisions on what's best for the project, not by the feelings of those who don't care about the feelings of others. > Someone might reply by citing the Code of Conduct > and Diversity Statement, but such citations do not impress me. The Code > and Statement were adopted to smooth the Project's work, not to menace > political undesirables, nor to empower the easily offended. In my > strong opinion, Diversity includes everyone, even, especially fascists. > And do you know what? The text of the Diversity Statement agrees with > me, unless one were determined to twist its adverb "constructively" to > authorize mischievous *deconstruction* of the Project along > ideological lines. It's true that the CoC does indeed state that everyone is welcome, without mentioning exceptions, but the only kind of people I would exclude are the people who by their very beliefs and way of living, already violate the CoC. I don't think that's very controversial, > For all I know, a handful of Members might be determined to do just > that. I hope not. If so, though, then I'll warrant that the > deconstructors are in the minority, and a small minority at that. Given > an up-or-down vote, they would lose. Those of us who are working to fix the problems in our community are doing so because we want to grow our community, not because we want to deconstruct anything. We're tired of seeing people leave because of mysogyny or similar offenses, we want to build Debian into something much bigger and be inclusive of all walks of like while doing so. > Meanwhile, regarding the GR, I have no comment except that I have cast > my vote, same as everyone else. However, your statement as quoted above > cannot be supported. Well, I suppose we fundamentally disagree then. Thanks for voting, though. > The time for the tail to wag the dog is over. It's time to get back to > the open source. Despite the turmoil in the organisation we so deeply care about (and we do care about the FSF), Debian has been making good strides. There's the FTP team that did stellar work ahead of freeze which helped smooth out our initial freeze stages. I've made some gentle pushes in a few areas and our community has responded so well that it even seems likely that we may have the release for bullseye by the end of May[1], which is quite good if you consider that buster was released in July with similar freeze dates preseeding that. There's been great work all around the project over the last here. The mentors site has had a big overhaul, fixing many of its issues and modernising the stack, that site is crucial for helping new contributors with getting their packages in to Debian. Debian Trends have been updated, the Debian Screenshots site has a completely revamped look and feel, our front page on our website has had a re-design (with further changes planned to make it look really snazzy), we gained preseed.debian.net, a new service to list all preseed options, we've done experiments to re-build the archive with clang, worked on machine learning policy, deprecated debhelper 5+6, we've even gotten computers to handle more of our packaging work
Re: Tone policing by a member of the community team [Was, Re: Statement regarding Richard Stallman's readmission to the FSF board]
On 2021/04/12 18:41, Michael Stone wrote: > Marxists? Maoists? Stalinists? Anarchists? Zionists? Anti-zionists? > Militant Quebec nationalists? Royalists? Imperialists? Indigenous > resistance groups? Ecoterrorists? Anyone that someone calls a terrorist? > Speciesists? Anti-speciesists? Eugenicists? Any government that comes to > power via a coup? Any government that maintains power while suppressing > popular revolt? Anyone who participated in genocide? Anyone descended > from someone who participated in a genocide? Anyone who denies a > genocide? Anyone repeating a false genocide narrative? (By the way, you > had better be very, very careful about creating the appearance that > debian (via the DPL) is taking a position on some of those, because you > could get debian banned in various places if you say the wrong thing.) That's purely up to DAM, and while there aren't any extensive background checks, I can tell you that they're pretty good at spotting some red flags (that other DDs can also raise with DAM during someone's NM process). > The idea that "nazis" or "fascists" represent the full spectrum of what > can go wrong in human systems, or that understanding complex and > emotional conflicts is as simple as "blame the nazis" is simply wrong. > I'd go so far as to posit that the only common element in extremist > ideologies is the certainty that their own beliefs and tactics are both > superior to their opponents', and unimpeachable. I'd further posit that > it's possible to have extremist positions on any side of any issue > humans can argue about, and also that it's generally impossible to > identify a specific point on a continuum of beliefs at which a position > changes from "reasonable disagreement" to "extremism". It was clearly just one example, one that admittedly gets overused because it's easy and lazy. And sure, there are all kinds of extremists, although there are especially those who are most problematic in society and in our communities. > The idea that debian should or even could create a list of acceptable > and unacceptable beliefs in all facets of any participant's life is > preposterous. All we can reasonably do is require certain standards of > behavior within forums we control or which are immediately adjacent. It's really not all that preposterous, I think (judging by the long list you posted in the first paragraph) that you're jumping to the incorrect conclusions on what I'd like to achieve with expanding our CoC. > Even from people who have declared that their opponent is a "nazi". I would consider calling another person a "nazi" to be CoC violation even on it's first point. Calling someone a nazi because you don't agree with someone is certainly very disrespectful and highly inappropriate. -Jonathan
