Re: Bug#1014908: ITP: gender-guesser -- Guess the gender from first name
On Fri, Jul 15, 2022 at 07:05:09PM +0300, Adrian Bunk wrote:
> On Thu, Jul 14, 2022 at 04:05:35PM +0200, Jeremy Bicha wrote:
> >...
> > Debian has a Diversity Statement [1] which says that Debian welcomes
> > people regardless of how they identify themselves. Trans people and
> > non-binary people face a lot of discrimination, harrassment and
> > bullying around the world.
>
> Our Diversity Statement says that Debian "welcomes and encourages
> participation by everyone".
>
Correct. That implies useful, constructive participation in accordance with
our community values and not being divisive for the sake of it.
gender-guesser may have a negative effect on some of our community of
contributors and users. It probably doesn't help people who are gender-fluid,
non-binary or trans who feel as if they are being categorised by their names.
The categorisation isn't aware of diversity in language - as it stands, it
appears biased to Western languages and only a few of them. The world has
more cultural groups and lignuistic categories to take account of.
Consider -
Debconf is on in Kosovo right now. If I had to work out Albanian
gender mappings from names, I'd have no clue.
Then S. Indian - Malayalam character sets?? and names from a number of
Indian languages then Israel and Hebrew/Arabic
Taiwan had Chinese character sets and names
At what point is this useful for a very small subset of the world's population?
> People who express how they identify themselves by having a swastika
> tattoo on their forehead also face a lot of discrimination, harrassment
> and bullying around the world. Our Diversity Statement makes it clear
> that we are welcoming and encouraging their participation and are not
> ourselves discriminating against them.
>
A swastika tattoo on the forehead would be mostly invisible unless meeting
someone in person. I couldn't guarantee how people would react on first
meeting such a person - I'm assuming this is a straw man for argument
purposes.
> > That bad treatment of these people is
> > against Debian's core values.
> >...
>
> Our Diversity Statement says that we "welcome contributions from
> everyone as long as they interact constructively with our community".
>
> Debian does not have core values regarding how people are treated
> outside Debian.
>
No, but it has very clear core values regarding how they are treated by
and within Debian. The adverse effects on some of our people and our
users probably outweigh the usefulness of such a script, even if it
is accurate and useful to all.
> Debian is not a project that fights for trans people or fights for
> denazification or fights for whatever other non-technical topics
> individual contributors might consider worth fighting for elsewhere.
>
It does fight for under-represented / disadvantaged groups within Debian in a
Debian context.
> Diversity means that in any kinds of conflicts people on all sides
> are encouraged to contribute to Debian as long as they interact
> constructively with our community.
>
I would ask you (Adrian) to consider whether your mailing list
message is a fully
constructive interaction with our community and its values here or is just
seeking to stir up opinions and arguments for the sake of it.
The Code of Conduct calls for a constructive and considered approach to debate
on our lists.
> > Therefore, the Debian Project wouldn't
> > want to distribute software that appears to facilitate that kind of
> > harassment, regardless of the software license it is released under.
> > We might not want to distribute such software even if it also has
> > non-harmful uses.
> >...
>
> The exact opposite of diversity is to call everything one dislikes or
> disagrees with "harassment" or *phobic.
>
I wonder how it would be if you wanted to use a similar script to test
familiarity with English in our developers / a test for neurodiversity
and high functioning autism / a test for colour vision or dexterity to
single out anybody who's visually impaired or blind or a guess for
background religion/beliefs/no belief - I don't think any of these
(hypothetical, straw man) scripts would be useful or constructive or
contribute well to our Debian community.
> > Thank you,
> > Jeremy Bicha
>
> cu
> Adrian
>
With every good wish, as ever,
Andy Cater
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