On 2015-05-22 9:14 PM, Eric Rescorla wrote:
On Fri, May 22, 2015 at 5:52 PM, Ehsan Akhgari <[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>> wrote: 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. Well, it's worth noting that this thread started (going on two weeks ago now) when someone complained about someone else using "Prishtina - Kosovo - Albania" as their location.
Of course. We need to make it clear that it is the user who has decided how to fill that form, and what to put there, through the language around the UI where this information is displayed. And we will obviously keep receiving complaints from people who don't recognize the states found on Mozilla Reps or other Mozilla venues, and we need to keep explaining that to them.
You may argue that it's futile to keep trying to stop these complaints, but I'd say that is OK, since the more important thing is for us to be welcoming to individuals no matter how hey identify their location.
> I suspect that the person
complaining didn't feel like we were fostering a welcoming environment.
Well, I have to say, with the current state of things, I don't believe we are as welcoming as we could be in this respect too.
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