[self-follow-up]
It occurred to me that I need to correct and clarify a couple of points.
I'll try to be brief about it, at least relative to my own mean email
length, if not the project's.
At 2023-08-21T16:51:42-0500, G. Branden Robinson wrote:
[...]
> When we went around the block on this issue last year, the first 5
> "offensive" fortunes I asked for, weren't. One I did find to be of
> low quality:
I omitted the word "but" here, and that colon should have been a
semicolon.
> it wasn't homophobic, misogynistic, racist, or a quotation of Adolf
> Hitler.[6]
As it was, my statement was amenable to a perverse misreading--one
which might be legitimately amusing to aficionados of "sick" humor.
The more important points involve my proposed procedure for fielding
challenges to the erstwhile fortunes-off package's content.
[...]
> In my earlier lengthy reply this month, I anticipated a disputation
> process that would work like this. Here it is in detail.
>
> 1. Someone files a bug against the package, citing the individual
> fortune(s) to which they object. There's no reason to require
> that they be quoted; whatever unambiguously identifies the entries
> in question would suffice. (Observing that the command's '-m'
> flags work as union instead of intersection operators, I find
> myself wishing that fortune(6) more closely resembled lookbib(1).)
> Some of sort of volume- and rate-limiting is necessary; filing a
> report for every fortune in the (former) fortunes-off package
> would be abusive of project resources, not simply of me, who is
> used to it.
>
> 2. The package maintainer (me, I reckon) reviews the items and
> updates, discards, or retains each--per my personal taste, which
> is informed by affection for the Debian Project and a desire to
> see it endure, since I have no better metric I can apply as a
> volunteer on unscheduled time.
Normally I am a stickler for terminology, especially when a discussion
is heated, because being clear about what is one is talking about is of
elevated importance when emotions are.
> 3. The reporter is either satisfied or not. If not, I reckon the
> forum of appeal is the CoC committee.
The body to which I refer is called the Community Team.[1] I think I
lazily borrowed the foregoing coinage from someone else; I should have
been more careful.
Further, the question over whether that body _is_ the appropriate forum
for resolving disputes over the appropriateness of package content is an
open one. I readily concede the possibilities that (a) such decisions
are not within the Community Team's remit, and that (b) the team as
currently constituted may lack the appetite for such responsibility.
I invite you to share your own perspective on those questions, Andy.
> 4. The CoC deliberates.
>
> 5. The CoC either directs me to dispose of some item(s) or does not.
>
> 6. If they do direct me to dispose of one or more items, I decide
> whether I can live with that decision. If I can, I adopt it and
> upload a new version. If I can't, I guess my experiment in
> maintaining the package concludes, and I orphan it.
These steps presume affirmative answers to the open questions above.
> 7. Independently of the foregoing, I can at any point be referred to
> the CoC committee for writing too many lengthy emails, or
> otherwise for being a nuisance. I may be expelled, and thus the
> package becomes orphaned and removed by default--a stern warning
> is sent to any would-be adopters thereby. Use of the passive
> voice here is deliberate. This sort of operation has no face.
> (If this dark musing is incomprehensible to the reader, be glad
> you weren't around 20-25 years ago when our project had a cabal.
> TINC.)
By contrast, since I am participating on the Debian mailing lists,
whatever I say here would appear to be within the Community Team's
wheelhouse. If the content prohibition you (Andy) and the person who
filed LP#1996682 have mooted is applicable, then I have already posted
multiple messages (this month and last year) that expose me to
disciplinary jeopardy. I feel that I have a case for my defense, but it
would rely upon that dread beast "context".[2]
On the one hand, the reporter of LP#1996682 objected to the entire
contents of the fortunes-off package (literally, everything that it was
"full of"), and as I pointed out last year, this includes quotes by
Richard Hofstadter, Hunter S. Thompson, Ambrose Bierce, Edna St. Vincent
Millay, Albert Einstein, Stephen Jay Gould, and George Carlin on a
variety of topics. Perhaps that person's bug report is better
interpreted as an emotional outburst than as a claim that is susceptible
to analysis by any sort of content review body using an even vaguely
objective and articulable standard of evaluation.
Again I invite the reader to count up how many Nazis, and how many
Jewish people, are in that list. It is curious that no opponents of
the fortunes-off package's contents have yet stepped forward to proclaim
the consequences of their actions as consistent with the values they
claimed to be upholding by eliminating it.[3]
I apologize for attaching an appendix to my earlier message so quickly.
I acknowledge that a decent interval is best left for passage of my
mails through one's digestive tract.
Regards,
Branden
[1] https://wiki.debian.org/Teams/Community
[2] I renew my invitation to locate the Hitler quote(s) in the exhibits
I offered in my message of 19 August. I am confident that a
sufficiently awakened mind will have no difficulty locating it--or
them. The speech of evil people veritably blazons its depravity
with every utterance, does it not?
https://lists.debian.org/debian-project/2023/08/msg00045.html
[3] I already know Steve L.'s metric. Admah and Zeboiim tremble.
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