On Apr 6, 2014, at 10:34 AM, Gervase Markham <[email protected]> wrote:

> Hi Mike,
> 
> On 06/04/14 15:26, Michael Connor wrote:
>> There’s a lot of really poisonous and hateful stuff coming through. I
>> don’t think Mao/Stalin comparisons are any better than Nazi
>> comparisons.  Or concern trolling about pedophilia advocacy (which is
>> a common false equivalency used to attack pro-LGBT activities).
> 
> Yes, OK. I will try and do better and read more carefully. It's
> difficult to decide what to do when you have a message which is mostly OK.

I’d err on the side of caution.  If people are willing to engage in a healthy, 
civil manner, I’m sure they’d be willing to re-submit a post that conforms to 
the CPG.  If they’re not willing be civil and constructive, they should not be 
given a platform here.  The Web has plenty of places people can vent without 
restriction.

>> A large number of these posts are, in my opinion, a direct violation
>> of the requirement to keep support for exclusionary practices out of
>> Mozilla spaces as enshrined in the Community Participation Guidelines
>> [1], 
> 
> Can you walk me through how you reach that conclusion?

* I don’t believe it’s ever acceptable under the CPG to advocate against LGBT 
marriage rights.
* I’d explicitly drop posts using any of the common “attack” tactics:
** Comparisons to pedophilia
** Complaining about the “gay/queer/homosexual agenda”
** Arguing the right of the majority to dictate to the minority
** Toxic comparisons like Mao/Stalin against those who believe differently

> I think it would be unreasonable, if there were two messages of equal
> "intensity", one on each side of the issue, to use the CPG as
> justification to delete one and post the other. Is that what you are
> asking for?

My understanding of the CPG is that promotion of exclusionary practices is not 
permitted, full stop.  Thus I don’t think it’s unreasonable to expect that 
advocacy against same-sex marriage is not permitted on a Mozilla forum.

By the same token, if there was advocacy against those with religious beliefs 
(i.e. “Brendan should have been fired for his beliefs” is a common thing I’ve 
seen elsewhere) I would equally call those violations.

As, perhaps, a key distinction:

* I think it’s 100% on board to defend Brendan’s right to his beliefs.
* I think it’s 100% out of line to debate/defend the correctness of Brendan’s 
beliefs

Does that distinction make sense to you?

>> and I’d hardly call most of them “civil” in the context of the
>> Forum Etiquette [2].
> 
> A lot of people are very angry, and I think that if we thought it was
> important to listen to the other group of angry people:

I’m 100% fine with engaging with angry people, if they are civil, and willing 
to constructively engage.  I’d hope that you can see the difference between 
constructive questioning and emotional attacks.

> "We didn’t act like you’d expect Mozilla to act. We didn’t move fast
> enough to engage with people once the controversy started. We’re sorry.
> We must do better."
> https://blog.mozilla.org/blog/2014/04/03/brendan-eich-steps-down-as-mozilla-ceo/
> 
> then it's important to listen to this one too. I think that, in the
> circumstances, we should cut more slack than usual here. And Mozillians
> have been engaging with the angry people in the group, and even won some
> over; please feel free to join in.

I’ll note that the people getting direct responses tend to be the people who 
are civil, rather than hateful.  I’m happy to engage with individuals who are 
willing to engage in a civil way. I’ve been trying to do that where I have time.

— Mike

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