[self-follow-up] It occurred to me that I need to correct and clarify a couple of points. I'll try to be brief about it, at least relative to my own mean email length, if not the project's.
At 2023-08-21T16:51:42-0500, G. Branden Robinson wrote: [...] > When we went around the block on this issue last year, the first 5 > "offensive" fortunes I asked for, weren't. One I did find to be of > low quality: I omitted the word "but" here, and that colon should have been a semicolon. > it wasn't homophobic, misogynistic, racist, or a quotation of Adolf > Hitler.[6] As it was, my statement was amenable to a perverse misreading--one which might be legitimately amusing to aficionados of "sick" humor. The more important points involve my proposed procedure for fielding challenges to the erstwhile fortunes-off package's content. [...] > In my earlier lengthy reply this month, I anticipated a disputation > process that would work like this. Here it is in detail. > > 1. Someone files a bug against the package, citing the individual > fortune(s) to which they object. There's no reason to require > that they be quoted; whatever unambiguously identifies the entries > in question would suffice. (Observing that the command's '-m' > flags work as union instead of intersection operators, I find > myself wishing that fortune(6) more closely resembled lookbib(1).) > Some of sort of volume- and rate-limiting is necessary; filing a > report for every fortune in the (former) fortunes-off package > would be abusive of project resources, not simply of me, who is > used to it. > > 2. The package maintainer (me, I reckon) reviews the items and > updates, discards, or retains each--per my personal taste, which > is informed by affection for the Debian Project and a desire to > see it endure, since I have no better metric I can apply as a > volunteer on unscheduled time. Normally I am a stickler for terminology, especially when a discussion is heated, because being clear about what is one is talking about is of elevated importance when emotions are. > 3. The reporter is either satisfied or not. If not, I reckon the > forum of appeal is the CoC committee. The body to which I refer is called the Community Team.[1] I think I lazily borrowed the foregoing coinage from someone else; I should have been more careful. Further, the question over whether that body _is_ the appropriate forum for resolving disputes over the appropriateness of package content is an open one. I readily concede the possibilities that (a) such decisions are not within the Community Team's remit, and that (b) the team as currently constituted may lack the appetite for such responsibility. I invite you to share your own perspective on those questions, Andy. > 4. The CoC deliberates. > > 5. The CoC either directs me to dispose of some item(s) or does not. > > 6. If they do direct me to dispose of one or more items, I decide > whether I can live with that decision. If I can, I adopt it and > upload a new version. If I can't, I guess my experiment in > maintaining the package concludes, and I orphan it. These steps presume affirmative answers to the open questions above. > 7. Independently of the foregoing, I can at any point be referred to > the CoC committee for writing too many lengthy emails, or > otherwise for being a nuisance. I may be expelled, and thus the > package becomes orphaned and removed by default--a stern warning > is sent to any would-be adopters thereby. Use of the passive > voice here is deliberate. This sort of operation has no face. > (If this dark musing is incomprehensible to the reader, be glad > you weren't around 20-25 years ago when our project had a cabal. > TINC.) By contrast, since I am participating on the Debian mailing lists, whatever I say here would appear to be within the Community Team's wheelhouse. If the content prohibition you (Andy) and the person who filed LP#1996682 have mooted is applicable, then I have already posted multiple messages (this month and last year) that expose me to disciplinary jeopardy. I feel that I have a case for my defense, but it would rely upon that dread beast "context".[2] On the one hand, the reporter of LP#1996682 objected to the entire contents of the fortunes-off package (literally, everything that it was "full of"), and as I pointed out last year, this includes quotes by Richard Hofstadter, Hunter S. Thompson, Ambrose Bierce, Edna St. Vincent Millay, Albert Einstein, Stephen Jay Gould, and George Carlin on a variety of topics. Perhaps that person's bug report is better interpreted as an emotional outburst than as a claim that is susceptible to analysis by any sort of content review body using an even vaguely objective and articulable standard of evaluation. Again I invite the reader to count up how many Nazis, and how many Jewish people, are in that list. It is curious that no opponents of the fortunes-off package's contents have yet stepped forward to proclaim the consequences of their actions as consistent with the values they claimed to be upholding by eliminating it.[3] I apologize for attaching an appendix to my earlier message so quickly. I acknowledge that a decent interval is best left for passage of my mails through one's digestive tract. Regards, Branden [1] https://wiki.debian.org/Teams/Community [2] I renew my invitation to locate the Hitler quote(s) in the exhibits I offered in my message of 19 August. I am confident that a sufficiently awakened mind will have no difficulty locating it--or them. The speech of evil people veritably blazons its depravity with every utterance, does it not? https://lists.debian.org/debian-project/2023/08/msg00045.html [3] I already know Steve L.'s metric. Admah and Zeboiim tremble.
signature.asc
Description: PGP signature
