I agree. I think it's used in the traditional Hinduism (or derivatives) sense in the specific case that I saw. Hence, the emphasis on this not being a witch hunt. This discussion isn't necessarily about their specific use, but more a general question about the impact on the community, and whether we want to discourage the use of symbols that carry such weight.
On Tue, Jan 31, 2017 at 6:50 PM Ted Dunning <ted.dunn...@gmail.com> wrote: > Yeah... I twitched when I saw that. > > My suspicion is that this is being used in the ancient, pre-nazi sense. > > It is hard to believe that somebody is ignorant of the impact it must have > on some readers. > > > > On Tue, Jan 31, 2017 at 3:47 PM, Christopher <ctubb...@apache.org> wrote: > > > Hi all, > > > > It is surprising to me that a certain individual participant in ASF > forums > > seems to be using a swastika as their Google profile photo. The impact of > > this is that ASF users which use GMail to interact with the mailing > lists, > > are presented with this swastika whenever reading or interacting with ASF > > forums using GMail. > > > > To be clear, this symbol can have alternate meanings, and it may not be > > intentionally being used as Nazi symbol. Additionally, even if this > > individual holds to certain ideologies which may be antithetical to ASF > > community inclusive values, they may act entirely professional and in > > accordance with ASF code of conduct on Apache forums. So, I don't want to > > imply that the profile photo is indicative of their ASF interactions... > it > > may be an entirely separate thing. > > > > My main inquiry here is to question whether or not there is a concern, > > because the use of such profile photos may actually have consequences of > > deterring potential new committers, because Apache may be indicted by > > association. > > > > Is there something we wish to do about this? Is it a non-issue? I really > > don't know. All I know, is my gut tells me that I'm bothered when I see > it > > (I use GMail). But, I don't want to overreact, or start a witch hunt. I'm > > genuinely curious if this is something we want to address at all. > > > > If the profile photo is used on ASF infrastructure (JIRA, affiliated as a > > member of the Apache org on GitHub, etc.), then I think we probably do > want > > to address it in the Code of Conduct. However, unrelated services like > > Google profile photos... that may not be something we want to address, > > because the web mail client users use is not related to ASF services > (even > > if it were know for user that it impacted ASF community by deterring > > potential new community members). > > > > In any case, I don't raise this issue to demean the individual whose > > profile photo came to my attention... this is not an attack on them. > Again, > > this is not a witch hunt. > > -- > > Christopher > > > -- Christopher
