Re: Promoting the GNU Kind Communication Guidelines?

[Thorsten Wilms]

On 29/10/2018 12.27, Alex Sassmannshausen wrote:

> > The association with the primary author makes some people think of the
> > ... fighting stance of her, the anti-meritocracy thing and her use of
> > 2nd-hand "quotes" to get people into trouble (trying to keep it short
> > here, thus far from exact).
>
> I think if you make these assertions you might want to bring context.
> As it stands it reads a little like "poisoning the well": you seem to
> imply the CC is bad because allegedly the author has done bad things in
> the past.

No, I'm saying that some opposition is motivated by the desire to have 
nothing to do with her, whatsoever. In order to not go off-topic, I 
tried to outline where the intensity might come from in short form.

Of course the rational thing is to separate the CoC from its primary 
author. But then CoC supporters like to explain how offense depends on 
the feeling of those offended, so maybe you might not want to declare 
this aspect of it to be meaningless.

Discussions regarding the CoC and Ehmke tend to attract problematic 
comments, but the start of this seems reasonable enough:
https://linustechtips.com/main/topic/974038-why-the-linux-coc-is-bad/

Two interesting reactions to attempts to establish the CoC in projects:
https://bugs.ruby-lang.org/issues/12004#note-95
http://paul-m-jones.com/archives/6214


> > I take it for some it reads like an invitation to those with little to
> > nothing better to do, to report perceived or even made-up misbehavior.
>
> And that assumption by those people would be, to the best of my
> knowledge of the actual facts, incorrect.

This depends solely on whether there are people like that (numerous 
enough to matter).


> > How does one manage to separate gender identity and expression from
> > sexual identity and orientation? Maybe one must take gender studies
> > ...
>
> Just to clarify, gender identity and expression refers to who you (feel
> like you) are.  Sexual identity & orientation is about who you are
> attracted to.

I get gender identity and expression and orientation, but honestly don't 
understand what sexual identity is supposed to mean in distinction. 
Wikipedia makes it seem to be identical to sexual orientation. 
Biological sex doesn't appear at all!?


> > So if Jim reports that Jane threatened him to foobar his baz, then the
> > project team has to contact Jane, but must keep it secret that Jim
> > reported the issue? While being fair to Jane? Maybe such threats are
> > illegal in the countries of both, maybe it's actually one country and
> > police and the judicature might get involved?
> >
> > If the reporter is a 3rd party, sure, but even then an accused person
> > may express anger towards the potential victim, via assuming that the
> > potential victim reported personally.
> >
> > Now there may be cases where protecting a reporter is important and
> > just, but this "protecting any accuser, always" stance seems
> > problematic.
>
> This reads like hyperbole.  If somenoe makes a complaint about me, I
> will be contacted by the maintainers.  They will discuss the nature of
> the allegation with me, and hopefully I will be able to say "Shit, I had
> no idea what I did had this impact on someone else in the community.
> Thanks for bringing this to me.  Any idea how I can avoid this in
> future?".
>
> I don't see where the problem is there?

The problem is you completely ignored the problem of maintaining 
confidentiality while letting the accused know _exactly_ what the 
accusation is about.

The CoC encourages "believe the accuser" and "guilty until proven 
innocent" for the accused.


--
Thorsten Wilms

thorwil's design for free software:
http://thorwil.wordpress.com/