On Tue, Mar 27, 2012 at 2:32 PM, Graydon Hoare <gray...@mozilla.com> wrote:
> On 12-03-27 10:51 AM, Majken Connor wrote:
> > I like the first paragraph for sure. The second paragraph may or may not
> > be the right idea. The reason I haven't brought up examples before is
> > that people really do differ on what is ok and when tolerance is
> > promotion. I know some women will feel that all TWSS jokes are
> > misogynistic and shouldn't be tolerated as they make it acceptable to
> > think of women as sex objects to be joked about.
> Yeah, I agree 'joke' is a tricky one to speak clearly on. Humor thrives
> on cultural peculiarities, ambiguity, context, juxtaposition,
> personalities involved, even timing! But as it's used so commonly as a
> cloak for abusive behavior -- "I was only joking with that hugely
> offensive thing I just said" -- I think it's worth giving some text to.
I know this one, but it's pretty easy to tell when someone was really
joking and when they're just pleading defense. There is a difference
between a meanspirited joke and one that relies on shock for it's humor.
The real life examples I'm thinking of that your example brings up are easy
to categorize - the person couldn't tell it was "a joke." That's a
different category than "I don't think those kinds of jokes are funny."
> The reason I think it's good to err on the side of a conduct guideline
> that says "joke + hurt = inhibit-joke" is that it's relatively easy to
> inhibit joking behavior -- you just apologize and stop making jokes --
> whereas it's ... much, much harder to find something funny if you don't.
> No, and you don't have to find something offensive to not find it funny.
So I think this is the wrong measure. I think the problem is how to measure
"hurt." Was someone actually hurt by it, or are they against them on
principle? The problem is you can't usually tell from a joke whether or not
someone actually holds those beliefs. Another personal example. Here's an
offensive joke I find hilarious:
Q. What do you get when you cross a Mormon with an Indian [native american
in this case]? A. A basement full of stolen groceries.
I was raised mormon and a large part of my family is Native American. I
don't find it funny because I hate those groups and think it's an apt
description (in that case I'd nod in agreement, not laugh). I like the play
about the basement full of groceries (a true quirk) and the absurd idea
that they'd be stolen. If I did think Natives had an endemic problem with
theft I wouldn't find it funny, I'd find it insensitive. So one part of the
joke is funny cuz it's true, the other part is funny cuz it's ridiculous. I
think it's the combination of true + ridiculous that makes humour. In my
interpretation, this joke is making fun of the stereotype, and pointing out
that the stereotype is absurd - not condoning it.
> > So I hate dead baby jokes, always have and it got worse when I had kids.
> > I don't think there's anything funny about harming children. But they're
> > jokes, it's mostly about wordplay which I do appreciate in other
> > contexts. I don't want a system that allows me to ban dead baby jokes
> > from everywhere I hang out unless people are purposely telling them to
> > me, or around me to upset me.
> Ok. Those 'unless' clauses are valuable, and what I intended to capture
> with the qualifications in the second para. Is there a way you'd be
> comfortable framing them for inclusion in Deb's writing? If you say
> "this is presently upsetting me, here and now, please stop", do you feel
> that request should be respected? Or should "sorry, it's a joke so we're
> going to keep telling them here" make it ok _even after you expressed
> that upset_?
I think if it's genuinely upsetting people yes absolutely the joke should
move. I have a problem with the more extreme cases. Like if someone says
"all TWSS jokes are degrading to women and you're all sexist if you don't
stop" I wouldn't want to accommodate that attitude because it's arbitrary
and it also assigns intentions arbitrarily.
> Of course, if you're not upset enough to mention it -- or if in the
> spirit of appreciating human diversity you find overhearing those jokes
> enriches your life more than it harms you -- you are under no obligation
> to ask someone to stop. My concern is merely that you have a rhetorical
> leg to stand on (in terms of "text of community norms") when and if you
> have had enough of someone's jokes, after you've expressed that they're
> hurting you.
I agree, a joke doesn't have to be offensive to be overdone or annoying.
Though I think in some channels the answer is for the annoyed person to
leave. So if people started a channel to tell obnoxious jokes, and someone
says "I love obnoxious jokes but not those ones" I think they need to put
up with it or leave that place.
> On 26/03/2012 10:02 PM, Gijs Kruitbosch wrote:
>>> The response I _won't_ accept here is saying "some people can sometimes
>>> disagree over various ill-defined things, so there can be no effective
>>> system of decision-making on anything!" That's a diversionary tactic to
>>> avoid addressing the specific terms at hand.
>> NB: This is the second time you're poisoning the well, in my opinion.
>> It's not sustainable to just refuse to discuss with people holding
>> axioms different from yours.
> I am happy to discuss. What I won't _accept_ are his attempts to dismiss the
> topic by alluding to "disagreements" without stating them. In other words, I
> will continue to ask for him to present the disagreements explicitly. If you
> think we should be fine with trolls, _say why_.
I think the problem with giving an explicit list is that the list will be non-exhaustive and you will respond to the individual points on the list, rather than responding to the belief that trying to make an exhaustive list is futile. I will give it a shot further down, though. Anyway, please refrain from name-calling, it doesn't further the discussion.
Generally, arguing that people disagree over these definitions doesn't imply a belief that there can't be a(n effective) decision-making process. I disagree with your attempt to standardize definitions. Instead, I think we should leave whatever group of people (that ends up deciding when problems arise) to make their own decisions. If the group ends up fairly representing the diversity in our community (and I'm sure it will), then I would happily trust them with making those decisions; much more than I would trust us to pre-emptively formulate an entire para-legal process detailing what is and isn't OK.
>> Please don't strawman people who argue that those words aren't specific
>> into saying that the things they're supposed to describe are OK. Those
>> are not (at all) the same opinions.
> Ok. Describe some forms of behavior you're worried will be unfairly deemed
> unacceptable by the phrase "intimidation and harassment". Maybe there are useful
> qualifications that can be put on that phrase; I said I thought it was specific
> enough, but if you have further refinements I'm all ears. Maybe I agree with
> those qualifications too! I haven't heard any, so it's hard to say.
I'm saying that it's difficult to decide whether discrimination, intimidation or harassment did happen, and 'how bad' it is. You didn't specify who decides and on what basis. Things to take into account:
- the (previous) working as well as personal relationship between the (alleged) victim and intimidator
- intent
- where on the public--private scale did this (these things) happen?
- to what extent did the victim try to engage with the attacker directly to prevent reoccurence? (we should obviously not require this, but it would be worse, say, if someone had already told someone else to stop, to no avail)
- in what forum did this happen? (eg. web forum, newsgroup/mailing list, IRC/IM, phone (conference), casual chat, formal meeting, interview, ...)
- from what kind of cultural, national and personal background do the people involved approach this problem?
- are there deeper medical/psychological issues at hand?
This list is not exhaustive, as I warned above. And already I don't really see how you would intend to codify something like this. As just one example, something happening blatantly in public (say, public humiliation at a conference/meeting) can make things 'worse', and on the other hand, something happening in a very private moment (say, an interview) can make something be 'worse'. I just don't see any point trying to write down general rules about this.
As you asked for examples, here's a very concrete (albeit completely fictitious) one:
Let's suppose I had a daughter who was a girl scout and with her troop they went out and sold cookies. The money will go to a project campaigning against (female) circumcision/genital mutilation. Proud as I am of my daughter, I write a blogpost about this that gets syndicated to planet, and link to various charities so my international Mozillian friends can donate to this beautiful cause even if they can't have my daughter's yummy cookies.
Is this OK? What about members of our community (should there be any) which are from such a country and think that calling it genital mutilation is insulting, and (supposing I didn't mince words in saying how awful I would have argued it was) that I was actively discriminating against people born in such cultures? How bad would it have to be to be considered discriminatory, harassing or intimidating? Would I have to threaten physical violence if I ever met someone who actively participated in it? Does it matter that it was really my daughter's yummy cookies which made me post this, rather than some kind of intense and grueling hatred of people from the respective cultures? Does it matter if it was about male or female circumcision (about which Western cultures, as far as I can tell, hold different opinions (something which I don't want to debate right now, fwiw!)). Maybe I offended people of a particular faith (even if I didn't mention religion). Does that make it worse? As she is a girl scout and they are (in some countries) affiliated with Catholicism, does that make a difference? Does it matter if I'm Catholic myself? What if English was my third language, or generally worse than the English in this post (not that that's stellar, but...)? What if you knew I was having marriage problems?
--
Note that some of the (rhetorical) questions imply 'mitigating circumstances' - by which I don't mean to downplay the seriousness of what could happen, just that 'punishment' might vary depending on such factors.
--
Again, I would prefer situations like this to be resolved on a case-by-case basis. What do you think we gain by trying to pre-emptively construct a moral framework of what is and isn't OK? What kind of leeway will whoever gets to apply such a framework have in doing so?
>> We can probably all agree that harassment is bad, we just all have a
>> different concept of *exactly* what it means (you said you are happy
>> about moral relativism, so I assume I don't need to defend this
>> statement; please let me know if I'm mistaken). And depending on our
>> concepts, an action will or will not qualify as such. Which is why it is
>> debatable whether or not it helps to have these terms in the CoC.
> Here you're doing what I said I wouldn't accept Gerv doing: using "the potential
> for disagreement" as an excuse for shutting down the line of normative inquiry
> ("it's debatable..") If we "all agree that harassment is bad", let's say so. If
> there are exceptions to that agreement that we can see from this early distance,
> let's find them and state them in terms qualifying the agreement.
I am just too cautious. Let me attempt to be more blunt: I think including these terms is a mistake because they are inherently vague and unclear, and would prefer a CoC without them. Here are some arguments in link form:
> Being "happy about moral relativism" means I'm ok seeing moral
> (social-normative) questions resolved through social processes, like this
> discussion we're having here, and further escalation through the mozilla
> governance system. Relativism is not a preemptive stance against holding or
> constructing moral judgments. That's an absolutist canard.
Of course, you're very welcome to make moral judgments. But constructing a single judgment is not the same as constructing a morality (ie moral framework) in a community, and that is what is at issue here: whether fixing a complete, community-agree definition of morality in this CoC is feasible, and I posit that it is not. Our community and the issues at stake are too diverse. And that is a feature, not a bug.
Again, I'm in favour of solving this by a social process - *on a case by case basis* . This simplifies the decision as it will pertain to real issues and real people with a real context, rather than hypotheticals.
> On 27/03/2012 3:13 AM, Gervase Markham wrote:
>> I want to avoid seeing the Code of
>> Conduct used as a back-door to force, as a condition of participation in
>> our community, agreement with the majority or silence on issues outside
>> the scope of our mission.
> Not agreement. Merely restraint on action. I have never suggested any of
> this will change your opinions one iota, and that's not my concern. I
> simply want you to adopt the social norm of not acting in some specific
> hurtful ways, and trying to make amends when told that you did. It's not
> a high bar.
Graydon, Gerv said "agreement or silence". What you're saying is "yes, silence."
> I think the problem with giving an explicit list is that the list will
> be non-exhaustive and you will respond to the individual points on the
> list, rather than responding to the belief that trying to make an
> exhaustive list is futile. I will give it a shot further down, though.
> Anyway, please refrain from name-calling, it doesn't further the
> discussion.
Have I called you names so far? I'm sorry if so. Trying to remain civil.
As I said before, I think non-exhaustiveness of textual policy is not a
sufficient excuse for avoiding its construction or substantially
curtailing obvious and predictable specifics it might address. I don't
understand why this case would be different from other policies.
It seems we're now having an ... unfortunate meta-disagreement about
whether (or how much) to try to modulate disagreements through _text_,
or merely chosen _people_ we grant community-governance authority to.
Given that the root of this thread was Mitchell's decision to task Deb
with writing (surveying, accumulating, editing) some text, I ... am
confused about which part (if any) you're addressing. Do you want to
have nothing written? Or merely cut it short?
> Instead, I think we should leave whatever group of people (that ends up
> deciding when problems arise) to make their own decisions.
Really? You'd prefer we establish a group of people and give them,
presumably, some kind of conflict-resolving authority, but have them
exercise that with _no_ written guidelines? Or no specific ones, only
vague ones?
> I would happily trust them with making those decisions;
> much more than I would trust us to pre-emptively formulate an entire
> para-legal process detailing what is and isn't OK.
Ok. Nothing we do or say here has force of law -- really at worst it's
probably just requests for apologies and/or requests to leave certain
forums -- but I (personally) prefer some clarity-in-writing about
standards. Written documents have a bit of dispassionate (not to mention
time-saving) force in conflict resolution. It's why we have laws in the
first place, not just judges.
> I'm saying that it's difficult to decide whether discrimination,
> intimidation or harassment did happen, and 'how bad' it is. You didn't
> specify who decides and on what basis. Things to take into account:
> - the (previous) working as well as personal relationship between the
> (alleged) victim and intimidator
> - intent
> - where on the public--private scale did this (these things) happen?
> - to what extent did the victim try to engage with the attacker directly
> to prevent reoccurence? (we should obviously not require this, but it
> would be worse, say, if someone had already told someone else to stop,
> to no avail)
> - in what forum did this happen? (eg. web forum, newsgroup/mailing list,
> IRC/IM, phone (conference), casual chat, formal meeting, interview, ...)
> - from what kind of cultural, national and personal background do the
> people involved approach this problem?
> - are there deeper medical/psychological issues at hand?
Ok. These are ... plausible dimensions to policy. Personally I think
these are _mostly_ orthogonal the problems at hand, but it's coherent to
suggest they have bearing. See below.
> This list is not exhaustive, as I warned above.
I believe it's not too long a list (7 qualifications?) to look at the
elements individually. You can throw a few more in and we won't drown in
complexity. I don't think most of them should apply -- which medical
issues have a bearing on harassment? -- but you can discuss that.
They're worth considering if you are concerned that they should really
influence policy.
> really see how you would intend to codify something like this.
We've been looking at a number of documents that do just that. Indeed,
you link into the middle of wikipedia's document-cluster on just this
matter. Do you not understand how those bodies-of-policy work?
> As you asked for examples, here's a very concrete (albeit completely
> fictitious) one:
Great! Let me answer equally concretely on how I think such a policy --
using the guidelines Deb has posted and the refinements I've proposed --
might apply. In the spirit of creative fiction. Naturally if you
disagree with any of the suggestions in anything Deb or I or anyone else
might have written on this, you'll disagree with the snap judgments I'm
making in response:
> Let's suppose I had a daughter who was a girl scout and with her troop
> they went out and sold cookies. The money will go to a project
> campaigning against (female) circumcision/genital mutilation. Proud as I
> am of my daughter, I write a blogpost about this that gets syndicated to
> planet, and link to various charities so my international Mozillian
> friends can donate to this beautiful cause even if they can't have my
> daughter's yummy cookies.
> Is this OK?
It's starting off on shaky footing. Reasonable for someone to take issue
with. It's public proselytizing against a "cause" that can easily be
read (apparently "is read", as your example shows) as an opposition to
an entire country's culture. I was suggesting in the previous post that
public, unsolicited proselytizing against protected groups is a
plausible place to draw a line between acceptable and unacceptable
discussion of that group. "By-country" is a way we'd be protecting
groups from discrimination, so .. yeah. Problematic.
> What about members of our community (should there be any)
> which are from such a country and think that calling it genital
> mutilation is insulting, and (supposing I didn't mince words in saying
> how awful I would have argued it was) that I was actively discriminating
> against people born in such cultures?
They may have a valid complaint! Do you do anything to address it?
Apologize, take the thing down, de-syndicate it from planet, or do
anything to indicate that you accept that you've hurt them?
> How bad would it have to be to be
> considered discriminatory, harassing or intimidating?
Discriminatory against protected groups, it sounds like from the get-go.
I mean, you're saying they read it as such. So yes. Harassing I think
not; that usually requires you to be targeting an individual or
set-of-individuals (by identity) rather than by group-membership.
Intimidating is inducing fear of injury or harm. So we'd have to look at
the words of your post to see if it did anything like that.
> Would I have to
> threaten physical violence if I ever met someone who actively
> participated in it?
That'd make it intimidating too. Depends if you did that.
> Does it matter that it was really my daughter's
> yummy cookies which made me post this, rather than some kind of intense
> and grueling hatred of people from the respective cultures?
Plausible. I think no, but plausible. Would depend what status we gave
'intent' in the policy. Intent does not excuse everything. The degree to
which intent factors into moral considerations varies by moral
framework. In formal (legal) moral systems, intent usually _doesn't_
matter -- only action and relief matter -- and intent only kicks in as a
qualifier at severe-consequences (criminal) level. "Mens rea" and such.
Because it's hard to establish intent, and everyone will always claim
they didn't mean it.
In informal moral contexts -- talking among friends -- lack of intent
usually buys you +/- one exception to standards. That is: you get to
hear one piece of feedback "you are doing X, do you mean to?" and if you
say "yes" and carry on doing X, it is now clearly your intent to
continue with X, so you lose the "didn't mean to" excuse. How and when
this applies varies by topic.
If you think intent ought to factor into all or some CoC guidelines
(Majken suggests it ought to for jokes; the wikipedia page on harassment
includes the perception of intent) then that's possible. But keep in
mind that "I didn't mean to" usually only buys you a limited number of
retries.
> Does it
> matter if it was about male or female circumcision (about which Western
> cultures, as far as I can tell, hold different opinions (something which
> I don't want to debate right now, fwiw!)).
No, and I don't see how it could. In this putative blog post you didn't
say anything about male circumcision, so nobody who identifies with the
"cause" or culture of male circumcision has any words-of-yours to feel
hurt by.
> Maybe I offended people of a
> particular faith (even if I didn't mention religion). Does that make it
> worse?
"Offense" is a straw-man word that nobody has actually proposed we
provide policy restraints on. I ask that you stop using it.
If you insulted, intimidated, discriminated-against (in the public
proselytizing sense) that religion, then sure. That'd be problematic in
the same way it's problematic to do so against citizens of a country.
> As she is a girl scout and they are (in some countries)
> affiliated with Catholicism, does that make a difference?
No. Because while her religious identity is something she has every
right to, it does not imply your choice to proselytize against female
circumcision in mozilla spaces.
> Does it matter if I'm Catholic myself?
No. Because likewise, your religious identity does not imply your choice
to proselytize about this matter in mozilla spaces. You could choose to,
or not to, independent of your religious identity. As many other people
sharing your religious identity in this space are demonstrating.
> What if English was my third language, or
> generally worse than the English in this post (not that that's stellar,
> but...)?
No bearing in this case (your demonstrated skill; plus if you meant it
and the recipients heard it, language wasn't the issue). But plausible
in many cases. It's a
...
>> I think the problem with giving an explicit list is that the list will
>> be non-exhaustive and you will respond to the individual points on the
>> list, rather than responding to the belief that trying to make an
>> exhaustive list is futile. I will give it a shot further down, though.
>> Anyway, please refrain from name-calling, it doesn't further the
>> discussion.
> Have I called you names so far? I'm sorry if so.
Suggesting someone is a troll is on the border of name calling. Then again, it's also a description of a specific kind of behavior that I don't have much of a tolerance for.
I've called another Mozilla contributor an asshole because the particular behavior he was engaged in fit one definition of asshole* quite well. Later found out that many believed I had crossed a line.
Troll is similar, I think. It's tricky. It's an insult, and a description of unacceptable behavior.
On Tue, Mar 27, 2012 at 8:10 PM, Graydon Hoare <gray...@mozilla.com> wrote:
> On 12-03-27 01:26 PM, Gijs Kruitbosch wrote:
> > I think the problem with giving an explicit list is that the list will
> > be non-exhaustive and you will respond to the individual points on the
> > list, rather than responding to the belief that trying to make an
> > exhaustive list is futile. I will give it a shot further down, though.
> > Anyway, please refrain from name-calling, it doesn't further the
> > discussion.
> Have I called you names so far? I'm sorry if so. Trying to remain civil.
> As I said before, I think non-exhaustiveness of textual policy is not a
> sufficient excuse for avoiding its construction or substantially
> curtailing obvious and predictable specifics it might address. I don't
> understand why this case would be different from other policies.
> It seems we're now having an ... unfortunate meta-disagreement about
> whether (or how much) to try to modulate disagreements through _text_,
> or merely chosen _people_ we grant community-governance authority to.
> Given that the root of this thread was Mitchell's decision to task Deb
> with writing (surveying, accumulating, editing) some text, I ... am
> confused about which part (if any) you're addressing. Do you want to
> have nothing written? Or merely cut it short?
> > Instead, I think we should leave whatever group of people (that ends up
> > deciding when problems arise) to make their own decisions.
> Really? You'd prefer we establish a group of people and give them,
> presumably, some kind of conflict-resolving authority, but have them
> exercise that with _no_ written guidelines? Or no specific ones, only
> vague ones?
> > I would happily trust them with making those decisions;
> > much more than I would trust us to pre-emptively formulate an entire
> > para-legal process detailing what is and isn't OK.
> Ok. Nothing we do or say here has force of law -- really at worst it's
> probably just requests for apologies and/or requests to leave certain
> forums -- but I (personally) prefer some clarity-in-writing about
> standards. Written documents have a bit of dispassionate (not to mention
> time-saving) force in conflict resolution. It's why we have laws in the
> first place, not just judges.
> > I'm saying that it's difficult to decide whether discrimination,
> > intimidation or harassment did happen, and 'how bad' it is. You didn't
> > specify who decides and on what basis. Things to take into account:
> > - the (previous) working as well as personal relationship between the
> > (alleged) victim and intimidator
> > - intent
> > - where on the public--private scale did this (these things) happen?
> > - to what extent did the victim try to engage with the attacker directly
> > to prevent reoccurence? (we should obviously not require this, but it
> > would be worse, say, if someone had already told someone else to stop,
> > to no avail)
> > - in what forum did this happen? (eg. web forum, newsgroup/mailing list,
> > IRC/IM, phone (conference), casual chat, formal meeting, interview, ...)
> > - from what kind of cultural, national and personal background do the
> > people involved approach this problem?
> > - are there deeper medical/psychological issues at hand?
> Ok. These are ... plausible dimensions to policy. Personally I think
> these are _mostly_ orthogonal the problems at hand, but it's coherent to
> suggest they have bearing. See below.
> > This list is not exhaustive, as I warned above.
> I believe it's not too long a list (7 qualifications?) to look at the
> elements individually. You can throw a few more in and we won't drown in
> complexity. I don't think most of them should apply -- which medical
> issues have a bearing on harassment? -- but you can discuss that.
> They're worth considering if you are concerned that they should really
> influence policy.
> > really see how you would intend to codify something like this.
> We've been looking at a number of documents that do just that. Indeed,
> you link into the middle of wikipedia's document-cluster on just this
> matter. Do you not understand how those bodies-of-policy work?
> > As you asked for examples, here's a very concrete (albeit completely
> > fictitious) one:
> Great! Let me answer equally concretely on how I think such a policy --
> using the guidelines Deb has posted and the refinements I've proposed --
> might apply. In the spirit of creative fiction. Naturally if you
> disagree with any of the suggestions in anything Deb or I or anyone else
> might have written on this, you'll disagree with the snap judgments I'm
> making in response:
> > Let's suppose I had a daughter who was a girl scout and with her troop
> > they went out and sold cookies. The money will go to a project
> > campaigning against (female) circumcision/genital mutilation. Proud as I
> > am of my daughter, I write a blogpost about this that gets syndicated to
> > planet, and link to various charities so my international Mozillian
> > friends can donate to this beautiful cause even if they can't have my
> > daughter's yummy cookies.
> > Is this OK?
> It's starting off on shaky footing. Reasonable for someone to take issue
> with. It's public proselytizing against a "cause" that can easily be
> read (apparently "is read", as your example shows) as an opposition to
> an entire country's culture. I was suggesting in the previous post that
> public, unsolicited proselytizing against protected groups is a
> plausible place to draw a line between acceptable and unacceptable
> discussion of that group. "By-country" is a way we'd be protecting
> groups from discrimination, so .. yeah. Problematic.
> > What about members of our community (should there be any)
> > which are from such a country and think that calling it genital
> > mutilation is insulting, and (supposing I didn't mince words in saying
> > how awful I would have argued it was) that I was actively discriminating
> > against people born in such cultures?
> They may have a valid complaint! Do you do anything to address it?
> Apologize, take the thing down, de-syndicate it from planet, or do
> anything to indicate that you accept that you've hurt them?
> > How bad would it have to be to be
> > considered discriminatory, harassing or intimidating?
> Discriminatory against protected groups, it sounds like from the get-go.
> I mean, you're saying they read it as such. So yes. Harassing I think
> not; that usually requires you to be targeting an individual or
> set-of-individuals (by identity) rather than by group-membership.
> Intimidating is inducing fear of injury or harm. So we'd have to look at
> the words of your post to see if it did anything like that.
> > Would I have to
> > threaten physical violence if I ever met someone who actively
> > participated in it?
> That'd make it intimidating too. Depends if you did that.
> > Does it matter that it was really my daughter's
> > yummy cookies which made me post this, rather than some kind of intense
> > and grueling hatred of people from the respective cultures?
> Plausible. I think no, but plausible. Would depend what status we gave
> 'intent' in the policy. Intent does not excuse everything. The degree to
> which intent factors into moral considerations varies by moral
> framework. In formal (legal) moral systems, intent usually _doesn't_
> matter -- only action and relief matter -- and intent only kicks in as a
> qualifier at severe-consequences (criminal) level. "Mens rea" and such.
> Because it's hard to establish intent, and everyone will always claim
> they didn't mean it.
> In informal moral contexts -- talking among friends -- lack of intent
> usually buys you +/- one exception to standards. That is: you get to
> hear one piece of feedback "you are doing X, do you mean to?" and if you
> say "yes" and carry on doing X, it is now clearly your intent to
> continue with X, so you lose the "didn't mean to" excuse. How and when
> this applies varies by topic.
> If you think intent ought to factor into all or some CoC guidelines
> (Majken suggests it ought to for jokes; the wikipedia page on harassment
> includes the perception of intent) then that's possible. But keep in
> mind that "I didn't mean to" usually only buys you a limited number of
> retries.
> > Does it
> > matter if it was about male or female circumcision (about which Western
> > cultures, as far as I can tell, hold different opinions (something which
> > I don't want to debate right now, fwiw!)).
> No, and I don't see how it could. In this putative blog post you didn't
> say anything about male circumcision, so nobody who identifies with the
> "cause" or culture of male circumcision has any words-of-yours to feel
> hurt by.
> > Maybe I offended people of a
> > particular faith (even if I didn't mention religion). Does that make it
> > worse?
> "Offense" is a straw-man word that nobody has actually proposed we
> provide policy restraints on. I ask that you stop using it.
> If you insulted, intimidated, discriminated-against (in the public
> proselytizing sense) that religion, then sure. That'd be problematic in
> the same way it's problematic to do so against citizens of a country.
> > As she is a girl scout and they are (in some countries)
> > affiliated with Catholicism, does that make a difference?
> No. Because while her religious identity is something she has every
> right to, it does not imply your choice to proselytize against female
> circumcision in mozilla spaces.
> > Does it matter if I'm Catholic myself?
> No. Because likewise, your religious identity does not imply your choice
> to proselytize about this matter in mozilla spaces. You could choose to,
> or not to,
> Graydon, Gerv said "agreement or silence". What you're saying is "yes,
> silence."
> Am I wrong?
Yes. I said restraint, not silence. This is about differentiating
informative self-expression (ok) from more hurtful acts (not ok). I
don't care if he agrees with the majority. I don't even know what the
majority thinks about most marginalized groups, because they exercise
some restraint in action, by not proselytizing about them.
> On 3/27/2012 5:10 PM, Graydon Hoare wrote:
>> Have I called you names so far? I'm sorry if so.
> Suggesting someone is a troll is on the border of name calling. Then
> again, it's also a description of a specific kind of behavior that I
> don't have much of a tolerance for.
Sure. But uh .. I didn't call anyone a troll, did I? I've called a few
arguments disingenuous or straw-man, but I think the only time I talked
about trolling was in reference to whether or not the CoC ought to
mention the (self-chosen) behavioral description "troll" that Cedric
mentioned. I think it'd be good to explicitly prohibit, but I don't
think anyone's trolling in this thread, and certainly didn't wish to
cast that insult. Sorry if I did anywhere.
> On 12-03-27 05:20 PM, Asa Dotzler wrote:
>> On 3/27/2012 5:10 PM, Graydon Hoare wrote:
>>> Have I called you names so far? I'm sorry if so.
>> Suggesting someone is a troll is on the border of name calling. Then
>> again, it's also a description of a specific kind of behavior that I
>> don't have much of a tolerance for.
> Sure. But uh .. I didn't call anyone a troll, did I? I've called a few
> arguments disingenuous or straw-man, but I think the only time I talked
> about trolling was in reference to whether or not the CoC ought to
> mention the (self-chosen) behavioral description "troll" that Cedric
> mentioned. I think it'd be good to explicitly prohibit, but I don't
> think anyone's trolling in this thread, and certainly didn't wish to
> cast that insult. Sorry if I did anywhere.
> -Graydon
You said,
> I am happy to discuss. What I won't _accept_ are [Gerv's] attempts to dismiss the
> topic by alluding to "disagreements" without stating them. In other words, I
> will continue to ask for him to present the disagreements explicitly. If you
> think we should be fine with trolls, _say why_.
It seemed like you called Gerv's behavior trolling or possibly called Gerv a troll. That's how I read it, anyway. I think that's how Gijs read it too.
>> Graydon, Gerv said "agreement or silence". What you're saying is "yes,
>> silence."
>> Am I wrong?
> Yes. I said restraint, not silence. This is about differentiating
> informative self-expression (ok) from more hurtful acts (not ok).
> -Graydon
I'm sorry. I don't see the difference between restraint and silence here. Can you help me understand?
I read Gerv's post as informative self-expression and not as a hurtful act. I'm sure I'm not alone in that. Others read it as a hurtful act.
What do we tell Gerv in this case? You suggest "use restraint" but I cannot see how that translates to anything other than "shut up about it" in this case -- especially given on the many calls for the Planet team to silence Gerv.
I thought Gerv's post was actually quite restrained. He didn't say "Some people don't deserve rights" or "I disapprove of certain people" or anything like that. He said something like "We all have equal rights under the current law. It's separate but equal. If you agree with me that the current law is good and should not be changed, sign this petition to keep the current law in place."
I think we're kidding ourselves if we think there is some more restrained way raise the issue Gerv raised. IMO, that was a restrained as you could get raising the issue at all. If that's not restrained enough, then the only interpretation I can possibly make of your kind of "restraint" is "keep it to yourself."
And so what we're really talking about here is outlawing certain topics in the Mozilla community and I think we should be honest about that.
>> I am happy to discuss. What I won't _accept_ are [Gerv's] attempts to
>> dismiss the
>> topic by alluding to "disagreements" without stating them. In other
>> words, I
>> will continue to ask for him to present the disagreements explicitly.
>> If you
>> think we should be fine with trolls, _say why_.
> It seemed like you called Gerv's behavior trolling or possibly called
> Gerv a troll. That's how I read it, anyway. I think that's how Gijs read
> it too.
Wow. Ok, that's surprising to me. I'm sorry I conveyed that. I didn't think Gerv was being a troll there, not at all. I criticized his dismissive stance, and asked him to say why he might think (or might not think) that _other people trolling_ is something the CoC should have language about. But there was nothing trollish about his behavior in this thread. I'm sorry for implying such.
> I'm sorry. I don't see the difference between restraint and silence > here. Can you help me understand?
> I read Gerv's post as informative self-expression and not as a hurtful > act. I'm sure I'm not alone in that. Others read it as a hurtful act.
Well, I've been quiet about this topic as it has raged on,
What has happened to our ability to tolerate dissenting opinions?
I'm not going to go into a Catholic church and preach atheism. Nor would I expect to see that philosophy espoused in a blog entitled
"Hacking for Christ" Agree to disagree, and just walk away.
(tempted to go into womaz chat and say "Hello ladies, whats for dinner") Nah bad idea
> What do we tell Gerv in this case? You suggest "use restraint" but I > cannot see how that translates to anything other than "shut up about > it" in this case -- especially given on the many calls for the Planet > team to silence Gerv.
> I thought Gerv's post was actually quite restrained. He didn't say > "Some people don't deserve rights" or "I disapprove of certain people" > or anything like that. He said something like "We all have equal > rights under the current law. It's separate but equal. If you agree > with me that the current law is good and should not be changed, sign > this petition to keep the current law in place."
> I think we're kidding ourselves if we think there is some more > restrained way raise the issue Gerv raised. IMO, that was a restrained > as you could get raising the issue at all. If that's not restrained > enough, then the only interpretation I can possibly make of your kind > of "restraint" is "keep it to yourself."
> And so what we're really talking about here is outlawing certain > topics in the Mozilla community and I think we should be honest about > that.
I guess you might categorize me as a "fringe" member of the Mozilla community, having worked in Thunderbird bug triage for many years.
But this is shaping up as a battle of the disenfranchised and not one of Community togetherness.
FWIW one of the past "possibly contentious posts" (By Bsmedberg) I considered heartwarming and welcoming, and took me back to my
religious roots.(some have alluded that that Easter post crossed the line)
So diversity..yes
An exclusionary club (with specifically named exclusions) ..no
That is not the meaning of "Community" IMO
>>> I am happy to discuss. What I won't _accept_ are [Gerv's] attempts to
>>> dismiss the
>>> topic by alluding to "disagreements" without stating them. In other
>>> words, I
>>> will continue to ask for him to present the disagreements explicitly.
>>> If you
>>> think we should be fine with trolls, _say why_.
>> It seemed like you called Gerv's behavior trolling or possibly called
>> Gerv a troll. That's how I read it, anyway. I think that's how Gijs read
>> it too.
> Wow. Ok, that's surprising to me. I'm sorry I conveyed that. I didn't
> think Gerv was being a troll there, not at all. I criticized his
> dismissive stance, and asked him to say why he might think (or might not
> think) that _other people trolling_ is something the CoC should have
> language about. But there was nothing trollish about his behavior in
> this thread. I'm sorry for implying such.
> I'm sorry. I don't see the difference between restraint and silence
> here. Can you help me understand?
Sure. I thought I elaborated this up-thread but will reiterate. Meaningful distinctions can (and imo ought to be) drawn between:
- in private vs. public (and various shades thereof)
- in response to solicitation of opinion vs. unprovoked
- stating a difference of opinion vs. proselytizing / petitioning
- curtailing vs. expanding behavior in response to complaint
- apologizing for hurt vs. refusing to acknowledge it
Some combination of the "more restrained" stances in these dimensions might have made Gerv's recent writing less problematic. The combination of the "less restrained" stances in all of them simultaneously made it bad. These are things that I mean when I say "it's not a high bar".
> What do we tell Gerv in this case? You suggest "use restraint" but I
> cannot see how that translates to anything other than "shut up about it"
> in this case -- especially given on the many calls for the Planet team
> to silence Gerv.
If you read any of the "more restrained" suggestions I make above as "silencing", then maybe so. I believe there's a spectrum to forms of self-expression, and I'm only asking that we codify a norm of "staying on the restrained side" of those distinctions _when in mozilla spaces_.
> And so what we're really talking about here is outlawing certain topics
> in the Mozilla community and I think we should be honest about that.
This is certainly not my stance. As an example, I think it's quite important that we _not_ adopt a code that discourages formation of voluntary sub-groups around particular nationalities, genders, sexual orientations, religions, etc. within the community. I think that's quite useful and healthy, nothing to interfere with, and completely orthogonal to the question of exercising suitable restraint.
(And as an illustrative counter-example: a person who just swears constantly and vigorously at everyone -- but has no particular focus on any marginalized group -- is also failing to exercise restraint. "Exercising restraint" is orthogonal to "marginalized groups", it only just happens to intersect at a few points, like "petitioning against them in public".)
> Have I called you names so far? I'm sorry if so. Trying to remain civil.
Asa covered this. Thank you for apologizing; sorry for misunderstanding you!
> As I said before, I think non-exhaustiveness of textual policy is not a
> sufficient excuse for avoiding its construction or substantially
> curtailing obvious and predictable specifics it might address.
You gave some arguments against case-by-case judging at the end, I'll respond there (my post was, upon rereading in the clear light of morning, somewhat repetitive. Sorry!).
> I don't
> understand why [our CoC] would be different from other policies.
I'm unclear what you mean here, however: which other policies? Those of other communities, or other policies we have? I presume the latter, in which case: because it purely and only concerns human interactions and resulting emotions (and ones orthogonal to our mission at that!), which I believe is much harder to capture in rules and guidelines than say, data retention and privacy policies.
> Given that the root of this thread was Mitchell's decision to task Deb
> with writing (surveying, accumulating, editing) some text, I ... am
> confused about which part (if any) you're addressing. Do you want to
> have nothing written? Or merely cut it short?
The root of this part of the thread, however, was your idea to put more specific terms in the CoC which Deb had drafted earlier. In particular, you actually disagreed with Mitchell and said:
> I think
> that discussing and establishing some _specific_ behavioral norms is
> exactly the task at hand.
So I do not want to have nothing written, or even 'merely to cut it short'. I would want it written without reference to specifics you mentioned, like discrimination, harassment and so on. I'd rather cast the net wide and have the committee be judicious in cases where it is invoked. I will elaborate at the bottom, so we don't spread this argument across the entire message. :-)
>> Instead, I think we should leave whatever group of people (that ends up
>> deciding when problems arise) to make their own decisions.
> Really? You'd prefer we establish a group of people and give them,
> presumably, some kind of conflict-resolving authority, but have them
> exercise that with _no_ written guidelines? Or no specific ones, only
> vague ones?
Yes, only vague ones. Again, see the bottom. :-)
>> I would happily trust them with making those decisions;
>> much more than I would trust us to pre-emptively formulate an entire
>> para-legal process detailing what is and isn't OK.
> Ok. Nothing we do or say here has force of law -- really at worst it's
> probably just requests for apologies and/or requests to leave certain
> forums -- but I (personally) prefer some clarity-in-writing about
> standards. Written documents have a bit of dispassionate (not to mention
> time-saving) force in conflict resolution. It's why we have laws in the
> first place, not just judges.
This is an interesting remark, particularly as the recent debate saw calls for resignations and banning/removing people from forums, rather than requests to leave or separate content (those are distinct, at least in the way you formulated it here; if they are not, I think your description of 'request to leave' is a bit too euphemistic and in that sense a tad unfair).
The current document has no text about consequences. Out of interest, would you like to specify those as well?
>> This list is not exhaustive, as I warned above.
> I believe it's not too long a list (7 qualifications?) to look at the
> elements individually. You can throw a few more in and we won't drown in
> complexity.
This is exactly what I said I was afraid of earlier in my message: you're responding to the specifics, and then saying: look, it's not too bad!
The list being non-exhaustive, I don't think it is feasible to make it so.
To use a mathematical analogy: it's as if I said you couldn't enumerate all primes, and you said "I don't believe that, and will only discuss individual primes which you believe are missing or wrong". Now I gave you some primes, notwithstanding that there are many more. Sadly, one can prove there is an infinite number of primes, but because there are no logical connections between different facets of human behaviour, I can't prove that the number of things to take into account is 'large' (or 'too large'). :-(
> I don't think most of them should apply -- which medical
> issues have a bearing on harassment? -- but you can discuss that.
> They're worth considering if you are concerned that they should really
> influence policy.
Stress, insomnia, etc. I think there is often overlap between medical and psychological issues, and attempted to be inclusive. This goes in the 'mitigating factor' box, as discussed elsewhere.
>> really see how you would intend to codify something like this.
> We've been looking at a number of documents that do just that. Indeed,
> you link into the middle of wikipedia's document-cluster on just this
> matter. Do you not understand how those bodies-of-policy work?
I do (at least, I think so!), I just disagree that ours should work the same way. Wikipedia is a different type of community than we are, even if there are also many similarities. By nature they are open to (semi-)anonymous contributions, people can have multiple identities, ties between contributors are much more loose, there is less credit, there is almost no employment and therefore less of a mix of paid/unpaid contributions, etc. etc. So the stakes of contributors are lower, and without more stringent policies, it is easier to engage in destructive behaviour as people have less to lose.
>> As you asked for examples, here's a very concrete (albeit completely
>> fictitious) one:
> Great! Let me answer equally concretely on how I think such a policy --
> using the guidelines Deb has posted and the refinements I've proposed --
> might apply. In the spirit of creative fiction. Naturally if you
> disagree with any of the suggestions in anything Deb or I or anyone else
> might have written on this, you'll disagree with the snap judgments I'm
> making in response:
Just some notes here:
>> Does it
>> matter if it was about male or female circumcision (about which Western
>> cultures, as far as I can tell, hold different opinions (something which
>> I don't want to debate right now, fwiw!)).
> No, and I don't see how it could. In this putative blog post you didn't
> say anything about male circumcision, so nobody who identifies with the
> "cause" or culture of male circumcision has any words-of-yours to feel
> hurt by.
Ah, the brackets around 'female' were meant to annotate that it could be about either (hypothetically!). The outcome may or may not be different.
>> Maybe I offended people of a
>> particular faith (even if I didn't mention religion). Does that make it
>> worse?
> "Offense" is a straw-man word that nobody has actually proposed we
> provide policy restraints on. I ask that you stop using it.
OK. The reason I used 'offense' is that from my perspective, cause for invoking the CoC is found by the aggrieved, not the perpetrator, and this seemed like a reasonable catch-all phrase. Put another way, I do not believe of anyone in this community that they would purposefully harass, intimidate, ..., or discriminate against others in it. Robert Kaiser also made this point: I trust the people in this community. Without evidence to the contrary, I will presume hurt to be accidental. That doesn't make it OK, nor does it mean that we can't discipline people who do it repeatedly or disregard warnings about it, but it should effect (sic!) how we deal with it.
> If you insulted, intimidated, discriminated-against (in the public
> proselytizing sense) that religion, then sure. That'd be problematic in
> the same way it's problematic to do so against citizens of a country.
Ah, but religion often has (or is argued to have) a stake in other parts of life. As just one example from the US, the recent controversy about Catholic hospitals and offering insurance policies that cover contraceptives.
(NB: let's not discuss about whether or not discrimination against Catholics did happen there, but it's clear that some people felt this way, even though the bill itself obviously didn't single out Catholic institutions specifically)
> And I think there's an additional dimension that's worth
> considering, that you left out: _what did you do in response_.
> Complaints are seldom about single actions, but sequences or patterns of
> action-response-reaction. If you react in good faith to their complaint
> ("oh sorry, I didn't realize this was part of your national identity,
> I'll re-tag that as personal and not involve the mozilla community with
> it") it might well represent a suitable resolution, and the problem
> would pass quickly. The hurtful reactions are more along the lines of
> denial of hurt, changing the topic to first amendment rights, or telling
> the hurt person to grow a thicker skin. Those reactions are often worse
> than the initial acts, and are what wind up escalating.
I think this is an extremely important point. It also hints at something else which I think is important, namely that the CoC should be a kind of 'last resort'. It would be preferable if people resolved their issues privately and/or immediately, in the same forum, on a personal level, without invoking a third party to mediate. In some cases that isn't possible, or the situation gets worse (as you described), and then we can allow for mediation.
Regarding responding to a complaint: I also think we should allow room for people to say "I did not (intend to) say what you're reading
...
> So I do not want to have nothing written, or even 'merely to cut it
> short'. I would want it written without reference to specifics you
> mentioned, like discrimination, harassment and so on. I'd rather cast
> the net wide and have the committee be judicious in cases where it is
> invoked.
Ok. I disagree but think we've run around in circles on that topic
enough by now. Apologies for all the verbosity.
> The current document has no text about consequences. Out of interest,
> would you like to specify those as well?
I'd suggest something similar to what I did in the Rust conduct
guidelines. I was careful with words there. The terms of consequence I
chose there were "We will exclude you from interaction if...", and I
like these because they're:
- general enough to adapt to differing interaction-contexts
- specific enough to picture what it means in each context
- couched in terms of what the community will do, as actors,
not claiming a specific authority or jurisdiction.
> This is exactly what I said I was afraid of earlier in my message:
> you're responding to the specifics, and then saying: look, it's not too
> bad!
Sorry for following your fears; I really _don't_ think it's too bad, and
I don't think the analogy with "prime numbers" is playing fair. I
accept, as a fact, that any list of specifics is non-exhaustive. I just
think that partial (non-exhaustive) lists are _useful_. Incidentally, I
have lots of programs with a hard-wired list of "small primes" that
serve quite usefully, without enumerating all of them.
Again, the analogy I'd draw your attention to is the legal system, which
works just fine with partial lists and an evolving body of case law.
They add to it as new cases arise. Most cases hit existing rules.
> Ah, but religion often has (or is argued to have) a stake in other parts
> of life. As just one example from the US, the recent controversy about
> Catholic hospitals and offering insurance policies that cover
> contraceptives.
Sure. But the stake ends in a truce: we live in a secular society where
religions _don't_ get to call the shots. I am not going to accept
mozilla as a vehicle for forcing more religious considerations from
others into my life than the secular society I live in. That way leads
to religious war. Don't do it.
> I think this is an extremely important point. It also hints at something
> else which I think is important, namely that the CoC should be a kind of
> 'last resort'.
Agreed, vigorously!
> Regarding responding to a complaint: I also think we should allow room
> for people to say "I did not (intend to) say what you're reading into
> it". This happened in this thread, funnily enough: I and Asa thought you
> were calling Gerv a troll, and you weren't.
Yes, but I apologized anyways. Because I know that my intent doesn't
excuse what you, Asa, Gerv and others felt, if it was a response to
things I did, and as a measure of goodwill I wanted to demonstrate my
consideration of that hurt.
> There
> are other people in our community who would argue that it's not their
> fault that they were misinterpreted, and they have a point.
A limited one. Arguing to someone that you don't need to apologize to
them for the way you just hurt their feelings is a bit like arguing for
someone to find a particular joke funny rather than tasteless (or sexual
conduct interesting rather than unwanted). I'm arguing (in this thread,
right here) that it's terribly rude behavior. The right thing is to
apologize, desist, and move on.
> I'd rather not 'enforce' that they apologize,
There's no force that can provoke an honest apology. But there's a
suggestion that people learn how. I'm making that suggestion, and I
think our community could stand some practice in it.
> I do not think a CoC
> *by itself* should be designed to resolve this disagreement. I fully
> expect to need a group of real people to look at problems and decide
> what to do. Perhaps this is my Dutch background, see
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poldermodel .
I agree a CoC cannot resolve such a conflict, only give suggestions
about how to think about it. I think a willingness to apologize for hurt
might go a long way.
> All of this is part of a diversity which is awesome about
> Mozilla, and I don't think that the context and so on is constrained
> enough to provide all necessary and sufficient qualifiers to separate OK
> behaviour from non-OK behaviour in all cases.
I'm not arguing against diversity in the least. Quite the opposite; I
think we do a poor job of accommodating diversity. I think that
diversity comes with the price of learning some manners, and we've yet
to fully learn them.
> The first point surprises me. The original CoC which you argued was not
> explicit enough gives explicit acknowledgement (in all proposed
> reformulations from Gerv and others, too!) about how we welcome (or
> honour, respect, etc.) very diverse individuals. People disagreed about
> exactly how to do this, but it seems clear that clarifying our openness
> is a main goal. I don't dispute that; I do dispute we need your proposed
> specificity in terms of harassment, discrimination etc., to do so.
I was objecting to *platitudes* about inclusiveness and requesting some
specificity of protections because, for people coming from a background
of social marginalization, empty platitudes are a familiar problem. A
community that says "we welcome marginalized group X!" but does nothing
in practice to protect group X from systemic intra-community
discrimination, harassment or threats is not any more comfortable or
welcoming than a community that doesn't present the platitude.
> For the second, I would expect (the result of) 'judgments' of such a
> group based on a CoC to be somewhat public. This should offer some idea.
> More importantly, again, I trust our community. Given the massive number
> of posts to planet, to the newsgroups, mailing lists, conversations on
> IRC, conference calls, meetings and so on, the number of incidents is
> actually surprisingly low.
You're discounting the number of people who gave up in disgust and
quietly left, or never engaged in the first place. I'll grant, I can't
count them either, but I suggest (due to the demographic imbalances, if
nothing else) that this number is not zero.
> In the reverse sense, having such guidelines beforehand also has a
> chilling effect.
Then we're getting pretty vague and discussing the relative strengths of
two chilling effects. I know which one I think is more important. I
think repelling marginalized groups is a more serious problem. I'll
leave that tradeoff to others actually drafting and adopting the CoC to
compare and decide.
> Hope that clarifies.
It does, thanks. I appreciate that we've managed to keep the discussion
civil and apologize, again, for my verbosity these past days. I'll try
to speak less. Got software to write!
Quick update about progress: I'm actively working on developing a
summary of the discussions so far and have looked through the Ubuntu
code of conduct v2 draft.
I'm almost done going through things, and i have a whole batch of
notes, but I might not have a summary & next steps ready to post until
tomorrow. I will absolutely get something posted before the weekend,
however. Promise.
If there are other questions or points of discussion that you think
are important but haven't been brought up yet, please take the time to
share your thoughts. It's really important and valuable. That goes
for all the lurkers out there, too :)
Thanks so much to everyone who has contributed to the discussion so far.
>> I am happy to discuss. What I won't _accept_ are [Gerv's] attempts to
>> dismiss the
>> topic by alluding to "disagreements" without stating them. In other
>> words, I
>> will continue to ask for him to present the disagreements explicitly.
>> If you
>> think we should be fine with trolls, _say why_.
> It seemed like you called Gerv's behavior trolling or possibly called
> Gerv a troll. That's how I read it, anyway. I think that's how Gijs
> read it too.
FWIW, I didn't read it that way :-) I read it as Graydon giving an
example of something I should be concrete about. (It's not quite clear
whether he thinks I am fine with trolls and need to justify it, or
whether it's an example of something someone might be fine with.) Either
way, I didn't read him as calling me a troll. :-)
> * Gerv is exchanging information on religious beliefs with fellow
> Mozillians (ie everyone is explaining their points of view) and Gerv
> explains how he thinks homosexuality is a sin.
[Sidenote: I have no objection to being used in a hypothetical, as long
as it's clear to everyone that views attributed to me in a hypothetical
are also hypothetical, and so may either be incorrect, or may be
potentially-misleading summaries of a more complex and nuanced opinion.
:-) If people want to know my actual opinion on any subject, private
email would be the place to start.]
> Well, I've been quiet about this topic as it has raged on,
> What has happened to our ability to tolerate dissenting opinions?
What happened is that the word "tolerance" got redefined.
> I'm not going to go into a Catholic church and preach atheism. Nor would
> I expect to see that philosophy espoused in a blog entitled
> "Hacking for Christ" Agree to disagree, and just walk away.
> (tempted to go into womaz chat and say "Hello ladies, whats for dinner")
> Nah bad idea
Indeed. A very bad idea. There is a line between "informative
self-expression", to use Asa's words, and going out of your way to upset
people. It may be hard to draw in some difficult cases, but I'd say that
this action would be clearly on the upsetting side, and so would deny an
analogy between it and what I did.
>>> Via the systems of social decision-making we have. That's why we're
>>> having this discussion. "People disagree" is not the end of a
>>> conversation; it's the beginning.
>> The fact of disagreement between Cedric's idea of acceptable behaviour
>> and yours is clear :-) I am asking what your proposal is for resolving
>> it. Is your suggestion that we just pick your idea, and move on?
> Of course not. I have no formal governance role that I'm aware of.
Sure :-) But we are all suggesting how we think the CoC should be put
together and how the rules should be defined; I was just asking for your
opinion about what to do in this case.
> I'm just suggesting that we not water down or make-vague the contents of
> a CoC for the sake of reaching early "total" consensus. Excluding topics
> due to the existence of disagreements over the entire community amounts
> to the stance of acceptance of all behavior.
Does it? Is there really nothing we can all agree on?
> I'm certain some people here would like to abuse one another
> indefinitely.
Wow, that's a pretty strong statement. Got anyone in mind?
>>> Useful relativism
>> (What is "useful relativism"? Is it relativism that pinches just enough
>> from absolutism that it can claim that its castles in the air actually
>> have some support? :-)
> The kind that doesn't freeze up when maligned by an absolutist.
Not sure that sort exists. :-)
"Relativism is the concept that points of view have no absolute truth or
validity, having only relative, subjective value according to
differences in perception and consideration." (Wikipedia)
If you believe that, then to be consistent, I suggest you must also
believe that coming to an agreement on a community-wide Code of Conduct
for the worldwide Mozilla community is almost certainly impossible, that
whenever anyone expresses an opinion on what it should be there is no
reason for anyone else to accept it (because they may perceive things
differently), and that to define a CoC would be to imperialistically
impose your (or a subset of the group's) moral and social principles on
others against their will - which means you get to behave in accordance
with your relativism, but they don't.
Relativism means exactly that - what's true for you is not necessarily
true for me. And if that's so, how come you (or your majority) get to
force your principles on me? And how is that respecting diversity, anyway?
I don't think you are actually a relativist; my evidence is that you are
engaged in this debate with the aim of achieving consensus on an
absolute truth about how community behaviour should be, which we will
then write down :-)
>> This is why I said that the constitution and make-up of the Community
>> Council, or whatever we end up with as the adjudicating body, is just as
>> important as the text of the Code.
> I disagree. By analogy to law, you're saying the choice of justices is
> more important than the text of the constitution and laws they're tasked
> with interpreting.
I said "just as" not "more". And I think that the history of Supreme
Court decisions in the US, and the perpetual battle between the two
'wings' of the court, and the fight about who gets to appoint and who
gets appointed, bears this out. :-)
We should define how the Community Council is formed, works and decides
things at the same time as developing the CoC. The two go hand in hand.
>> I don't think it's hard to imagine a decision-making system which
>> resolves them. However, you were arguing for more specificity. I presume
>> (correct me if I'm wrong) that the point of greater specificity is to
>> leave less room for interpretation. My point is that it doesn't, really.
> It absolutely does. What you're doing is repeatedly injecting the
> argument that "future disagreement over specifics undermines the ability
> to choose usefully-specific terms in the present". Again, by analogy,
> this would be like saying that "since all case law is not yet worked
> out, we shall pass no bills". Nonsense, nonsense.
Actually, I think I'm arguing that _current_ disagreement over specifics
means that if we used a particular word, it would mean different things
to different people. While this tactic is often used to produce
seeming-agreement between actually-disagreeing parties (often
theologically! :-), I don't believe it's an honest way to proceed.
We could write "no intimidation or harassment" into the CoC, but that
would not resolve the fact that you read those words very differently
from I, and therefore a 3rd party, without knowing who gets to
adjudicate, would have great difficulty determining what was and wasn't
prohibited. Hence my point about defining the Council too.
>> As Gijs has pointed out (and as I wrote to you privately), I have no
>> problem with a prohibition on intimidation and harassment - except that
>> I suspect my definition of what is harassing is quite different from
>> yours.
> Then propose refining language. You say that you have no problem with a
> prohibition on intimidation and harassment. So there's a putative kernel
> of agreement. If you're worried about specific misinterpretations,
> _state them_. Do not just wave hands about "maybe we disagree" without
> specifics. You keep doing that, and it comes across as an attempt to
> shut down the argument. I.e. an attempt to _not_ accept a prohibition on
> intimidation and harassment. Even though you claim you do.
As Gijs tried to explain, my point is that it's not possible (within a
document of reasonable length) to be specific enough to do what you hope
to do.
I'm not trying to shut down the debate, but I confess that I'm not sure
how to proceed. The differences between the worldviews and viewpoints
expressed here run very deep.
>> I want to avoid seeing the Code of
>> Conduct used as a back-door to force, as a condition of participation in
>> our community, agreement with the majority or silence on issues outside
>> the scope of our mission.
> On 27/03/12 16:43, Graydon Hoare wrote:
>> The kind that doesn't freeze up when maligned by an absolutist.
> Not sure that sort exists. :-)
You're speaking to one presently.
> If you believe that, then to be consistent, I suggest you must also
> believe that coming to an agreement on a community-wide Code of Conduct
> for the worldwide Mozilla community is almost certainly impossible
I believe the premise, not the conclusion. You're mistaken. This is the wrong place to discuss in detail, but I have to at least note this mistake. "Relativism" does not imply "solely individual frame of reference". That's a caricature. The mozilla community is the moral frame of reference we're discussing here. Comparative moral reasoning within that frame (and between enclosing and enclosed frames) is entirely possible without being grounded in universals or absolutes.
(I discuss in more detail elsewhere[1] and wikipedia offers some clarification[2] too. But I really don't think "argument on moral philosophy" is a useful way of proceeding in this conversation. Move it to private email if you want to fuss over details.)
On Fri, Mar 30, 2012 at 9:01 AM, Gervase Markham <g...@mozilla.org> wrote:
> On 27/03/12 17:50, Majken Connor wrote:
> > * Gerv is exchanging information on religious beliefs with fellow
> > Mozillians (ie everyone is explaining their points of view) and Gerv
> > explains how he thinks homosexuality is a sin.
> [Sidenote: I have no objection to being used in a hypothetical, as long
> as it's clear to everyone that views attributed to me in a hypothetical
> are also hypothetical, and so may either be incorrect, or may be
> potentially-misleading summaries of a more complex and nuanced opinion.
> :-) If people want to know my actual opinion on any subject, private
> email would be the place to start.]
> Gerv
I used this example because I recall you saying so in the comments on your
blog. I wouldn't have used it if I thought you hadn't.
> On Fri, Mar 30, 2012 at 9:01 AM, Gervase Markham <g...@mozilla.org> wrote:
>> On 27/03/12 17:50, Majken Connor wrote:
>>> * Gerv is exchanging information on religious beliefs with fellow
>>> Mozillians (ie everyone is explaining their points of view) and Gerv
>>> explains how he thinks homosexuality is a sin.
....
> I used this example because I recall you saying so in the comments on your
> blog. I wouldn't have used it if I thought you hadn't.
I just checked, and Google tells me the phrase "homosexuality is a sin"
occurs only once on my blog, in a comment written by someone else in
August 2006. I also looked through the recent post for similar phrases
which might be said to be me saying the same thing in different words,
and didn't find any.
Anyway, like I said, no problem with hypotheticals, but people should
ask me directly if they want to know my actual thoughts on something.
> On 30/03/12 18:58, Majken Connor wrote:
>> On Fri, Mar 30, 2012 at 9:01 AM, Gervase Markham <g...@mozilla.org> wrote:
>>> On 27/03/12 17:50, Majken Connor wrote:
>>>> * Gerv is exchanging information on religious beliefs with fellow
>>>> Mozillians (ie everyone is explaining their points of view) and Gerv
>>>> explains how he thinks homosexuality is a sin.
> ....
>> I used this example because I recall you saying so in the comments on your
>> blog. I wouldn't have used it if I thought you hadn't.
> I just checked, and Google tells me the phrase "homosexuality is a sin"
> occurs only once on my blog, in a comment written by someone else in
> August 2006. I also looked through the recent post for similar phrases
> which might be said to be me saying the same thing in different words,
> and didn't find any.
> Anyway, like I said, no problem with hypotheticals, but people should
> ask me directly if they want to know my actual thoughts on something.
