On 3/15/14, John L. Ries <jr...@salford-systems.com> wrote: > On Fri, 14 Mar 2014, Tom H wrote: > >> On Tue, Mar 11, 2014 at 3:42 AM, Jonathan Dowland <j...@debian.org> >> wrote: >>> On Tue, Mar 11, 2014 at 01:10:11PM +1100, Charlie Schroeder wrote: >>>> >>>> Life isn't about second guessing if you write or speak to someone if >>>> they will take offence surely? Isn't it so that you say your piece and >>>> people can take it or leave it. It's up to them. >>> >>> "Life" and the Debian user mailing list are not the same thing. You can >>> make your own rules as to how you life and act within your own life, but >>> within a community one must abide the community rules. At the moment, >>> there's nothing explicitly written that dictates that one should be >>> polite, respectful, avoid causing offence, etc., for the Debian >>> community nor this mailing list. This is a bug which should be fixed and >>> the project is considering the adoption of a 'code of conduct' which >>> will replace the existing mailing list CoC. The text of the proposal is >>> here[1]. Of particular relevance here is, I think, "a community in which >>> people feel threatened is not a healthy community". >>> >>> [1] https://lists.debian.org/debian-project/2014/02/msg00069.html >> >> It's sad that Debian's demeaning itself with this politically-correct >> rubbish. > > Would "politically correct" in this context be a perjorative for "polite"? > > It's one thing to complain about efforts to accomodate the political > sensibilities of others and to hide one's own, but quite a few people now > seem to regard courtesy itself as a vice.
I can't speak for Tom, but I wouldn't say it's anything to do with just being polite, nor the expectation and encouragement of people on the list to be polite. That is a misunderstanding on your part of what someone means when they say 'this is political correctness gone too far'. I say the problem is the formalisation of politeness, and the formalisation of sanctions. In addition, in this case, clandestine "moderation" (fancy word for those who find "censorship" to be politically-incorrect) of our mailing lists has come to light, and is now being formalised. In the wake of some intensely objectionable posts to various lists (including this one, debian-user), it is hard to argue against such 'politically correct' reactions, and I myself have no simple or easy answer. There is a saying I don't remember from whom or from where, perhaps Rudolph Steiner, 'the increase in laws that a society creates is proportional to the degeneration of the internal morals of those in that society' - of course I am paraphrasing heavily. I think that in the long term, as the debian community (developers) formalise things like this, there are certain definite potential problems (in the long term), and frankly, I think it will be a very good thing for the community to go through those problems, because evidently it is only in the hindsight of actually experiencing such problems that many people can realise those problems, or see the folly of the things they do now - like formalising politeness into legislation (Debian policy) and formalising and condoning activities such as clandestine censorship (sorry, 'moderation') in the name of not offending the person who has apparently so offended the community that they ought be not offended by any public record of the moderation of them or their post(s). I predict the following, and mark my words: future and greater problems will arise directly from this policy (if this policy gets voted in by the developers) which future problems will only be seen by many through the experience of those problems (as in, bigger problems than the ones supposedly being 'solved' today). Keep well, Zenaan -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: https://lists.debian.org/CAOsGNSShjh7bF3_jFjM7pa_n3=jr+0105nsor-ikpddlj+q...@mail.gmail.com