Let me say a bit more about exceptions. I'll talk about myself. It's a pretty normal thing for people to blog about their personal lives, and maybe even to want to impart wisdom from past failed relationships. I, too, have wisdom from a failed marriage that I could talk about without particularly vilifying the other party, or challenges with dealing with an ex that I would otherwise vent about somewhere publicly to my friends. I have learned some things about communication through my failed marriage that I think are pretty apt in terms of all types of relationships and difficult communication. However, I would never post such things to planet. It would be harmful for me to do so.
In the context of Mozilla my ex isn't some faceless representative of ex husbands and the common challenges we have with them and the mistakes they make. Even if my advice were representative, timely, accurate and on the mark, for me to share that on planet would be uncomfortable and unproductive and could even be destructive. While a policy may give me *the* right to post on such a topic, that doesn't mean it would *be* right for me to do so. If I were to slip up and post a lesson learned from a complaint, or a story from 15 years ago that I figured was irrelevant by now, the right response isn't necessarily to review the policy and add a line about not posting about negative relationship experiences. It would be to take me aside and say "hey, you're a special case here, posts like that cause more harm than good given the greater context." The right thing for me to do would be to consciously *avoid* posts that are detrimental to the community, not to make sure I am staying within the literal bounds of the policy. I don't know if there are specifics in the policy about what to do about posts that end up causing harm, but it may be useful to have some allowance for fluid judgement, that at the end of the day, posts that end up causing harm rather than progress will be removed, and that if you can reasonably expect your post to cause harm rather than progress, you shouldn't share it even if it fits the other aspects of the policy. I don't think debate is necessarily harm, and while speaking out about a decision or a policy you disagree with will certainly cause arguments and upset, working through those issues can lead to progress, however sometimes they do, so I think the right thing to do is to leave room for discretion. On Mon, Dec 29, 2014 at 1:00 PM, Majken Connor <[email protected]> wrote: > I don't know whether the disclaimer is what Mike is talking about, though > I think it does obviously let people know right up front that you'll be > talking about Christianity, though I don't think it really does a good job > of describing what you'll say. However, this post would be in violation of > the guidelines anyway as it is clearly a position statement. > > Also I think this post is a really great example of why *you* always get > into trouble when you talk about your faith. You literally refuse to > discuss the matter from the perspective that it is your belief and that > others beliefs are equally valid. You in fact insist on talking about > Christianity because all other religions are "false." > > You hijacked a very good way of putting things, and took it back to the > extreme that makes people uncomfortable and even upset. A disclaimer isn't > going to fix that. You did the same thing to me in a discussion last year. > I was sharing an idea that *had been* well received about borrowing > organizational best practices from religious organizations. You took the > opportunity to start talking about your faith instead and then no one > wanted to touch that discussion with a 10 ft pole. > > I think that we can make a nice policy, but at the end of the day, I think > *you* need to not talk about religion in Mozilla. Either you do not know > how or you are unwilling to discuss it in a way that is respectful and > inclusive of others and other beliefs. > > I think that we need to be willing to address exceptions like this and let > certain people know that since they are struggling to stay within the > agreed upon lines that they shouldn't even make the attempt. I think we'll > end up pulling out our hair if we try to draft a policy that allows people > to discuss religion but tries to make the lines super clear for the people > who have trouble staying within them. > > Disclaimer of my own: I'm sharing those sentiments on this list because a) > I know you will not be upset that I shared them publicly, and that you will > even prefer not to make the discussion private and b) because I know many > people are thinking it. Hopefully having one person say it is enough and > everyone else can refrain from mentioning it and we can go back to > discussing the policy. > > On Mon, Dec 29, 2014 at 5:02 AM, Gervase Markham <[email protected]> wrote: > >> On 18/12/14 16:57, Gervase Markham wrote: >> > Well... OK. :-) I'm with you on the principle. But still hazy about the >> > practice. Help me with an example: what kind of >> > warning/disclaimer/sentence would have been the sort of thing these >> > guidelines would encourage at the top of that particular blog post? >> >> I gave this a go here: >> http://blog.gerv.net/2014/12/is-christianity-a-life-hack/ >> >> I'd be very interested in your feedback as to whether that was the sort >> of thing you meant. >> >> Gerv >> >> >> _______________________________________________ >> governance mailing list >> [email protected] >> https://lists.mozilla.org/listinfo/governance >> > > _______________________________________________ governance mailing list [email protected] https://lists.mozilla.org/listinfo/governance
