Re: Bug#138541: ITP: debian-sanitize (was Re: inappropriate racist and other offensive material)
On Sat, 2002-03-16 at 17:09, Manoj Srivastava wrote:
> >>"Jeff" == Jeff Licquia <licquia@debian.org> writes:
> Jeff> Generating the list of offensive packages is, of course, the hard
> Jeff> part. I propose we do this with the following process. It has the
> Jeff> advantages of not (necessarily) promoting the biases of one developer
> Jeff> or group.
>
> You are assuming there is a common cultural background that
> shall determine what the broad community finds offensive.
> Unfortunately, with the spread of the internet, Debian is no longer a
> localized mostly european heritage distribution. We hae
> constituencies that find things offensive that you may hold dear, and
> vice versa.
There are some things that can be classified as universally abhorrent.
Advocating the murder of innocents would hold up anywhere, I would
imagine. It seemed that most of the debate about the joke in
irssi-scripts took it for granted that racism is offensive; objections
to censoring the package seemed to arise from a general anti-censorship
position or from a view that the joke really wasn't racist. I'm sure we
can find other examples.
I'm not looking for a package that will make Jerry Falwell happy. I'm
looking for something that will allow people to weed out the most
egregious stuff, like the famous BitchX taglines.
> Jeff> - Offensiveness will be determined by vote. All Debian developers
> Jeff> will be allowed to vote on any or all binary packages in
> Jeff> Debian.
>
> Ah, so the only things that are offensive are those that the
> majority find offensive. I find this notion patently offensive, and
> ridiculous.
No; the only things that are *noteworthy* in their offensiveness are
determined by majority vote. You are free to be offended by anything
else you find on the system without asking the Project's approval.
One of the advantages of a voting system is that, in most cases, an
offending package would have to be pretty bad to even garner enough
votes to make a quorum.
> Jeff> - After the quorum is reached, a majority (supermajority?) of
> Jeff> "offensive" votes will result in the package being labeled
> Jeff> offensive. Votes will be tallied on regular intervals, and
> Jeff> packages generated from the vote results. The interval will be
> Jeff> designed to allow new versions of the package to propagate through
> Jeff> Debian.
>
>
> Which jurisdiction do you live in? Seems to me, by labelling
> something offensive, you are opening yourself to libel or other
> suits, espescially if this is widely publicized.
I live in the USA, which doesn't seem to be as nutty over libel as some
other countries (UK?).
Besides, even in the UK it's possible to say "I don't like McDonald's"
or some such in public without fear of libel.
> You are free to do as you please, of course, but I would
> object to any GR that tries to implement this censorship by majority.
I think that the point here is that we're avoiding censorship by
providing a way for people to evaluate what they want on their own.
I would hope that no one would resort to a GR to change the
classification of a package. It would seem to me to be somewhat
self-defeating; if the Project can already vote on the status of a
package, why call for another vote?
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