On Apr 7, 8:29 pm, Al Billings <abilli...@mozilla.com> wrote:
> I'm not saying Daniel is lying, Asa. I'm saying it is a convenient
> debate tactic though. "Lots of people agree with me. They just e-mail me
> privately."
Debate tactic, eh?
That's the FOURTH time in a row you accuse me regarding that. I
already
answered three times and still, you still put it back.
I don't need any tactic here because I trust Mozilla-the-organization
to do The_Right_Thing, whatever it is. I trust Mitchell to do
The_Right_
Thing, whatever it is. I gave information I detained that I thought
were important. And I already said 3 times that I don't care about the
fact they agree with me or not; what matters is the fact they're not
comfortable with speaking up, and that's for me a serious warning sign
for a community.
BTW, when Asa says "people have spoken to me who don't want to join
this
discussion publicly", that's also a debate tactic I presume?
That said, can you please stop your personal attacks against me now?
I think we're getting way off topic here. I have no doubt people have sent private emails (I've gotten several as well). Lets focus on getting to a solution rather than arguing over things like this.
----- Original Message -----
> From: "Daniel Glazman" <daniel.glaz...@gmail.com>
> To: mozilla-governa...@lists.mozilla.org
> Sent: Saturday, April 7, 2012 12:02:00 PM
> Subject: Re: Private emails
> On Apr 7, 8:29 pm, Al Billings <abilli...@mozilla.com> wrote:
> > I'm not saying Daniel is lying, Asa. I'm saying it is a convenient
> > debate tactic though. "Lots of people agree with me. They just
> > e-mail me
> > privately."
> Debate tactic, eh?
> That's the FOURTH time in a row you accuse me regarding that. I
> already
> answered three times and still, you still put it back.
> I don't need any tactic here because I trust Mozilla-the-organization
> to do The_Right_Thing, whatever it is. I trust Mitchell to do
> The_Right_
> Thing, whatever it is. I gave information I detained that I thought
> were important. And I already said 3 times that I don't care about
> the
> fact they agree with me or not; what matters is the fact they're not
> comfortable with speaking up, and that's for me a serious warning
> sign
> for a community.
> BTW, when Asa says "people have spoken to me who don't want to join
> this
> discussion publicly", that's also a debate tactic I presume?
> That said, can you please stop your personal attacks against me now?
> On 4/6/12 10:14 PM, Asa Dotzler wrote:
>> Al, people have spoken to me who don't want to join this discussion
>> publicly. Do you doubt that, and assume instead I'm making those people
>> up? I have no love for Daniel (as some of you are surely aware) but I
>> think it's unfair to suggest that he's lying to us about people coming
>> to him with concerns about this discussion and the plans for a CoC.
> I'm not saying Daniel is lying, Asa. I'm saying it is a convenient
> debate tactic though. "Lots of people agree with me. They just e-mail me
> privately."
OK. I'm sorry to have put those words in your mouth, Al. That was either un-careful or unfair of me to do. (It was late, I can't remember which :-)
I will try to say it more clearly and in a less personal way:
It is completely legitimate for us to represent or convey the views of those who will share with us individually but not in this public form. Not allowing that is very much the same thing as saying "if you don't have skin thick enough to get into this debate, you don't deserve a voice" and I don't think any of us believe that.
I am a project leader and people come to me with concerns *expecting* that I will bring those to the discussion. Most of the people participating in this discussion over the last few weeks are also leaders in this sense. If we are here only representing our own concerns, we are failing as leaders. Claiming a constituency is not a problem if we trust each other as leaders.
This is not a debate tactic. It is part our roles as a project leader to represent those who do not feel they can or should represent themselves. I do this all of the time in other areas of the project and I see no reason not to do it when it comes to governance issues. It may be even more important when it comes to governance issues, especially highly charged ones like this.
I hope that when someone comes to governance and says "the people I work with or spend time with or who otherwise talk to me have this to say:" they will not be shot down as somehow cheating.
When Lukas sent the Planet team an email on behalf of a larger group who did not feel comfortable signing that letter, I did not discount it. I trusted that she was fairly representing the views of her constituency and I was impressed with her leadership and her willingness to stand up and take some risk for the rest of the group.
I believe I owe Daniel that same trust and respect. I think we all do.
It is time for everyone to stop suggestions of debate tactics and questionable intent and integrity.
Just STOP and let everyone catch their breath and return to a place where we can work to moving together not further apart.
Tossing accusations of low integrity into the mix here is a step backward. Don't do it.
If you feel you need to have such discussion, then talk to me, or Deb if you know her, or if we need to, we'll identify someone. Continuing to toss them out here doesn't lead to a good liklihood of positive resolution and hurts everyone. It also doesn't help make progress on the underlying issue, so it causes damage on multiple levels.
> I think we're getting way off topic here. I have no doubt people have sent private emails (I've gotten several as well). Lets focus on getting to a solution rather than arguing over things like this.
> stuart
> ----- Original Message -----
>> From: "Daniel Glazman"<daniel.glaz...@gmail.com>
>> To: mozilla-governa...@lists.mozilla.org
>> Sent: Saturday, April 7, 2012 12:02:00 PM
>> Subject: Re: Private emails
>> On Apr 7, 8:29 pm, Al Billings<abilli...@mozilla.com> wrote:
>>> I'm not saying Daniel is lying, Asa. I'm saying it is a convenient
>>> debate tactic though. "Lots of people agree with me. They just
>>> e-mail me
>>> privately."
>> Debate tactic, eh?
>> That's the FOURTH time in a row you accuse me regarding that. I
>> already
>> answered three times and still, you still put it back.
>> I don't need any tactic here because I trust Mozilla-the-organization
>> to do The_Right_Thing, whatever it is. I trust Mitchell to do
>> The_Right_
>> Thing, whatever it is. I gave information I detained that I thought
>> were important. And I already said 3 times that I don't care about
>> the
>> fact they agree with me or not; what matters is the fact they're not
>> comfortable with speaking up, and that's for me a serious warning
>> sign
>> for a community.
>> BTW, when Asa says "people have spoken to me who don't want to join
>> this
>> discussion publicly", that's also a debate tactic I presume?
>> That said, can you please stop your personal attacks against me now?
>> 1. Oh behalf of Mozilla, I want to officially apologize for the last
>> sentence and the use of this new term. I suppose it's possible that the
>> term has been converted into a mark of pride and I'm showing my
>> demographic by not knowing this, but I don't find many references that
>> support this.
> Homozilla is the name of the affinity group within Mozilla (they have
> a mailing list by that name https://wiki.mozilla.org/Mailing_lists )
> that sent the request to Planet to have Gerv's post taken down.
Yes, that is the name of the group, yes its existence public, no it's
not derogatory to use that name to refer to participants of the group
when referring to the group or its activities. Google has 'Gayglers'
and we have 'Homozillians' and who knows what other tech companies are
calling their affinity groups.
No harm caused here. Back to regular scheduled programing :)
> On 4/6/12 11:50 PM, Asa Dotzler wrote:
>> On 4/6/2012 11:22 PM, Mitchell Baker wrote:
>>> 1. Oh behalf of Mozilla, I want to officially apologize for the last
>>> sentence and the use of this new term. I suppose it's possible that the
>>> term has been converted into a mark of pride and I'm showing my
>>> demographic by not knowing this, but I don't find many references that
>>> support this.
>> Homozilla is the name of the affinity group within Mozilla (they have
>> a mailing list by that name https://wiki.mozilla.org/Mailing_lists )
>> that sent the request to Planet to have Gerv's post taken down.
> Yes, that is the name of the group, yes its existence public, no it's
> not derogatory to use that name to refer to participants of the group
> when referring to the group or its activities. Google has 'Gayglers'
> and we have 'Homozillians' and who knows what other tech companies are
> calling their affinity groups.
> No harm caused here. Back to regular scheduled programing :)
I would like to take a moment to acknowledge what a difficult conversation
this is.
And I would like to personally thank everyone who is participating. While I
may not agree with every thing that was posted in this thread, I
acknowledge that a lot of angst and thought has gone into this
conversation. This is a really difficult, emotional topic. One that is core
to not only people's personal identities but to our identity as a
community. A community that many of us see as an important part of who we
are.
So thank you to all of you who have participated in this conversation.
Thanks to those who have contributed their thoughts in writing in this
thread. Thanks to all of you who have thought deeply on this. Thanks to all
of you who have started up private conversations.
As difficult as this conversation is (and I have not yet figured out how to
express my thoughts on it), I think it is an important part of figuring out
how we will all work together to achieve Mozilla's mission.
On Sat, Apr 7, 2012 at 3:33 PM, Mitchell Baker <mitch...@mozilla.com> wrote:
> I want to say this more strongly.
> It is time for everyone to stop suggestions of debate tactics and
> questionable intent and integrity.
> Just STOP and let everyone catch their breath and return to a place where
> we can work to moving together not further apart.
> Tossing accusations of low integrity into the mix here is a step backward.
> Don't do it.
> If you feel you need to have such discussion, then talk to me, or Deb if
> you know her, or if we need to, we'll identify someone. Continuing to toss
> them out here doesn't lead to a good liklihood of positive resolution and
> hurts everyone. It also doesn't help make progress on the underlying
> issue, so it causes damage on multiple levels.
> It's time to stop this.
> Mitchell
> On 4/7/12 12:05 PM, Stuart Parmenter wrote:
>> Hi,
>> I think we're getting way off topic here. I have no doubt people have
>> sent private emails (I've gotten several as well). Lets focus on getting
>> to a solution rather than arguing over things like this.
>>> To: mozilla-governance@lists.**mozilla.org<mozilla-governa...@lists.mozilla.org>
>>> Sent: Saturday, April 7, 2012 12:02:00 PM
>>> Subject: Re: Private emails
>>> On Apr 7, 8:29 pm, Al Billings<abilli...@mozilla.com**> wrote:
>>> I'm not saying Daniel is lying, Asa. I'm saying it is a convenient
>>>> debate tactic though. "Lots of people agree with me. They just
>>>> e-mail me
>>>> privately."
>>> Debate tactic, eh?
>>> That's the FOURTH time in a row you accuse me regarding that. I
>>> already
>>> answered three times and still, you still put it back.
>>> I don't need any tactic here because I trust Mozilla-the-organization
>>> to do The_Right_Thing, whatever it is. I trust Mitchell to do
>>> The_Right_
>>> Thing, whatever it is. I gave information I detained that I thought
>>> were important. And I already said 3 times that I don't care about
>>> the
>>> fact they agree with me or not; what matters is the fact they're not
>>> comfortable with speaking up, and that's for me a serious warning
>>> sign
>>> for a community.
>>> BTW, when Asa says "people have spoken to me who don't want to join
>>> this
>>> discussion publicly", that's also a debate tactic I presume?
>>> That said, can you please stop your personal attacks against me now?
On Fri, Apr 6, 2012 at 1:05 PM, Tim Chevalier <catamorph...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> In fact, I suspect that for people who are unconvinced about the
>> necessity of a Code of Conduct, a list that long might tip them over
>> into concluding "what a bunch of politically correct crap". In
>> contrast, a shorter list perhaps would not elicit that response.
> Please don't engage in concern trolling. It's not helpful. Stating
> your own opinion and owning it with an I-statement is fine, but
> weaselly statements attributed to nebulous "people" are unfair.
You're right that speculating about what other people are thinking
wasn't useful; I apologize for that. I'm also sorry if my comments
undermined the argument for either the CoC or a specific list within
it; that wasn't my intention.
I haven't seen anybody else agree that shortening the list is useful,
so I'm happy to drop the suggestion. (In fact, the thread named
"proposal, specificity about categories", Asa suggested another 23
categories... I'll refrain from commenting on that! :)
I see now that the Ubuntu CoC has the phrase "Although this list
cannot be exhaustive, we explicitly honour diversity in ..." which is
exactly the kind of catch-all phrase I was trying to suggest.
I wonder if brainstorming other names for the CoC would be fun or if it
would raise the same issues. Maybe we could just reuse manifesto somehow?
The definition from merriam-webster is spot on IMO "a written statement
declaring publicly the intentions, motives, or views of its issuer." Here
is the thesaurus.com entry for manifesto
http://thesaurus.com/browse/manifesto?s=t
Mormons have a sort of manifesto called the "Articles of Faith" which if
not for the religious connotations (and the fact that it's not clever if
you don't already know it) would actually be a cool way to describe it
maybe s/faith/trust or something similar.
I also like the word "proclamation" from the thesaurus results. I like
"principles," too (borrowed from one of the mormon articles).
"Mozilla Proclamation of Community Principles" is a little wordy, or maybe
not?
On Sun, Apr 8, 2012 at 12:18 AM, Nicholas Nethercote <n.netherc...@gmail.com
> wrote:
> On Fri, Apr 6, 2012 at 1:05 PM, Tim Chevalier <catamorph...@gmail.com>
> wrote:
> >> In fact, I suspect that for people who are unconvinced about the
> >> necessity of a Code of Conduct, a list that long might tip them over
> >> into concluding "what a bunch of politically correct crap". In
> >> contrast, a shorter list perhaps would not elicit that response.
> > Please don't engage in concern trolling. It's not helpful. Stating
> > your own opinion and owning it with an I-statement is fine, but
> > weaselly statements attributed to nebulous "people" are unfair.
> You're right that speculating about what other people are thinking
> wasn't useful; I apologize for that. I'm also sorry if my comments
> undermined the argument for either the CoC or a specific list within
> it; that wasn't my intention.
> I haven't seen anybody else agree that shortening the list is useful,
> so I'm happy to drop the suggestion. (In fact, the thread named
> "proposal, specificity about categories", Asa suggested another 23
> categories... I'll refrain from commenting on that! :)
> I see now that the Ubuntu CoC has the phrase "Although this list
> cannot be exhaustive, we explicitly honour diversity in ..." which is
> exactly the kind of catch-all phrase I was trying to suggest.
> I haven't seen anybody else agree that shortening the list is useful,
> so I'm happy to drop the suggestion. (In fact, the thread named
> "proposal, specificity about categories", Asa suggested another 23
> categories... I'll refrain from commenting on that! :)
I've suggested to reduce it to 0. I still suggest it as nobody answered my arguments in a way to convince me of the opposite
> I see now that the Ubuntu CoC has the phrase "Although this list
> cannot be exhaustive, we explicitly honour diversity in ..." which is
> exactly the kind of catch-all phrase I was trying to suggest.
If this ok for the some minorities, it should be ok for all minorities. I still don't see why LGBT should be more protected than vegans. Both should be welcomed (like any other minorities).
If we single out better minorities than others, we will have to revisit the CoC periodically to add new minorities that will decide to start a campaign against Mozilla. This discussion is annoying enough, creating a bad atmosphere already (though mainly here, I don't feel that atmosphere in the office as most people don't read moz.gov). I don't think to have it regularly is a good idea.
More, to be part of a list is like saying 'these are not in the norm'. To have gays (or any minority) in an organization is normal. Their absence would be abnormal (and if there is less gays in technology than in the rest of the society, it is abnormal).
Not explicitly listing minorities will also prevent witch-hunting and creating taboo discussions inside Mozilla. Creating taboos is the best way not to integrate a minority ('Beware when he's there, ...'). I've never heard that until now and I don't want to hear that in the future.
-- Jean-Yves
PS: I've been kindly told that some words that I used to describe minorities (I think I used asian instead of asiatic) are not correct. I'm sorry about that. I'm not a native speaker and not an American: the whole American concept of race is completely alien to my personal culture where we don't group several characteristics to create artificial groups called 'races'. We speaks (and sometimes very badly, as there are assholes everywhere) about skin colors (there, we historically used the word 'race' but this is less and less common, replaced by the simple 'color') or languages, but we never aggregate characteristics to create 'races' like in the US (which always shock me): E.g. 'Caucasian' is something that is completely alien to my culture, only heard in American movies.
I gave the reasons that convinced me to have a list in a previous email, even though it's not my first (or even personally preferred) approach. The list will say it is non-exhaustive, it will list some groups which have not always been welcome everyone across society in the past, and it won't be 20 or 30 words long. The Debian language is nice; as suggested I may use that as the intro language, followed by an illustrative, non-exhaustive list .
I understand we won't convince you (or perhaps others) that the general "everyone" statement is better. We will not convince everyone of the any particular solution; either 0 or 5 or 20. So continuing to argue until you are convinced or everyone else is convinced that you are right is an endless discussion which no one will win. And it is one of the endless discussions that suck energy our of our community.
The objections to having specific categories are well noted (including my own original draft). The explanation of why it's important have changed my mind; I've been able to grok the value of having some specific groups of people explicitly identified. So we'll have the approach, including the list, I described above. I hope all of us can set this particular question aside now.
> On 07/04/12 21:18, Nicholas Nethercote wrote:
>> I haven't seen anybody else agree that shortening the list is useful,
>> so I'm happy to drop the suggestion. (In fact, the thread named
>> "proposal, specificity about categories", Asa suggested another 23
>> categories... I'll refrain from commenting on that! :)
> I've suggested to reduce it to 0. I still suggest it as nobody answered
> my arguments in a way to convince me of the opposite
>> I see now that the Ubuntu CoC has the phrase "Although this list
>> cannot be exhaustive, we explicitly honour diversity in ..." which is
>> exactly the kind of catch-all phrase I was trying to suggest.
> If this ok for the some minorities, it should be ok for all minorities.
> I still don't see why LGBT should be more protected than vegans. Both
> should be welcomed (like any other minorities).
> If we single out better minorities than others, we will have to revisit
> the CoC periodically to add new minorities that will decide to start a
> campaign against Mozilla. This discussion is annoying enough, creating a
> bad atmosphere already (though mainly here, I don't feel that atmosphere
> in the office as most people don't read moz.gov). I don't think to have
> it regularly is a good idea.
> More, to be part of a list is like saying 'these are not in the norm'.
> To have gays (or any minority) in an organization is normal. Their
> absence would be abnormal (and if there is less gays in technology than
> in the rest of the society, it is abnormal).
> Not explicitly listing minorities will also prevent witch-hunting and
> creating taboo discussions inside Mozilla. Creating taboos is the best
> way not to integrate a minority ('Beware when he's there, ...'). I've
> never heard that until now and I don't want to hear that in the future.
> -- Jean-Yves
> PS: I've been kindly told that some words that I used to describe
> minorities (I think I used asian instead of asiatic) are not correct.
> I'm sorry about that. I'm not a native speaker and not an American: the
> whole American concept of race is completely alien to my personal
> culture where we don't group several characteristics to create
> artificial groups called 'races'. We speaks (and sometimes very badly,
> as there are assholes everywhere) about skin colors (there, we
> historically used the word 'race' but this is less and less common,
> replaced by the simple 'color') or languages, but we never aggregate
> characteristics to create 'races' like in the US (which always shock
> me): E.g. 'Caucasian' is something that is completely alien to my
> culture, only heard in American movies.
I am not aware of any systems or databases that track personal data such
as gender that is available to anyone other than HR, and I am not aware
of any systems that track orientation. Granted, I have only been with
Mozilla for just over a year, but in the security team we see *alot* of
systems. If we saw something like that in the course of a review we
would flag it and raise it to the appropriate team (HR, Privacy, Legal,
and other mobs with pitchforks and torches). I would expect that
anyone, community member or employee, that became aware of such a list
would request that it be disposed of, or raise it to the team.
Many of the people arguing against the structure or nature (or
existence) of the CoC are saying that we should just treat each other
with respect and use our own judgement. The kneejerk reaction that
Lukas (or the org) must be doing something wrong shows why we can't make
that assumption.
It is more reasonable to assume that a member of the LGBT community and
who has promoted that community within Mozilla knows a bunch of the
other people in that community and built those stats off of personal
knowledge than to assume that a community with our commitment to privacy
is building such a database.
There are two easy ways to gather rough stats for both of the items
Lukas posted about; these are just the two I thought of as examples, and
there are probably alot more.
- gender: a very rough set of gender stats could be gathered by
surveying the names of employees and/or contributors where real names
are supplied. It would be a rough stat, but especially in the case of
an employee generating stats, they could use the pictures provided to
inform gender determination.
- orientation: getting a count of either members or unique posters to
the homozilla google group would give a reasonable estimate of the
number of people who have opted-in to identifying themselves as a member
of that community.
As for the concerns of community or employee counts, it *doesn't
matter*. The differentiation between employee and volunteer is strictly
a function of the HR policies required by the legal jurisdictions in
which we employ individuals. The fact that someone gets a paycheque
from Mozilla does not validate or invalidate their concerns.
> On 4/5/12 12:03 PM, Robert Kaiser wrote:
>> What "underrepresented" and "continue to be silenced" groups do you
>> mean there, within Mozilla activities? SeaMonkey "followers"? Camino
>> developers? Newsgroup lovers? I've seen those be treated with
>> intolerance, discriminated, or ridiculed withing the community a
>> couple of times. I think those groups always found a way to clear out
>> the problems and calm down everyone in the end, bringing our
>> collaborative and inclusive work ethic to the front again and working
>> together under the Mozilla mission.
> The world's population of women usually hovers around 54%, Mozilla's is
> currently about 18%
> Homosexuality is generally accepted to be 10% of humans, Mozilla's LGBT
> population is about 3%
> I'm not going to attempt to put numbers on our population of people of
> colour but I can assure you we fall below norms there as well.
> This "laundry list" isn't supposed to be about covering every possible
> minority situation that can arise in a large, diverse group of people. > In fact, it's not about 'minority' at all. It's about oppression and a
> history of struggle against it. Being the only SeaMonkey follower in a
> room of Camino developers may make you a minority in the room but it
> doesn't (and can't) make you oppressed.
> Women struggle for the right to vote, and continue having to fight for
> for equal rights
> Blacks fought to end slavery, and still fight daily against profiling
> and discrimination based on the colour of their skin
> Homosexuals have fought and continue to experience police brutality,
> forced institutionalization, and workplace discrimination (eg: fighting
> for same sex benefits)
> These are just a few very generalized (and hopefully obvious and
> universally agreed upon) examples of _historical_ and large-scale
> struggles against oppression.
> Putting together a "laundry list" for the purposes of inclusion should
> be a way of saying "We are going to try and be part of the solution for
> people experiencing these struggles by acknowledging these groups exist,
> their oppression is real, and promising to help deal with bad behaviour
> directed toward these groups as we know they are people who are fighting
> oppression and we are their ally in that fight".
> It's not like it's the guest list for a show - being on the list is not
> itself a privilege. I don't want to be on that list, I need to be on
> that list and know that my larger community _sees_ me, cares for me, and
> wants to be trying to do better by everyone, but with a nod to the
> people on that list that says "yes, you belong here too". That these
> sort of issues and discussions rarely come up at Mozilla is indeed a
> sign that we are generally better than average. The list is just a
> compass to help show ourselves and the outside world that we recognize
> oppression exists and we won't sit idly by if it happens in our spaces.
> This is perhaps not the place for discussing technical changes to our
> discussion forum mechanisms, but I know I, for one, think that the
> availability of a web interface to them is vital for our accessibility
> to less technical people.
I'd cheers for anyone making a *decent* web app for newsgroup access. There's a whole lot of conversations that would be opened to a whole lot of people with something like that.
I find using the mailing list and filters works really well for me and the
barrier to entry is low. Though I would love to see a different backend
entirely that provides the same benefits of newsgroups/mailing lists but
adds in being able to use things like tags so you don't have to follow the
whole list/group if you're not that involved. A nicer interface than google
groups to view single threads would be nice and less ambitious!
On Mon, Apr 9, 2012 at 3:52 PM, Robert Kaiser <ka...@kairo.at> wrote:
> Gervase Markham schrieb:
> This is perhaps not the place for discussing technical changes to our
>> discussion forum mechanisms, but I know I, for one, think that the
>> availability of a web interface to them is vital for our accessibility
>> to less technical people.
> I'd cheers for anyone making a *decent* web app for newsgroup access.
> There's a whole lot of conversations that would be opened to a whole lot of
> people with something like that.
> I find using the mailing list and filters works really well for me and the
> barrier to entry is low. Though I would love to see a different backend
> entirely that provides the same benefits of newsgroups/mailing lists but
> adds in being able to use things like tags so you don't have to follow the
> whole list/group if you're not that involved. A nicer interface than google
> groups to view single threads would be nice and less ambitious!
Exactly. And other stuff can maybe be put on top later, if it's done well.
I personally dislike mailing lists a lot and web forums even less so because of their being cumbersome to handle and harder for me to read at my convenience but still have conveniently well-tracked and fast in access, which newsgroups in the SeaMonkey/Thunderbird interface (or most other real newsreader apps) give me.
An of-the-web solution with the same convenience would be awesome - Google Groups really looks to me more like an interface to drive people away from such media rather than enable useful communication.
> This is a way of putting it, but again, I want to caution you on the use
> of words like "worldview", as it carries the implication that these are
> abstract, verbal or intellectual positions.
Your worldview is how you view the world - it can be formed in any number of ways, from abstract thinking to life experience, but is almost always formed by a combination of factors. It's the assumptions underlying how you behave and speak.
> The verbal, clinical, political elaboration of this in a body of theory,
> a "worldview", comes later. So stating it as a "primary" way of
> characterizing the oppressed may be seen as trivializing. That is, your
> paragraph above may be read as accusing an oppressed person of
> personally creating (through their interpretation) the subjective
> phenomenon of their oppression. Whereas they may feel the experience was
> imposed from outside, quite against their will, and they only came to an
> articulated "worldview" about it quite a while later.
Clearly, it makes no sense to tell someone that their experiences are not their experiences. However, the synthesis of a set of experiences and facts into a judgement "I am being oppressed" is something two people can disagree on. Additionally, two people can be under the same set of circumstances, and one feels oppressed, the other not. Sometimes one would find wide agreement with one's conclusion of oppression, other times not. There is reasonably wide agreement that 'Dalits in India' are oppressed. I think there would be more dispute about the idea that 'women living in London' are, although some would claim it.
As a relativist, I am surprised to find you arguing for an absolute standard of what is "oppression".
I can, of course, accept that someone feels, and claims to be, oppressed. But I don't have to take that claim of their oppression as an absolute factual truth which is also true for me and everyone else. Do I?
> I accept, for the sake of argument, that you're having difficulty
> interpreting it. I'd like to focus on something you said in this
> message: "not for lack of trying". This is an important point to focus
> on, because it's a place this conversation is presently failing. You
> (and others holding similar views) are being seen as not trying, or not
> trying very hard, to understand. Trying hard means reading, challenging
> your own assumptions, and engaging in empathy. A lot.
A thought experiment. I think I could, with a reasonable degree of length and accuracy, outline my opponents' position on the nature and purpose of marriage. Could you do the same for me?
What would "trying very hard but still not agreeing" look like?
> After a large enough number of conversations following similar patterns,
> members of oppressed groups have in many cases come to the conclusion
> that they _should not honor_ requests from the oppressor group to
> "explain the problem more" to them.
I'm not sure I issued such a request. Did I?
> - That they're based on accumulating further "effort debt" in an
> already deeply indebted relationship. That is, oppressed people
> often feel like they've had to spend their entire life "adapting"
> to the needs of the oppressor group (by being oppressed) and that
> an equitable show of good faith would begin with the oppressor
> repaying some of that vast accumulated debt of adaptation. In
> other words, saying "explain it to me" is viewed as a continuation
> of the oppressive relationship: it perpetuates the stance that
> a problem of the oppressor (the oppressor's non-understanding) is
> somehow the oppressed-person's problem to solve.
On the other side, such arguments seem tantamount to "I'm not going to explain to you why I'm right, but you need to do what I say anyway". It also seems like a rather offensive tarring-with-the-same-brush: "I've hardly ever interacted with you, but I am going to, by virtue of your personal characteristics such as whiteness or maleness, going to label you as part of an oppressive group, attribute the behaviour of others to you, feel negatively towards you, take offence at what you do, refuse to explain why and then demand that you make changes to accommodate my wishes." Given the nature of such conversations are often about _not_ treating people a particular way based on their group, this comes across as very hypocritical.
It's a question of assuming good faith, or not, in any particular case. If you, Graydon, believe that I, Gerv, am engaged in this conversation to sap your emotional energy, perpetuate my oppression of you, and to get a kick out of it to boot, then it's unlikely there will be a meeting of minds. You are right - you should refuse my trolling and give up.
But if a refusal is based on treating me as a member of a group and assuming that I behave accordingly, then how is that different to the group-based discrimination you are decrying? Apart from the fact that it's done by the 'oppressed' rather than the 'oppressor'?
> - That there is an _abundance_ of written material already present
> that is not difficult to find. I'll point to some below for the
> sake of ... speeding the conversation along, but the idea that this
> analytical perspective or political framework is uninterpretable
> or foreign or hard to understand, given the extensive elaboration
> already in existence, is hard to take credibly.
I'm sorry you find it hard to believe; but it's true. You can see evidence of it in these threads. Tim comments on the 'privilege' necessary to volunteer for Mozilla; many people reading find it very hard to understand how he came to that conclusion. He talks about systematic oppression within Mozilla - people have found that claim very hard to understand too.
> I ask that you "do more work" in understanding the "side" you're
> claiming to "not understand". If after reading at some length you still
> _really_ can't understand the vocabulary being used, the analytical
> framework, the "worldview", then we can discuss further based on the
> furthest you got in that reading. Fair?
Only if I am allowed also to lay claim to days and days of your time to get you to read things to try and persuade you of my point of view. But I suspect that I'm not, because I'm the 'oppressor', as you define it.
I _have_ spent hours trying to understand better where you are coming from. I've read things written by you and by Tim, and places linked to. But I don't think further study will convince me of the rightness of what you are saying. There are a bunch of worldview assumptions underlying this entire strand of thought that I just don't share.
> On 4/6/2012 10:42 AM, Gervase Markham wrote:
>> On 06/04/12 03:06, Asa Dotzler wrote:
>>> I've talked to two Mozillians in the last couple of weeks, one paid and
>>> one volunteer, who have strong opinions about this topic but
>>> newsgroups/mailinglists/googlegroups are too high a hurdle to for them
>>> to join the discussion.
>> Are there really people out there making significant contributions to
>> Mozilla for whom joining a mailing list (which mozilla.governance, like
>> all groups, is available as) or posting via a web form (on Google
>> Groups) is too high a technical hurdle? How do they take part in any
>> Mozilla discussions at all? Is Google Groups harder to figure out than
>> Bugzilla?
> Yes. Talk to pretty much anyone involved in the Engagement team,
> especially Product Marketing. Talk to most of the Mozilla Legal and
> Public Policy teams. Talk with our BD team. Reach out to our People team
> and ask them. Then talk with all the other people who simply don't
> believe that the these forums can be productively used.
> We are no longer an organization of geeks. Engineering makes up about
> 1/4th of Mozilla these days.
> - A
I retract my statement about Product Marketing. There are a decent number of them with activity in a couple of our newsgroup/mailman/googlegroups forums.
Also, it's not about being technical enough or not to set up, it's about being *usable* -- see the part of my comment where I say "talk with all the other people who simply don't believe that the these forums can be productively used."
Sure, I think most people at Mozilla could sign up for a gmail account and visit google groups. Do I think that results in a productive discussion forum for most people? Absolutely not.
I'm sure it wasn't. I am telling you how you may be heard when saying certain things, so you can adapt your rhetoric, if you care to, for the sake of discussion in good faith.
> Clearly, it makes no sense to tell someone that their experiences are
> not their experiences. However, the synthesis of a set of experiences
> and facts into a judgement "I am being oppressed" is something two
> people can disagree on.
That is likely heard as "telling someone their experience is not their experience". You need to be _overwhelmingly_ cautious about denying someone's experience of oppression if you want to keep people engaged in this conversation and "feeling welcomed", to hear you in any way other than arguing in bad faith.
> As a relativist, I am surprised to find you arguing for an absolute
> standard of what is "oppression".
I'm not. I'm telling you how you may be heard, given the lived experience of the person hearing you. Extrapolating a bit from the hurt responses I'm hearing from others. Apologies if I'm misrepresenting anyone.
(Though you're also extrapolating from my moral relativism to a kind of epistemic or ontological relativism that's a deeper gamble. I happen to hold it too, but that's not for this thread. You can take that over to the private email thread where we're politely discussing philosophy in private.)
> A thought experiment. I think I could, with a reasonable degree of
> length and accuracy, outline my opponents' position on the nature and
> purpose of marriage. Could you do the same for me?
I don't know, probably? I'm the son of a legally married gay Anglican minister, so it's not exactly a foreign topic. I haven't claimed a "lack of understanding" of your position so far because it sounds painfully familiar to me. But if you want me to read some particularly enlightening tract on your position, that you think I'm currently ignorant of, I'm willing to give it a read.
> What would "trying very hard but still not agreeing" look like?
Agreeing to read and empathize, to the point where "not understanding" is no longer a block and we can move on to the points you actually don't agree about. Maybe using common terminology without air quotes.
>> After a large enough number of conversations following similar patterns,
>> members of oppressed groups have in many cases come to the conclusion
>> that they _should not honor_ requests from the oppressor group to
>> "explain the problem more" to them.
> I'm not sure I issued such a request. Did I?
Yes. You're doing so implicitly below with the "people have found that claim very hard to understand" statement and again with the "I have spent hours trying to understand" statement. It's come up a number of times in this thread. I'm clarifying how "I can't understand oppression", from an oppressor group, is sometimes heard by people with the experience of oppression.
> On the other side, such arguments seem tantamount to "I'm not going to
> explain to you why I'm right, but you need to do what I say anyway". It
> also seems like a rather offensive tarring-with-the-same-brush: "I've
> hardly ever interacted with you, but I am going to, by virtue of your
> personal characteristics such as whiteness or maleness, going to label
> you as part of an oppressive group, attribute the behaviour of others to
> you, feel negatively towards you, take offence at what you do, refuse to
> explain why and then demand that you make changes to accommodate my
> wishes." Given the nature of such conversations are often about _not_
> treating people a particular way based on their group, this comes across
> as very hypocritical.
Rhetorically speaking: directing focus to equality-of-treatment for perceived oppressor-groups in these conversations, as well as focusing concern on hypocrisy on the part of oppressed people when standing up for themselves, is often read in a poor light. Because the oppressor group never seems to care about equality or hypocrisy when it's _enforcing_ oppression, or otherwise benefiting from its privilege. Only when the oppressed speak up. It's a question of reflecting on why you're concerning yourself with this topic now -- when someone pushes back on it -- rather than all the times basic social injustice is done.
Again, what I'm trying to draw your attention to here is that existing social power imbalances between groups deeply influence interpretation of politeness and rhetorical stance when _discussing_ social power imbalances. You're a member of a highly socially privileged race, gender, sexual orientation, economic class, nationality and language group. You are a member of your state's established religion. You have an enormous "trade surplus" in terms of privilege and social power. I'm asking you to understand what that _means_ when you bring it to a conversation about oppression, and what it means (rhetorically) to be heard repeatedly focusing attention on your own concerns, your need to be defended from accusation, your apparent deficit of understanding, your sensitivity to hypocrisy and equality in responses from oppressed, etc. You keep making the topic about yourself.
The power imbalance is read by many as a preexisting obligation to show good faith by setting aside your own concerns and listening more, adapting more, acknowledging the basic power inequality as a ground condition for the conversation. Spending effort and swallowing objections in order to listen.
If you rhetorically show indifference towards -- or even question the existence of -- that social power imbalance, you are effectively terminating the conversation by rejecting its premise. If you accept its premise, there are consequences to your choice of how to speak and listen.
> It's a question of assuming good faith, or not, in any particular case.
> If you, Graydon, believe that I, Gerv, am engaged in this conversation
> to sap your emotional energy, perpetuate my oppression of you, and to
> get a kick out of it to boot, then it's unlikely there will be a meeting
> of minds. You are right - you should refuse my trolling and give up.
I believe you're being somewhat stubborn, but not trolling; there's a chance you'll listen to reason as you're amenable to changing your views. I think. I'm not sure about that, as you've expressed a belief in moral and epistemic absolutism. But perhaps you're willing to listen. In any case I have no skin in the game (I'm also a member of an extremely socially powerful and privileged group; you're not oppressing _me_) so I have emotional energy to spare clarifying these points.
> But if a refusal is based on treating me as a member of a group and
> assuming that I behave accordingly, then how is that different to the
> group-based discrimination you are decrying? Apart from the fact that
> it's done by the 'oppressed' rather than the 'oppressor'?
Even the use of quotes surrounding those terms is going to be read as questioning the ontological categories. Do you actually not believe there are socially oppressed groups? That the groups we're discussing here are socially oppressed? That you carry a great surplus of social power?
> I'm sorry you find it hard to believe; but it's true. You can see
> evidence of it in these threads. Tim comments on the 'privilege'
> necessary to volunteer for Mozilla; many people reading find it very
> hard to understand how he came to that conclusion.
Right, and, well, as I said: there are links. I provided some. Privilege shouldn't be hard to understand given the copious explanations available. If you can't or aren't willing to read those, I'll explain more here:
It means "not having to think about something".
To be privileged is to be able to ignore an injustice, not have it interfere with your life. It's a free pass to skip something unpleasant that others live with. Most of us in socially dominant groups can go days, weeks, months blissfully unaware of some quantity of the social injustices perpetuated along lines of race, gender, class, sexual orientation, language, religion, disability, nationality, or similar dimensions. We just choose not to think of them, and voila, no intrusion into our lives. People on the "losing side" of such characteristics, in any given case of social oppression, have no such luck. They often have to live each day in acute awareness of how they're being punished for things beyond their control. They'd love to have a day when they didn't have to think about the characteristic marking their oppression.
The result of a privilege is often a further surplus of energy and social power; it perpetuates itself through positive feedback, much like wealth does in a capitalist system (and indeed, wealth is a _great_ example of social power). Power grants privilege, which enables a surplus of resources to get more power, which begets more privilege.
My former links didn't cover Tim's statement about having privilege to do this sort of work, so I'll clarify further here. He was (as I read it) restating an often-made critique of the free software community: that it's born from the surplus power (in the form of time, money, personal security, social sanction, education and personal investment) of the privileged, and that to have the resources to dedicate to "idle matters" like writing sophisticated software in exchange for no money is itself something many people simply haven't the surplus resources for. More so in oppressed groups.
This is not to say that _all_ people involved in this community have such characteristics, or that _no_ oppressed people wind up here, nor is it a call to numerically catalogue oppressions and their relative personal
...
A lot of people keep making it about Gerv (done it myself), and certainly
that made sense at the beginning. I think in several places people have
been asking the right questions: "how are people oppressed _within
Mozilla_" If Gerv's post is the only example we're working with then let's
address it head on, but it was addressed, he took it off planet, so now
it's not about Gerv. Even if Gerv doesn't agree or understand *why* he now
understands that this type of post on this subject upsets people (Gerv
please tell me I've got this right!).
Any issues left are to do with module owners and policy which is being
addressed. Mitchell has talked about referring to Mozilla spaces and
non-Mozilla spaces and establishing that will do the most to otherwise
address the issue from *this* example.
I hope this doesn't offend anyone that was hurt, but I'd _really_ like to
stop talking about Gerv now and focus on talking about Mozilla. Many of my
friends in the community fall into an "oppressed" category (quotes because
I'm using the term as defined in this conversation, not to question the
oppression) and I would very much like to hear about their overall
experiences and overall disappointments with Mozilla. If there is something
systemic going on I think we should spend our time talking about that.
On Tue, Apr 10, 2012 at 2:49 PM, Graydon Hoare <gray...@mozilla.com> wrote:
> On 4/10/2012 7:42 AM, Gervase Markham wrote:
> That was not my intent
> I'm sure it wasn't. I am telling you how you may be heard when saying
> certain things, so you can adapt your rhetoric, if you care to, for the
> sake of discussion in good faith.
> Clearly, it makes no sense to tell someone that their experiences are
>> not their experiences. However, the synthesis of a set of experiences
>> and facts into a judgement "I am being oppressed" is something two
>> people can disagree on.
> That is likely heard as "telling someone their experience is not their
> experience". You need to be _overwhelmingly_ cautious about denying
> someone's experience of oppression if you want to keep people engaged in
> this conversation and "feeling welcomed", to hear you in any way other than
> arguing in bad faith.
> As a relativist, I am surprised to find you arguing for an absolute
>> standard of what is "oppression".
> I'm not. I'm telling you how you may be heard, given the lived experience
> of the person hearing you. Extrapolating a bit from the hurt responses I'm
> hearing from others. Apologies if I'm misrepresenting anyone.
> (Though you're also extrapolating from my moral relativism to a kind of
> epistemic or ontological relativism that's a deeper gamble. I happen to
> hold it too, but that's not for this thread. You can take that over to the
> private email thread where we're politely discussing philosophy in private.)
> A thought experiment. I think I could, with a reasonable degree of
>> length and accuracy, outline my opponents' position on the nature and
>> purpose of marriage. Could you do the same for me?
> I don't know, probably? I'm the son of a legally married gay Anglican
> minister, so it's not exactly a foreign topic. I haven't claimed a "lack of
> understanding" of your position so far because it sounds painfully familiar
> to me. But if you want me to read some particularly enlightening tract on
> your position, that you think I'm currently ignorant of, I'm willing to
> give it a read.
> What would "trying very hard but still not agreeing" look like?
> Agreeing to read and empathize, to the point where "not understanding" is
> no longer a block and we can move on to the points you actually don't agree
> about. Maybe using common terminology without air quotes.
> After a large enough number of conversations following similar patterns,
>>> members of oppressed groups have in many cases come to the conclusion
>>> that they _should not honor_ requests from the oppressor group to
>>> "explain the problem more" to them.
>> I'm not sure I issued such a request. Did I?
> Yes. You're doing so implicitly below with the "people have found that
> claim very hard to understand" statement and again with the "I have spent
> hours trying to understand" statement. It's come up a number of times in
> this thread. I'm clarifying how "I can't understand oppression", from an
> oppressor group, is sometimes heard by people with the experience of
> oppression.
> On the other side, such arguments seem tantamount to "I'm not going to
>> explain to you why I'm right, but you need to do what I say anyway". It
>> also seems like a rather offensive tarring-with-the-same-brush: "I've
>> hardly ever interacted with you, but I am going to, by virtue of your
>> personal characteristics such as whiteness or maleness, going to label
>> you as part of an oppressive group, attribute the behaviour of others to
>> you, feel negatively towards you, take offence at what you do, refuse to
>> explain why and then demand that you make changes to accommodate my
>> wishes." Given the nature of such conversations are often about _not_
>> treating people a particular way based on their group, this comes across
>> as very hypocritical.
> Rhetorically speaking: directing focus to equality-of-treatment for
> perceived oppressor-groups in these conversations, as well as focusing
> concern on hypocrisy on the part of oppressed people when standing up for
> themselves, is often read in a poor light. Because the oppressor group
> never seems to care about equality or hypocrisy when it's _enforcing_
> oppression, or otherwise benefiting from its privilege. Only when the
> oppressed speak up. It's a question of reflecting on why you're concerning
> yourself with this topic now -- when someone pushes back on it -- rather
> than all the times basic social injustice is done.
> Again, what I'm trying to draw your attention to here is that existing
> social power imbalances between groups deeply influence interpretation of
> politeness and rhetorical stance when _discussing_ social power imbalances.
> You're a member of a highly socially privileged race, gender, sexual
> orientation, economic class, nationality and language group. You are a
> member of your state's established religion. You have an enormous "trade
> surplus" in terms of privilege and social power. I'm asking you to
> understand what that _means_ when you bring it to a conversation about
> oppression, and what it means (rhetorically) to be heard repeatedly
> focusing attention on your own concerns, your need to be defended from
> accusation, your apparent deficit of understanding, your sensitivity to
> hypocrisy and equality in responses from oppressed, etc. You keep making
> the topic about yourself.
> The power imbalance is read by many as a preexisting obligation to show
> good faith by setting aside your own concerns and listening more, adapting
> more, acknowledging the basic power inequality as a ground condition for
> the conversation. Spending effort and swallowing objections in order to
> listen.
> If you rhetorically show indifference towards -- or even question the
> existence of -- that social power imbalance, you are effectively
> terminating the conversation by rejecting its premise. If you accept its
> premise, there are consequences to your choice of how to speak and listen.
> It's a question of assuming good faith, or not, in any particular case.
>> If you, Graydon, believe that I, Gerv, am engaged in this conversation
>> to sap your emotional energy, perpetuate my oppression of you, and to
>> get a kick out of it to boot, then it's unlikely there will be a meeting
>> of minds. You are right - you should refuse my trolling and give up.
> I believe you're being somewhat stubborn, but not trolling; there's a
> chance you'll listen to reason as you're amenable to changing your views. I
> think. I'm not sure about that, as you've expressed a belief in moral and
> epistemic absolutism. But perhaps you're willing to listen. In any case I
> have no skin in the game (I'm also a member of an extremely socially
> powerful and privileged group; you're not oppressing _me_) so I have
> emotional energy to spare clarifying these points.
> But if a refusal is based on treating me as a member of a group and
>> assuming that I behave accordingly, then how is that different to the
>> group-based discrimination you are decrying? Apart from the fact that
>> it's done by the 'oppressed' rather than the 'oppressor'?
> Even the use of quotes surrounding those terms is going to be read as
> questioning the ontological categories. Do you actually not believe there
> are socially oppressed groups? That the groups we're discussing here are
> socially oppressed? That you carry a great surplus of social power?
> I'm sorry you find it hard to believe; but it's true. You can see
>> evidence of it in these threads. Tim comments on the 'privilege'
>> necessary to volunteer for Mozilla; many people reading find it very
>> hard to understand how he came to that conclusion.
> Right, and, well, as I said: there are links. I provided some. Privilege
> shouldn't be hard to understand given the copious explanations available.
> If you can't or aren't willing to read those, I'll explain more here:
> It means "not having to think about something".
> To be privileged is to be able to ignore an injustice, not have it
> interfere with your life. It's a free pass to skip something unpleasant
> that others live with. Most of us in socially dominant groups can go days,
> weeks, months blissfully unaware of some quantity of the social injustices
> perpetuated along lines of race, gender, class, sexual
It's been suggested to me, and in review I agree, that this exchange - while, in my mind, very helpful - is drifting rather too far from the focus of this group. Graydon and I have been having several private email exchanges also. While I have not had as much time to pursue those as I would like, and adding another will not help in that regard :-), I think that nevertheless we should move this somewhere else.
