Re: Clarification about krooger's platform
Matthew Garrett <mgarrett@chiark.greenend.org.uk> wrote:
> Given the relatively short period of time that debian-women has existed,
> it's unsurprising that most of their work is still located on their own
> site rather than integrated into the main suite of pages. It's hardly a
> problem that's limited to debian-women - how many useful pieces of
> documentation are scattered over mailing lists, people.debian.org and
> random other parts of the web?
Yes, sure. I don't think that debian-women get to take the high
ground on secrecy/transparancy, though, as one poster seemed to
be claiming. They're as good as many parts of the project, but
not really Best Practice.
We need to make clear that it is not acceptable to discriminate
or to make secret decisions in this field. I am concerned that
the "directed promotion" supporters in that group still haven't
managed to deal with the "positive discrimination" and think a
DPL could address it as part of a more general inclusion policy:
but do any of these candidates feel it's important enough? Where
does it come on your TODO?
> > Both their list and IRC judge you and if they consider you a
> > "troll" then there is a secret silence against you [...]
> When people refuse to speak to me, I generally interpret that as meaning
> that they don't want to speak to me. Saying nothing is preferable to
> responding in a way that's likely to result in continued argument. We
> have enough pointless arguments in Debian already, and could certainly
> do without them in a forum that's intended to present a welcoming
> atmosphere.
Does this mean that you want more "walls of silence" within the
project?
That would be counter-productive. We know what happens when people
feel there is no "democratic possibility" and social issues will
bring strong emotions. I'm sure I was told that the best action
with people you disagree with is to tell them you disagree,
direct them towards the general reasons and leave it there. I'm
a bit annoyed, as I've just checked three references and can't
find the source for that. As I understand it, the aims are to
make clear that their view is not agreed in that forum, but to
leave open the possibility of future reasonable dialogue.
Apologies if I've misunderstood your point. Please correct me.
> (snip)
>
> Mark, you're entirely within your rights to disagree with the aims of
> the debian-women project. However, it would be nice if you sounded a
> little less openly dismissive of the entire thing. A group of people
> have started working on something that they think needs changing. If you
> don't like their goals or the way that they're going about them, then
> try voicing those opinions in a somewhat more reasonable way.
Hooray for "reasonable" - the truly versatile word.
If one voices those opinions in a more reasonable way, one is
called "troll" and "pseudo-troll" straight off the bat and the
first thing #debian-women do is question your competence.
If I build a bonfire, at least some people will look and wonder
what annoyed me enough to light it. These days, there are few
things which I hate for no reason and I'm usually honest that
those are just prejudice-based. Gender sterotyping is not one
of my prejudices, though, although I know it exists locally.
So why did I light it? I am a white working-class christened
European male, but I will not accept discrimination against me
on that basis, nor do I accept suggestions that that heritage
predicts my beliefs. For example, I suspect that krooger and
asuffield both share some of those attributes, but our beliefs
are different about many things, as far as I can tell.
I'm not dismissive of the idea that debian should work towards a
more representative demographic: I am dismissive of the current
configuration of the debian-women effort. Whether it would be
better to change the configuration or change the effort, I don't
know and don't have much leverage. The DPL has more leverage, so
what do the candidates think is the right way to approach this?
--
MJR/slef
My Opinion Only: see http://people.debian.org/~mjr/
Subscribed to this list. No need to Cc, thanks.
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