On 2015-05-22 7:38 PM, Adam Roach wrote:
On 5/22/15 17:59, Mike Connor wrote:
Can you name an example that would actually be widely controversial?
Perhaps the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic -- I'd have to brush up on
Moroccan politics to be sure.
OK, so let's say that someone living in that region wants to be
identified as living in SADR. Why is that not OK? And why is it up to
us to decide that? And why would Mozilla care if the said individual
wants to be identified as living in the SADR or in Morocco?
If not, I don't think this is a material concern.
Can you predict the entire worldwide political landscape for the rest of
the lifetime of the project?
Nobody can, but what is the point of this question?
There are some very plausible, very near-term futures where an alternate
government that currently controls parts of what are widely recognized
as Iraq, Syria, Libya, and Nigeria begins to establish diplomatic
relations with other countries. It isn't hard to believe that, much like
the gradual diplomatic acceptance of the PRC in the '50's and '60's,
such an entity might gain recognition by a non-trivial percentage of UN
member states.
And that? That would be controversial.
It seems like you're optimizing for a different goal than some others in
this thread: avoiding making controversial decisions, and your solution
is to hand that off to another organization (the ISO.)
Let me just talk about one of the most controversial cases for a second:
ISIL, since you've mentioned it up-thread. Let's say that there are
people who self-identify as ISIL citizens, and they would like to be
part of the Mozilla community. What is the harm in allowing that
individual to self-identify as such for the purposes of their Mozilla
contributions?
I think this debate simply boils down to what goal we're trying to
achieve here. If our goal is avoiding controversy at all costs, then
your suggestion makes sense. But I would like to suggest that our goal
should be building a strong community that is open and welcoming to all,
no matter which part of the world they were born in, and live in, and
how they identify where in the world they live. With that goal in mind,
off-loading this decision to ISO makes no sense, since that is
effectively Mozilla taking a stance on what is and is not a country, and
taking away the ability of our contributors to make this call.
Cheers,
Ehsan
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