On Mon, Mar 05, 2007 at 01:41:09PM +0000, Matthew Garrett wrote: > >Research[1] has shown that one of the primary factors deterring women >from involvement in free software is the perceived hostility of many of >the communities. Do candidates believe that mocking of other members of >the project is acceptable[2], given that a side effect may be to >discourage a significant body of the population from participating >within the project? The problem with mockery is that what some people may see as a harmless joke may be very easily understood as a personal insult. That's even more likely to happen in a large international project like Debian where we have people from lots of different cultures and with differing understanding of English / French / Klingon / whatever idiom. Hence (in general) I'm not a great fan. There are places for it, however; in smaller groups where everybody is friendly and understands the humour, then friendly jibes are entirely reasonable. [1,2] NMF -- Steve McIntyre, Cambridge, UK. steve@einval.com "You can't barbecue lettuce!" -- Ellie Crane
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