Re: Debian, lists and discrimination

[MJ Ray <mjr@dsl.pipex.com>]

On 2004-08-07 22:24:12 +0100 Peter Samuelson <peter@p12n.org> wrote:

> [MJ Ray]
> > Are posts which should otherwise go to other lists accepted on -women
> > purely because they involve women? It looks that way from yesterday's
> > list description and past activity.
> Is that your real concern? [...]

I reject the implication that I may have only one "real concern". I 
tried to explain what seems my basic concern to me, that debian should 
not discriminate against people or groups because of irrelevant 
attributes. I guess the explanation wasn't good, as few seem to get 
it.

> Face it, there is plenty of overlap between existing debian lists.  
> And
> not everyone knows which list is the best to post to in every
> circumstance, no matter how you document it.

Of course, I know this, as you could tell from my initial message and 
subsequent addressing changes. I look forward to seeing threads from 
-women redirected to -project, -newmaint and others, but it's not 
happened much yet AFAICT. Is any discussion involving women ever 
off-topic for -women, actually?

> (BTW, don't expect much more out of me than what I'm posting now.  In
> our encounter on IRC the other day, I kept trying to find out if you
> had more questions that we hadn't answered already, and all I got was
> you rehashing the same few questions over and over, apparently hoping
> for new answers that suited your preconceptions better than the 
> answers
> we'd already given. [...]

Can you read my mind and know my hopes? I think not, else you would 
not have got it so wrong. I hoped for answers and what you call 
"rehashing" were probably attempts to rephrase a question that I felt 
had been misunderstood, based on the non-answers.

Ultimately, you ended discussion by threatening to use the special 
q-bans (which give the banned person insults about "channel gods" if 
they try to speak, last time I saw one) on me, instead of explaining. 
The FAQ-stated policies of intolerance for flaming were rarely 
asserted to those who flamed and flooded during the discussion. If you 
wish the channel to have a policy that only allows a question to be 
asked once, you should agree and express it in the FAQ, so people can 
tell they are being trolled into banned when they are asked "did you 
have a question we didn't answer".

--
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