Stream >> <<

On Mon, Sep 16, 2019 at 3:59 PM Ramon Leon <[hidden email]> wrote:
>
> On 2019-09-11 1:07 p.m., Sean P. DeNigris wrote:
> > merely say that no one (including from those categories) will be harassed
> > inside the Pharo community. Seems pretty reasonable, unless I'm missing
> > something...
>
> You're missing what some progressives consider harassment these days.
> [SNIP]
> This is language policing and a forcing of political ideology into what should not be political.

I think that even the "adoption" of such "Covenant CoC" introduces
political ideology (and hence agenda) into this community that has
been free from political debate (and so I expect it to be).

> https://linustechtips.com/main/topic/974038-why-the-linux-coc-is-bad/

Oh my.

> It's sad to see that Pharo has jumped onto this PC bandwagon, it does not bode well for the community.

I believe this is more an undesired side effect of choosing a CoC from
a template without caring about the details than the intention to have
political correctness in the mailing list, because there's been flame
wars and name calling here, but I don't recall anybody raising
political ideology as an argument, or with the exception of a few
cases, used political imagery or references in the ML, presentations,
etc..

On a personal level I don't like this covenant in particular, and as
was mentioned before it is not even a covenant since most of us just
realized it existed and never before agreed to it.

As a side note I believe mailing lists (or online communities in
general) must not be safe spaces, and should only take action against
concrete threats or completely off-topic comments/posts.

Regards,

--
Esteban A. Maringolo

Hi Ramon,

I agree completely with you.

Lorenzo

-----Messaggio originale-----
Da: Pharo-users [mailto:[hidden email]] Per conto di Ramon Leon
Inviato: lunedì 16 settembre 2019 20:58
A: [hidden email]
Oggetto: Re: [Pharo-users] Code of Conduct

On 2019-09-11 1:07 p.m., Sean P. DeNigris wrote:
> Based on the reaction earlier in the thread, I was expecting something
> highly opinionated and polarizing, but it seems to boil down to: be
> professional and don't make it personal. While there are some categories of
> people mentioned, it doesn't seem to make a value judgement about them, but
> merely say that no one (including from those categories) will be harassed
> inside the Pharo community. Seems pretty reasonable, unless I'm missing
> something...

You're missing what some progressives consider harassment these days.  These codes of conduct are being used around the net to force progressive political ideology into technical communities, the vague language is used to claim offense at any number of things like misgendering, or refusing to use any number of made up pronouns. Using inclusive language means using progressive language like ze/zir, per/pers, ey/em, xe/xem if someone demands it.  This is language policing and a forcing of political ideology into what should not be political.  People are being kicked out of communities for violating codes of conduct of the community outside of the community, i.e. you said something on twitter or facebook and now you're banned from an open source project for it even though it had nothing to do with the project.

The person who created this particular code of conduct is a well known trans activist who first gets communities to accept the code of conduct, and then stalks people around web to find anything anywhere that might violate the vague code of conduct and then tries to cancel them in every community they're a part of. If you're not wary of this code of conduct, you're not paying attention to how it's being used out there.

Here's a few quotes from the author of this code of conduct.

"The Ruby community has no moral compass. Just aphorisms and self-congtatulatory, masturbatory bullshit."  << after trying and failing to kick the creator of Ruby out of the Ruby community.

"If you're not fighting alongside us, or lending support, you're STANDING IN OUR WAY. And I vow that I will walk right the fuck over you.".

"Fact: the solution to the problems in tech is not more tech. Especially not more tech written by privileged, heads-in-the-sand white dudes."

"So many cis het white tech dudes with large platforms on here, that not only don't engage in dialog on issues of social justice but don't even elevate the voices of those of us who do, ignoring POLITICS is a PRIVILEGE and I FUCKING SEE YOU."

Here's a little history of this code of conduct and some other popular communities.

https://linustechtips.com/main/topic/974038-why-the-linux-coc-is-bad/

It's sad to see that Pharo has jumped onto this PC bandwagon, it does not bode well for the community.

--
Ramón León

On Mon, Sep 16, 2019 at 11:58:17AM -0700, Ramon Leon wrote:

> It's sad to see that Pharo has jumped onto this PC bandwagon, it does not bode well for the community.

I agree. Technical people are too easy to exploit by malignant manipulators of people.
All too often they don't even realize it after the fact.

Hi,

For me, communities should be secure spaces in general for the people, not for the arguments, which means that constructive criticism should be addressed to the arguments in a community without personal attacks on the people there, as a general rule. I'm pretty secure that Code of Conducts intent to provide secure spaces beyond just digital spaces and go also into physical and face to face ones. When communities are small and from people who know each other, some explicit Code of Conduct maybe is not so needed, but at some point it would be. And in that context a wide discussion about which one could be selected and how is an important one. For example, in Latin America I have not seen a huge movement about new pronouns and I don't know any of such for Spanish.

The raised concerns about a Code that states punishment without restoration or defense is an important one, but also are the ones about technical communities where improper behavior is allowed because is not a "technical issue".

We may lock for examples in different communities to see which one fits better our own. This is an important conversation to have, once it has been raised.

Cheers,

Offray

There was a point raised in the Ruby discussion (where my thoughts about Matz changed from "inventor of a language that filled a much-needed gap" to "really thoughtful so maybe I was wrong about Ruby") which I think is sufficient reason for a major revision to the Coraline Code.  (For the record, I'm centre-left.)

There is a process for punishing, but no process for restoration.

Any morally acceptable code should be explicit that in the absence of a legal conviction, no person may be banned or locked out for more than some reasonable period, such as 2 years.  If someone re-offends after such a period, impose another temporary ban or lockout.

Given the way the concept of "harassment" has been misused, it no longer has any place in a code of conduct.  Harassment these days is whatever the percipient judges it to be.  There was a Pogo cartoon in which Pogo said "good morning" to a couple of other characters.  Afterwards, one of them said to the other "Pogo is so mealy-mouthed that 'good morning' from him could be someone else's 'drop dead'."  Then that was satire.  Today it's reality.  One of my daughter's friends was reported as harassing another woman.  What did she do?  Sat quietly in the car, looking straight ahead, neither saying anything nor moving.  I know this because I was in the driver's seat at the time.  The same woman accused my wife of harassing her.  How?  By sitting quietly in another room facing away from her.  My wife's offence was that if this woman looked at her through an internal window, she could see her.  I was sitting in the same room as the complainer at the time.  If just sitting quietly minding your own business can be construed as harassment, NOBODY is safe.

On Tue, 17 Sep 2019 at 06:59, Ramon Leon <[hidden email]> wrote:

On 2019-09-11 1:07 p.m., Sean P. DeNigris wrote:
> Based on the reaction earlier in the thread, I was expecting something
> highly opinionated and polarizing, but it seems to boil down to: be
> professional and don't make it personal. While there are some categories of
> people mentioned, it doesn't seem to make a value judgement about them, but
> merely say that no one (including from those categories) will be harassed
> inside the Pharo community. Seems pretty reasonable, unless I'm missing
> something...

You're missing what some progressives consider harassment these days.  These codes of conduct are being used around the net to force progressive political ideology into technical communities, the vague language is used to claim offense at any number of things like misgendering, or refusing to use any number of made up pronouns. Using inclusive language means using progressive language like ze/zir, per/pers, ey/em, xe/xem if someone demands it.  This is language policing and a forcing of political ideology into what should not be political.  People are being kicked out of communities for violating codes of conduct of the community outside of the community, i.e. you said something on twitter or facebook and now you're banned from an open source project for it even though it had nothing to do with the project.

The person who created this particular code of conduct is a well known trans activist who first gets communities to accept the code of conduct, and then stalks people around web to find anything anywhere that might violate the vague code of conduct and then tries to cancel them in every community they're a part of. If you're not wary of this code of conduct, you're not paying attention to how it's being used out there.

Here's a few quotes from the author of this code of conduct.

"The Ruby community has no moral compass. Just aphorisms and self-congtatulatory, masturbatory bullshit."  << after trying and failing to kick the creator of Ruby out of the Ruby community.

"If you're not fighting alongside us, or lending support, you're STANDING IN OUR WAY. And I vow that I will walk right the fuck over you.".

"Fact: the solution to the problems in tech is not more tech. Especially not more tech written by privileged, heads-in-the-sand white dudes."

"So many cis het white tech dudes with large platforms on here, that not only don't engage in dialog on issues of social justice but don't even elevate the voices of those of us who do, ignoring POLITICS is a PRIVILEGE and I FUCKING SEE YOU."

Here's a little history of this code of conduct and some other popular communities.

https://linustechtips.com/main/topic/974038-why-the-linux-coc-is-bad/

It's sad to see that Pharo has jumped onto this PC bandwagon, it does not bode well for the community.

--
Ramón León

On 2019-09-17 6:28 a.m., Offray Vladimir Luna Cárdenas wrote:
> I'm pretty secure that Code of Conducts intent to provide secure spaces beyond just digital spaces and go also into physical and face to face ones.

The code of conducts intent is to force identity politics into technical spaces in the name of social justice and to make someone feeling offended an actionable reason to go after the supposed offender; never mind that offense is taken rather than given. Nevermind that anyone can claim to be offended by just about anything. The goal is to get the project to agree to kick people out for violating the utterly vague and subjective rules.

Here's some more quotes from the author of said code of conduct.

"Some people are saying that the Contributor Covenant is a political document, and they’re right."

"I can’t wait for the mass exodus from Linux now that it’s been infiltrated by SJWs. Hahahah"

"Meritocracy is just thinly veiled misogyny and white supremacy propping up fragile cis het white men's egos"

"Meritocracy is late stage patriarchy"

"Why didn’t anyone punch the reporter giving the nazi air time?"

He is a radical left transgender activist, his intentions are purely political, the CoC is merely a means to an end and is used by him to setup situations in which he can cancel people in this new cancel culture. He wants to replace meritocracy with identity politics. This is the CoC that ran Linus out of Linux, a massive loss to the OS community.  This is not a horse you want to hitch your wagon to Pharo.

--
Ramón León

On Tue, Sep 17, 2019 at 10:28 AM Offray Vladimir Luna Cárdenas
<[hidden email]> wrote:
> For example, in Latin America I have not seen a huge movement about new pronouns and I don't know any of such for Spanish.

The movement in LATAM started by the use of gender-neutral plurals,
with some phonetic aberrations that cannot be even spelled to a more
pronunciable alternative that seems to be sticking. Actually it's very
easy to spot SJW because they overuse such language. There were some
attempts to use it in pronouns, but apparently there is a language
thing in Spanish that makes it harder to stick.

> The raised concerns about a Code that states punishment without restoration or defense is an important one,
> but also are the ones about technical communities where improper behavior is allowed because is not a "technical issue".

It's simple to define improper behavior as something that is not
aligned with the objective or purpose of the mailing list.

> We may lock for examples in different communities to see which one fits better our own.

It is, but the simpler the rules the simple to enforce them.
E.g. I've been part of a team of 10 moderators in an online community
of 40K+ members (with 1% active daily) for over two years now, we grew
our own CoC over time, but it is not harmful as this "Covenant"
proposed. And in that amount of members I can guarantee you (by
experience) that there is a myriad of different opinions even within
the "clusters" of those ruled by identity politics.

> This is an important conversation to have, once it has been raised.

Maybe, but as I said before, this mailing list, and the community in
general is very civilized, even by old Internet standards.

Regards,

Esteban A. Maringolo

Ramon,

I'm not talking about the Covenant code in particular. Is not the only
code out there and as I say the important issue is to provide safe
spaces via explicit or implicit rules. Each community decides which is
the best way to be welcomed and respectful and how this is clear to its
members and outsiders.

I don't think that technology and politics are so far away as usually
depicted, particularly in the Global North, as both deal with power
dynamics but technology embeds it in infrastructure. But seems that
politics is kind of a tainted word there and just bring it opens a
Pandora box.

Cheers,

Offray


On 17/09/19 11:38 a. m., Ramon Leon wrote:

On 2019-09-17 2:34 p.m., Offray Vladimir Luna Cárdenas wrote:
> as I say the important issue is to provide safe
> spaces via explicit or implicit rules

I understand, I just disagree. These are of course my personal opinions, others may disagree.  "Safe spaces" are bad things, not good things; the world is not a safe space, it is not the responsibility of others to provide one a feeling of safety in a an online community where people merely exchange words. Words are not dangerous, you are already safe. If you don't like what someone is saying, ignore them or mute them. Safe space a euphemism for censorship and exclusion, people who want safe spaces want to exclude other people who might express ideas or opinions that they disagree with. Safe spaces are anti-free speech zones.

They are an attempt to prepare the world for the child rather than the child for the world; they are inherently narcissistic. Intellectual discourse is supposed to be challenging to your beliefs, you're supposed to confront ideas you might not like or agree with and people you might have a hard time getting along with. If you submit code to a technical forum you should expect criticism and debate.  Technical discussions should resolve around the ideas being presented, not around the identities of those involved, and ideas should always be open to critique and debate. I don't care what one's sex or gender are or what color one's skin is or political beliefs are; those things have no place in a technical forum. I watch these groups to see discussions about technology like Pharo, Squeak, or Seaside.

It's a rare thing to see anyone here being truly rude, there's no need for a code of conduct, it's a non solution to a non problem intended only to divide and punish for political ends.  Maybe I'm just getting old, but the younger generation is far too coddled and expectant of the world to adjust to their feelings rather than learning how to deal with the world and others who have different ideas than they do. Safe spaces are bad ideas.

--
Ramón León

On 2019-09-17 4:26 p.m., Richard O'Keefe wrote:
> I see the
> so-called "Covenant" that we are discussing as another example of this urge to
> micro-control other people.  It has me nervously looking for the exit.

I couldn't agree more.

--
Ramón León

One side-effect of the “Covenant” discussion is that it is necessarily political, which is something that many (rightly, in my view) are trying to avoid. While I agree with most of the views expressed so far, I cringe because I anticipate that someone who disagrees will feel the compulsion to tell us that we are wrong, and things will go bad from there.

On 2019-09-17 5:11 p.m., James Foster wrote:
> If there was, indeed, adoption of a “Covenant” it should have been done by the board whose role “is to make decisions if in the future the community can't decide on a course of action” (https://pharo.org/about).
>
> I suggest that we suspend discussion of the politics of speech codes until we confirm that there is one for Pharo.

https://github.com/pharo-project/pharo/blob/Pharo8.0/CODE_OF_CONDUCT.md

--
Ramón León

> On Sep 17, 2019, at 5:19 PM, Ramon Leon <[hidden email]> wrote:
>
> https://github.com/pharo-project/pharo/blob/Pharo8.0/CODE_OF_CONDUCT.md

Thanks. I’ve submitted a PR to use ACM. Let’s move the discussion to https://github.com/pharo-project/pharo/pull/4637.

I'm a member of several communities which are welcoming and diverse, without a explicit Code of Conduct. That's doesn't mean that such communities doesn't see the political nature of technology, or that the way people participate on such communities is not deeply informed on who the participants are. I don't think that people just exchange words, but I don't think that we need to go, at least at this moment, to Speech Acts Theory or other approach on how words are mostly not "just words". But this is informed by my particular context and education. In some countries free speech is not an absolute right and for example is subordinated to non-defamatory or non-violent speech.

So while I agree, as Esteban, Ramon and others have pointed, on the view that this is a community where discussions are usually civilized and we can agree to disagree, like in this very subject, I don't think that "technology is neutral" or "politics are bad" or identity/context doesn't inform participation, but usually these are blind spots for people under privileged circumstances. That doesn't mean that I agreed with the Covenants CoC neither. And even when this position seems like a non-position, what I'm trying to showcase is that there are a lot of grays in the binary reading of we can have safe spaces for people or we can have discussions on ideas, but not both. I believe that there is much to think about yet, at least on a personal level and hopefully at some point on a community one. I will take a pause from this thread to think it more deeply.

Cheers,

Offray

You just wrote what I didn't quite dare to say.

Thank you.

On Wed, 18 Sep 2019 at 11:29, Ramon Leon <[hidden email]> wrote:

On 2019-09-17 2:34 p.m., Offray Vladimir Luna Cárdenas wrote:
> as I say the important issue is to provide safe
> spaces via explicit or implicit rules

I understand, I just disagree. These are of course my personal opinions, others may disagree.  "Safe spaces" are bad things, not good things; the world is not a safe space, it is not the responsibility of others to provide one a feeling of safety in a an online community where people merely exchange words. Words are not dangerous, you are already safe. If you don't like what someone is saying, ignore them or mute them. Safe space a euphemism for censorship and exclusion, people who want safe spaces want to exclude other people who might express ideas or opinions that they disagree with. Safe spaces are anti-free speech zones.

They are an attempt to prepare the world for the child rather than the child for the world; they are inherently narcissistic. Intellectual discourse is supposed to be challenging to your beliefs, you're supposed to confront ideas you might not like or agree with and people you might have a hard time getting along with. If you submit code to a technical forum you should expect criticism and debate.  Technical discussions should resolve around the ideas being presented, not around the identities of those involved, and ideas should always be open to critique and debate. I don't care what one's sex or gender are or what color one's skin is or political beliefs are; those things have no place in a technical forum. I watch these groups to see discussions about technology like Pharo, Squeak, or Seaside.

It's a rare thing to see anyone here being truly rude, there's no need for a code of conduct, it's a non solution to a non problem intended only to divide and punish for political ends.  Maybe I'm just getting old, but the younger generation is far too coddled and expectant of the world to adjust to their feelings rather than learning how to deal with the world and others who have different ideas than they do. Safe spaces are bad ideas.

--
Ramón León

Couldn't resist entering this doubtful CoC thread,
just to enter a few lines and then I am gone again.

One doesn't need a Code of Conduct. It is ridiculous.

Civilized and respectful non discriminating behaviour should
be implicit in everyone of us!

If one insists in having a code of conduct than this should cover it all:
"Be Nice, Social And Respectful To Each Living Being."
(at times this is not easy)

If this is too complicated for one to understand and not enough
to stay on the right track, then know that there already
are "CoC"s on an encompassing higher scope: by constitutional law:

In most civilized democratic countries and also the European Union
the primary laws (constitutions) offer protection of citizens
against any form of discrimination and primitive harassment.

If one would have the opinion that these constitutional laws
are not good enough and/or that these laws are not completely respected
then I'd suggest to take part in democratic processes to improve this
situation.

If one cannot obey these laws, then, for example:

-Move to a country e.g. with an undemocratic, human rights ignoring
government,
 mostly dictatorial ones, which might suit one's anti social discriminating
behaviour better.
 (probably the most ultimate environment to get acquainted with one's own
shortcomings)

-try to be more emphatic, this world is overpopulated, with high stress
levels,
  an incredibly fast changing environment, where empathy
  and social behaviour are more important than ever.

Ergo:
In short if one harasses, discriminates people, one is violating the law.
There is no place for this on forums,
There is no place for this anywhere in a civilized world.

As stated in the European constitution:
"The Union's values.
The Union is founded on the values of respect for
human dignity, freedom, democracy, equality,
 the rule of law and respect for human rights,
including the rights of persons belonging to minorities.
These values are common to the Member States in
a society in which pluralism, non-discrimination, tolerance,
justice, solidarity and equality between women and men prevail"

This is written on page 17 art: I-2 in
https://europa.eu/european-union/sites/europaeu/files/docs/body/treaty_establishing_a_constitution_for_europe_en.pdf

After this I will only enter this forum with IT / Smalltalk related
themes. That is the purpose of this forum.
Kind Regards.
TedvG










--
Sent from: http://forum.world.st/Pharo-Smalltalk-Users-f1310670.html