Re: "Debian women may leave due to 'sexist' post"
On Mon, Dec 22, 2008 at 12:59:51PM -0700, Monique Y. Mudama wrote:
> The article linked to the mail message, which baffled me. More than
> anything, isn't the message simply off topic? I don't know, maybe I
> live in a fantasy land, but given the response on other technical
> lists to off topic messages, I simply can't fathom why a developer
> would post a message like that.
He apologized for that later on.
> Mostly, I feel sorry for the guy who posted this joke, because I don't
> think it was meant to be offensive -- it seems more likely to me that
> the developer is perhaps a little socially inept and misguaged his
> audience. Of course, something can be offensive even when the author
> has no such intent.
Hear, hear.
> If anything, I think it's a poorly done joke, and a waste of time on
> -devel.
The message was sent to -devel-announce, not -devel.
> But I don't know if the message needs to be taken in context
> with many other messages.
It was a more or less direct parody at the previous message,
http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-announce/2008/11/msg00004.html
I think most people believe that the sender of the message disapproved
with the previous message being on -devel-announce (a list only meant
for important announcements), and tried some parody on it.
> Maybe this one message is weird and not so great, but taken in the
> context of other messages I don't know about, the whole of it comes
> across as unwelcoming?
The problem is that -devel-announce is far more widely read and noticed
than -devel (and only Debian Developers can send messages or sponsor
message to be sent there), so inappropriate and off-topic messages on
there are much more of a problem to the outside appearance Debian than
inappropriate messages on -devel. Inappropriate messages on -devel are
a big problem for the internal working of Debian, though.
Michael
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