Hi (mainly to Jonah, but about SWC policy in general), Spaced Girl told me by private email that you (Jonah) emailed her to say that you had unsubscribed her from the discussion list. I assume this was because she first used the word "asshole", as in:
"rather than have to receive asshole teaching statements" (about Dirk's rather abrupt and unhelpful email) - and then she used the word "shit" in her recent email, as in: "It's a theoretical piece of shit" (about the code of conduct). You (Jonah) publicly emailed in reply to the first of these, and referred Spaced Girl generally to the code of conduct. I must say it wasn't clear to me what you meant specifically in the code of conduct, and I thought Spaced Girl's general objection to Dirk's email was reasonable. I also think that the reference to "asshole teaching statements" is referring to the statement not the person, so is not a personal attack. I'm at a loss as to what you objected to in the second email if it was not just the word "shit" - but that seems pretty ordinary conversational use to me. I don't see any mention of swearing in the CoC. In any case, I was worried to hear that you thought these two emails were enough to justify throwing someone off the list. In general, it seems to me that it will be damaging to frank discussion if list users are aware that they could get thrown off for such minor things, and without any direct and specific warning (as in "if you swear in an email again, we will unsubscribe you"). Otherwise we are in the unpleasant situation where we have to worry about what is going to upset you, without knowing exactly what that is. Can I humbly suggest that, unless this is already done somewhere, SWC formalizes what exact steps should be taken when throwing someone off the list, and err strongly towards not doing that? I think this is a case where more aggressive enforcement is counterproductive. It doesn't make you feel more welcome if you know you have to be very careful what you say. Best, Matthew _______________________________________________ Discuss mailing list [email protected] http://lists.software-carpentry.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss_lists.software-carpentry.org
