Re: Censorship in Debian
Scott Kitterman <debian@kitterman.com> writes:
> Nonsense unless you define being an adult as completely and fully
> understanding exactly what the hundreds of people around the world think
> is reasonable.
Anyone who has held down a job in a typical workplace has already shown
that they can understand what's reasonable and adjust to a social
environment well enough to do just fine in Debian. (And yes, I realize
that's *also* a challenging environment for some folks, and in a lot of
cases we can be *more* welcoming than that, but I think it's being aware
of that baseline.)
> I suspect we agree on more than we disagree in this area, but I don't
> think "My way or the highway" is the right answer beyond a certain point
> in a worldwide project like this.
It's certainly not "my" way -- it's some sort of consensus emergent
standards among all of us, which changes in the complicated and intricate
ways of all human communities. But every community has standards of
behavior and social consequences, whether formal or informal, for
violating them. There exists no place on earth in which you can say
literally whatever you want with zero consequences, because humans are a
social species and we interact with each other and those communities
involve making judgments about who we include and don't.
> Please accept that I am concerned that reasonable people who, none the
> less, do not fully accept a certain political orthodoxy are uncertain
> about where the lines are and find that chilling their willingness to
> participate in Debian beyond narrow strictly technical discussions.
Yup, sometimes it's uncertain and uncomfortable. That's because
navigating social situations can be work. It can require effort. And
yes, we all make mistakes (for instance, I just made one in going for
pithy over fully explained, and made it seem like I was attacking you, for
which I sincerely apologize). And it's a process; you step on someone's
foot or put your foot in your mouth, and then you adjust, and pick
yourself up and dust yourself off and try again.
The part that I'm a little frustrated by is that I feel like you think
people of a particular political belief are doing *more* work than others,
and wow, that is not my experience at all. The people who complain the
most about "chilling effects" are, in my experience, the people who are
doing the *least* amount of work in most conversations.
And that may still be a lot of work! That may still be really hard for
them! I'm not saying this to say that they're doing very little work in
some objective sense.
What I am saying is that they seem oblivious to the fact that the people
on the other side of the discussion are *also* doing a *considerable*
amount of work on how they communicate, and when, and what wording they
use, and have been all along. They're just not complaining about it,
because they realize this is just the normal price of human social
community.
> I find this notion that if anyone has any concern or confusion about if
> their opinions are OK to express it's only because they are wrong very
> troubling.
That's not what I'm saying at all, and I'm sorry that it came across that
way. Having concern and confusion about whether your opinions are okay to
express is *also* part of being an adult. This is a universal experience.
--
Russ Allbery (rra@debian.org) <http://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/>
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