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Re: Diversity statement for the Debian Project



On Tue, Mar 27, 2012 at 09:15:30AM +0900, Charles Plessy wrote:
> Le Mon, Mar 26, 2012 at 05:31:35PM +0200, Francesca Ciceri a écrit :
> > Even if bikeshedding is sometimes really annoying, this is the right way
> > to reach a consensus on a such important document and transform it from a
> > copy-pasted template to *our* diversity statement. :)
> 
> Hi,
> 
> I still do not understand why we need to have "our" diversity statement,
> attempt to re-write what has been well written by others. 


I'm sorry, I probably explained not-so-well my thought.
I have nothing against a general well-written template for the diversity
statement, and this is way I picked up the Ubuntu one instead of starting
writing one from scratch.
But I prefer to have a debate/discussion (as is now happening) on it so
we can decide if we really need it, if we *feel* that is important, if we
really share the diversity idea or not. 
This is the process of making it "ours".
Making it "ours" is not about changing some words here and there, but
about discussing and feeling it. Then it will be exactly the same as the
Ubuntu one, no problem on this. But the important part is that we
discuss/decide/share ideas on it. So it will not be just a piece of paper
(ehm, metaphorically speaking).

>  Dreamwidth's statement is inspiring; it is the kind of
> text that is nice to disover one morning, as it will may that day better.  But
> as many other proses, modifying it for the sake of it will not result in an
> improvement.  Why do not we write simply that we recognise ourselves in the
> spirit of Dreamwidth's statement ? 

Fine for me. 
Any other thought on it?

> In particular, one crucial difference with
> the current proposal is that Dreamwidth's text makes an extensive use of long
> list as a figure of style, while in our case it sill gives me a feeling of
> legalese.
>

:)
This is probably due to my not-so-good English. I mean, I'm quite able in
writing inspiring text and using figures of style in Italian, but not
in English.
I'd be glad to leave it to a native speaker, any volunteer?


> More of a detail, but for the neurotypes, I think that it is important to leave
> this out.  On debian-devel, we have to be accurate when we discuss about things
> (like init systems).  Why on debian-project wouldn't it be the same ?  I could
> not find a reference defintion of neurotype on the Internet.

Yes, I agree on accuracy. But please, note that "neurotype" - even if it
hasn't scientific recognition as concept - is the way some people define
themselves. And we must respect it.
Now, for a bit of story and definition of this concept, you can start
from here:
http://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/The_Neurodiversity_Movement/Section_One#What_Is_A_Neurotype.3F
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neurotypical
http://www.neuro-typical.com/

I'm really happy to have found the "neurotype" concept on the Dreamwidth
statement. Sometimes a bit of anthropological and methodological
relativism is a good exercise to keep your mind open.

> I think that teaching
> people that they have a different neurotype is as wrong and harmful as teaching
> them that the reason of their problems was that their parents did not love them.

Wait. We don't teach people. We welcome people. Without pre-assumptions.
There's an entire world of differences.

> I think that we give a wrong image, and false hopes, with a list that goes too
> far on the details.  Why not focusing on the categories for which we know that
> we actually do something, and document what we do.  That is also where we stand
> out from other groups: do-ocraty.
> 
>  - We have debian-women and other expression media to work to reduce
>    passive and active discrimination.
> 
>  - Our infrastructure tries to be as non-discriminative as possible,
>    and for instance we do not require members to indicate their sex or gender
>    in our LDAP database (although if I remember well, we can if we want).
> 
>  - Any other ?  Do we enforce for instance that sponsored events that include organised
>    meals must give opportunity for vegetarians to have proper menus if they ask for ?
>
> And as part of a painful exercise, why not writing black on white where we
> think that we can not act.
> 
>  - While we welcome people with any nationality, we probably can not give
>    access to some of our servers located in country A, to people living
>    or nationals of country B, where A embargoes B.
> 
>  - We require our members to identify themselves with official papers delivered
>    from their state, so if their state is hostile to their minority (like
>    refusing to change the name for transgender or transsexuals), we can not help.


I like both ideas, but I fear that this could turn into a Code of
Conduct, which is not what we're trying to do here. 


Cheers,
Francesca

-- 
"Nostra patria è il mondo intero
e nostra legge è la libertà
ed un pensiero
ribelle in cor ci sta."		P.Gori

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