Re: On what is helpful and what is not [was: Re: Wifi]
On 3/15/14, John L. Ries <jries@salford-systems.com> wrote:
> On Fri, 14 Mar 2014, Tom H wrote:
>
>> On Tue, Mar 11, 2014 at 3:42 AM, Jonathan Dowland <jmtd@debian.org>
>> wrote:
>>> On Tue, Mar 11, 2014 at 01:10:11PM +1100, Charlie Schroeder wrote:
>>>>
>>>> Life isn't about second guessing if you write or speak to someone if
>>>> they will take offence surely? Isn't it so that you say your piece and
>>>> people can take it or leave it. It's up to them.
>>>
>>> "Life" and the Debian user mailing list are not the same thing. You can
>>> make your own rules as to how you life and act within your own life, but
>>> within a community one must abide the community rules. At the moment,
>>> there's nothing explicitly written that dictates that one should be
>>> polite, respectful, avoid causing offence, etc., for the Debian
>>> community nor this mailing list. This is a bug which should be fixed and
>>> the project is considering the adoption of a 'code of conduct' which
>>> will replace the existing mailing list CoC. The text of the proposal is
>>> here[1]. Of particular relevance here is, I think, "a community in which
>>> people feel threatened is not a healthy community".
>>>
>>> [1] https://lists.debian.org/debian-project/2014/02/msg00069.html
>>
>> It's sad that Debian's demeaning itself with this politically-correct
>> rubbish.
>
> Would "politically correct" in this context be a perjorative for "polite"?
>
> It's one thing to complain about efforts to accomodate the political
> sensibilities of others and to hide one's own, but quite a few people now
> seem to regard courtesy itself as a vice.
I can't speak for Tom, but I wouldn't say it's anything to do with
just being polite, nor the expectation and encouragement of people on
the list to be polite. That is a misunderstanding on your part of what
someone means when they say 'this is political correctness gone too
far'.
I say the problem is the formalisation of politeness, and the
formalisation of sanctions. In addition, in this case, clandestine
"moderation" (fancy word for those who find "censorship" to be
politically-incorrect) of our mailing lists has come to light, and is
now being formalised. In the wake of some intensely objectionable
posts to various lists (including this one, debian-user), it is hard
to argue against such 'politically correct' reactions, and I myself
have no simple or easy answer.
There is a saying I don't remember from whom or from where, perhaps
Rudolph Steiner, 'the increase in laws that a society creates is
proportional to the degeneration of the internal morals of those in
that society' - of course I am paraphrasing heavily.
I think that in the long term, as the debian community (developers)
formalise things like this, there are certain definite potential
problems (in the long term), and frankly, I think it will be a very
good thing for the community to go through those problems, because
evidently it is only in the hindsight of actually experiencing such
problems that many people can realise those problems, or see the folly
of the things they do now - like formalising politeness into
legislation (Debian policy) and formalising and condoning activities
such as clandestine censorship (sorry, 'moderation') in the name of
not offending the person who has apparently so offended the community
that they ought be not offended by any public record of the moderation
of them or their post(s).
I predict the following, and mark my words: future and greater
problems will arise directly from this policy (if this policy gets
voted in by the developers) which future problems will only be seen by
many through the experience of those problems (as in, bigger problems
than the ones supposedly being 'solved' today).
Keep well,
Zenaan
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