Richard Stallman Announces GNU Kind Communication Guidelines (gnu.org)

AmiMoJo writes: Richard Stallman has announced the GNU Kind Communication Guidelines, an effort "to start guiding people towards kinder communication." The Guidelines differ from a Code of Conduct in that it's trying to be proactive about kindness around free software development over being rules with possible actions when breaking them.

These new GNU communication guidelines can be found at GNU.org along with Stallman's commentary. From the guidelines: A code of conduct states rules, with punishments for anyone that violates them. It is the heavy-handed way of teaching people to behave differently, and since it only comes into action when people do something against the rules, it doesn't try to teach people to do better than what the rules require. To be sure, the appointed maintainer(s) of a GNU package can, if necessary, tell a contributor to go away; but we do not want to need to have recourse to that. The idea of the GNU Kind Communication Guidelines is to start guiding people towards kinder communication at a point well before one would even think of saying, "You are breaking the rules." The way we do this, rather than ordering people to be kind or else, is try to help people learn to make their communication more kind. I hope that kind communication guidelines will provide a kinder and less strict way of leading a project's discussions to be calmer, more welcoming to all participants of good will, and more effective.

Comments

Wait . . .

[UsuallyReasonable]

. . . This ISN'T The Onion?

Better than SJW/PC COCs

[alternative_right]

Most codes of conduct now are being used in the same way political correctness is: to prohibit certain types of thinking, forcing everyone to think in the ways that are left, which conveniently benefit one group attempting to take over what's left of Western Civilization.

Having a positive goal like this, and basing it on civility and not political alignment, is intelligent. It nurtures rather than censors.

Re:Better than SJW/PC COCs

[Anonymous Coward]

The un-ironic use of the terms SJW, PC, and Western Civilization

Opinion instantly discarded.

Re:Better than SJW/PC COCs

[gerald.edward.butler]

Couldn't agree more. Seems like another reasonable move by RMS.

Re:Better than SJW/PC COCs

[Entrope]

Only your first sentence was at all accurate. Political correctness started out as a way to silence and suppress people with the wrong politics -- whether they disagreed with the Communist Party or some other totalitarian regime -- and continues to have the same essential character today. Identifying it is not a suppressive action.

Re:Better than SJW/PC COCs

[lgw]

Political correctness is a silencing tactic.

This is true.

By designating something political correctness you are saying that it's trivial and unimportant, and therefore the person complaining is just whining.

Obviously, true - such things are indeed unimportant complaints from whiners.

The idea is to belittle people's concerns and requests to be treated better by implying that they are so inconsequential that the argument/request is ether absurd or not made in good faith.

Correct - they are not operating in good faith. Progressives seek to infest any establishment, gut it out, and wear it as a skin suit, while demanding respect. Attempts to control language are just one tool for that goal. CoCs are another.

Now it's expanded from just trying to silence them to being part of victimhood narrative where requests to recognize the affect that such things have on others is a form of bullying.

Correct: political corrctness has expanded from silencing tactic to victimhood narrative.

Re:Better than SJW/PC COCs

[slack_justyb]

Political correctness is a silencing tactic

No. That's how it is being used but it is far from what it means (or perhaps what it used to mean if we're truly that far gone). Likewise, guns are really handy tools, but a few asshats tend to fuck it up for everyone else by killing folks with them.

By designating something political correctness you are saying that it's trivial and unimportant

No, politically correct means a message that doesn't attempt to alienate either side of a debate, allowing an argument to be put forward that can be used to either further one side or the other, but all in how it is spun. However, some have taken that to be that the message has to be ultra-safe, which isn't true. Example of a politically correct statement, "The constant migrations of foreigners to the US is a clear demonstration that past and current foreign policy with Central and South America has failed." No one is being called an illegal, no one is indicating any particular President at fault, and so on. This statement can be spun in either direction depending on present company and at face value is equally palatable by whichever side you want to pick.

The idea is to belittle people's concerns and requests to be treated better by implying that they are so inconsequential that the argument/request is ether absurd or not made in good faith

Which actually gets into the "how's it's being used." Politics has become massively polarized at the moment and I'm pretty sure it'll ultimately swing back to something resembling sanity. However, you have those who'd argue for over-reaching PC because they see the other side's argument (as you say) trivial. You have those who'd argue that PS is a cancer and see the other side's argument as hand-waving. Either way, both sides are simply dismissing the other's because they don't want to actually reach some middle ground, instead they rather have the polarity. Polarized voters are easier to predict voters, polarized voters make stronger safe districts for political parties, and once upon time folks kind of realized that polarized politics meant less actual power in the voter's hands.

It really got going in the 80s when people...(rest of your comment)

No, this has always been a tactic in politics. It's centrist versus polarity, but PC is just the new name for it. And the polarity folks on either side use it as a tool for their narrative. In US politics I always like to apply the accelerator/brake metaphor for the polarity ends. The far left tend to be the accelerator "You're message isn't forceful enough, it needs to explicitly say what CAN and CANNOT be done or else it is just garbage." The far right tend to be the brake "Your group's mission will inevitably lead to everyone being lawsuited to death!" The far right need to allow progress to happen and get over their insecurities. The far left need to just chill the fuck out and stop telling people what they can't do.

Your comment isn't wrong, but it's assuming that PC is strictly defined as how it is being used and that's pretty depressing because it almost foregoes the fact that once upon a time it actually meant holding a centrist view and attempting to be affable to everyone. Maybe I'm naive in holding onto an archaic way of thinking.

Re:Better than SJW/PC COCs

[AmiMoJo]

"The constant migrations of foreigners to the US is a clear demonstration that past and current foreign policy with Central and South America has failed." No one is being called an illegal, no one is indicating any particular President at fault, and so on.

Unintentionally you have illustrated my point perfectly.

The person making the example statement is clearly making a general statement about migration, both legal and illegal, and determining legal status or assigning blame to particular presidents is irrelevant to that. Their point is that multiple government's policies have failed.

Thanks to the notion of political correctness you have been unable to parse that simple, clear statement without questioning why it doesn't include emotive language or assign blame to an individual. You assume that the speaker feels pressure to avoid doing those things, when in fact they are likely trying to make a different point entirely. And so you dismiss what hey have to say as being PC.

As yourself this, assuming you really cared about this issue what would be the most effective way to improve the situation? Would it be focusing on illegal immigration and assigning blame to one president that every listener likely voted for/against at some point, or would it be to avoid all that divisive stuff and try to get to the real issue which you think is failed foreign policy?

Re:Better than SJW/PC COCs

[jeff4747]

and I'm pretty sure it'll ultimately swing back to something resembling sanity

Why?

Multiple Congressmen have died in duels. There was literally an assault in the Senate chamber.

The relative bipartisanship from roughly the 1940s to roughly the 1980s was an artifact of the Southern realignment. Before this, there were Republicans in all-but-name representing much of the South because Southerners hated the idea of voting for "the party of Lincoln". So while technically the various caucuses in Congress were party aligned, there also was a split between Southern Democrats/Western Republicans vs Northern Democrats and Republicans. So the leaders in Congress had to maintain their party split and the ideological split at the same time, resulting in far more bipartisanship than had ever happened before.

Then we get to the 1960s and civil rights legislation, and Southerners decided they hated black people more than they hated voting for "the party of Lincoln", so the Southern Democrats gradually converted to formally being members of the Republican party.

Once the Southern realignment was done, we went back to business as usual. And that isn't bipartisanship.

Either way, both sides are simply dismissing the other's because they don't want to actually reach some middle ground

Think about any controversial issue today. There is not a stable middle ground.

Subsidized shitty private insurance is not a middle ground between what the parties want in healthcare.
There is not a middle ground between "you are slaughtering children" and "the state can not be given absolute control of someone's uterus".
"We should only sort-of invade countries" is not a middle ground between conquest and non-intervention.
Just like there was no way to successfully compromise between slavery and freedom.

There is conflict because these issues can not be solved by compromise.

Re:Better than SJW/PC COCs

[Stolovaya]

Incorrect.

Political Correctness is the idea that feelings are the most important thing, particularly over facts. Take the Healthy At Every Size (HAES) movement. This is probably the shining definition of PC. Of course, if you have anything critical to say about HAES, you are a fat shamer, you hate people, you're a bigot, etc.

You are right. PC is used to silence, but not in the way that you write about. It's dresses up being a bully as "being kind", because you're doing it in defense of perceived (rightly so or not) marginalized people. And you're allowed to do nearly anything in defense of those people, including being just as bad as the ones you're fighting against.

Re:Better than SJW/PC COCs

[liquid_schwartz]

Political correctness is a silencing tactic

No. That's how it is being used but it is far from what it means (or perhaps what it used to mean if we're truly that far gone).

No true Scotsman much? I guess Communism really is great it's just never been implemented the right way too.

By designating something political correctness you are saying that it's trivial and unimportant

No, politically correct means a message that doesn't attempt to alienate either side of a debate, allowing an argument to be put forward that can be used to either further one side or the other, but all in how it is spun. However, some have taken that to be that the message has to be ultra-safe, which isn't true.

Example of a politically correct statement, "The constant migrations of foreigners to the US is a clear demonstration that past and current foreign policy with Central and South America has failed." No one is being called an illegal, no one is indicating any particular President at fault, and so on. This statement can be spun in either direction depending on present company and at face value is equally palatable by whichever side you want to pick.

Political correctness, as it stands today, is denial of reality. Reality is that people who come here illegally are by definition illegal aliens. That's as obvious as it gets.

The idea is to belittle people's concerns and requests to be treated better by implying that they are so inconsequential that the argument/request is ether absurd or not made in good faith

Which actually gets into the "how's it's being used." Politics has become massively polarized at the moment and I'm pretty sure it'll ultimately swing back to something resembling sanity. However, you have those who'd argue for over-reaching PC because they see the other side's argument (as you say) trivial. You have those who'd argue that PS is a cancer and see the other side's argument as hand-waving. Either way, both sides are simply dismissing the other's because they don't want to actually reach some middle ground, instead they rather have the polarity. Polarized voters are easier to predict voters, polarized voters make stronger safe districts for political parties, and once upon time folks kind of realized that polarized politics meant less actual power in the voter's hands.

While I don't disagree that polarized people are likely easier to control I'm still rooting for the *peaceful* breakup of the US. The common culture has drifted too far apart and basic values are no longer shared.

The far right need to allow progress to happen and get over their insecurities. The far left need to just chill the fuck out and stop telling people what they can't do.

I can't speak to the far right or far left, both are a bit loony at times. I can say that I see the far left as imposing through the courts and media absolute nonsense and I find their value system horrific. One of the more telling examples was a UFC fighter getting suspended for saying that a trans fighter in the women division should not be allowed. Let's get this straight, he was suspended for saying that a male shouldn't be hitting a female. That such an obvious statement could get one in trouble is absolutely incredible. Such is the power of political correctness.

Re:Better than SJW/PC COCs

[Anonymous Coward]

"No one is being called an illegal"

That is a perfect example of trying to alter the debate by conflating legal and illegal immigration. When you remove the part about illegal, you can conveniently then label those opposed to illegal immigration as being against all immigration. You can then appeal to legal immigrant groups and claim the other side is against you and get their votes and sympathy.

There is a huge difference between those that follow the rules and come here legally and those that don't and do so illegally. Trying to censor a word to change the debate is very disingenuous.

Re:Better than SJW/PC COCs

[slack_justyb]

You assume that the speaker feels pressure to avoid doing those things

Sort of, I would assume that the candidate would wish to appeal to as many folks as possible to ensure victory within an election. There isn't any undue pressure other than to appeal to as many folks as possible. So yes there is pressure, but hardly what I would hoped is outside of normal pressure. Public discourse of politics is, well at least should be, a means to which we can openly discuss something. You hear someone say, "we need to start the conversation ..." That's kind of where I would assume it would start.

That said, a politician already presenting their message is one thing, openly shutting down anything contrary is polarity and something totally different IMHO. So even if a politician were to indicate, "The current President's nature to alienate foreign nations plays into the continued failed approach that the US has taken with Central and South America." That's not openly shutting down the current President from any future choice, but its not PC in that it's clearly nixing some folks who believe that the current approach is indeed working. Now counter that with something along the same lines but more PC, "The current President's nature to alienate foreign nations has its benefits and its weaknesses. While it has allowed us to shore up trade imbalances, it also continues a defeating policy that the US has taken with Central and South America." Again same premise but indicates that those who would have been off put by the first, are still valid in their thinking but that the thinking just needs to become more surgical, so to say.

I'm just trying to indicate that there's a lot of shades here between statements and that PC isn't so much a shade but a property of a shade, much like if the colors, white and black and all between also had magnetic charge. The magnetic charge is one thing that's unrelated to the shade of gray, but you might find that darker shades do better with one kind of charge versus the other, but that's not because the magnetic charge had anything to do with the shade to begin with, but more so to do with the environment that you were currently in.

And so you dismiss what hey have to say as being PC

I get what you're saying but that's exactly what I'm getting at here. Folks are going to be dismissive if they come into an honest debate strongly biased. They'll reach for whatever justification as an after thought. Which you indicate can be PC and that's absolutely correct, but that's just because they didn't want to listen to begin with. I mean what we're touching on here is cognitive dissonance that's justified by PC, but that doesn't mean that the person using it as a justification is using PC in the correct manner, only in the manner that their mind allows them to think it correct. Likewise, folks will dismiss others stating that they are being too PC as justification for their bias that prevents them from actually entering into a debate. It's important to note that while people abuse on either side the aesthetic of PC or for that matter any word, it doesn't change the underlying meaning unless we all agree for that change to happen. It's literally the question of, is something is what it is because we say it is what it is or is it what it is because of the innate properties of it outside of what we control?

Point being folks not wanting an honest debate are just going to use whatever is convenient to them. The far left become dismissive of the right because they're racist (not enough PC). The far right become dismissive of the left because they're overly protective in what one is permitted to do (too much PC). The question I'll leave you with is this. Does the actual definition of PC change because of how these two side abuse it? Because what ultimately it comes down to, at least to me, is that you have two sides that just don't want to engage with each other and they'll pick random reaso

Re:Better than SJW/PC COCs

[AmiMoJo]

From the Kind Communications Guidelines:

"Please respond to what people actually said, not to exaggerations of their views."

For a start it's Health at Every Size, note the missing 'y'. Their view is that being healthy is somewhat independent of weight, and that it is near impossible for very overweight people to lose weight through dieting and traditional methods such as fat shaming. Rather they prefer to focus on being healthier at the higher weight.

Now I don't necessarily agree with them, I think it would be better to lose weight and there are other ways to do that, but I also understand that they have a point about diets not really working for most overweight people and on balance it probably being better for them to focus on being as otherwise healthy as possible.

What you did was straw man them, accuse them of making unfounded allegations and dismissed them as being irrational and PC. Effectively you are silencing them by painting them as borderline mentally ill and poisoning the well, thus illustrating my point about saying things are PC being a tactic to silence views you don't like. I mean it doesn't even fit the definition of PC so you expanded it.

Re:Better than SJW/PC COCs

[Stolovaya]

Rather they prefer to focus on being healthier at the higher weight.

Those aren't the conversations I see or hear. I see most of the focus on body positivity, gone to the extreme.

Calories In, Calories Out. I struggle with weight myself, but I'm under no illusion to my problem (I consume more calories than I expend in a day). I understand the struggle; I do not endorse the hatred and anger done in the name of body positivity.

What you did was straw man them, accuse them of making unfounded allegations and dismissed them as being irrational and PC.

No strawman. This is based on the experiences I've had online and IRL. So no, not unfounded. Yes, irrational and PC.

Effectively you are silencing them by painting them as borderline mentally ill and poisoning the well, thus illustrating my point about saying things are PC being a tactic to silence views you don't like. I mean it doesn't even fit the definition of PC so you expanded it.

How have I silenced them? I have not removed them from a platform or prevented them from speaking. Critique is not harassment, no matter how much people like you yell it to be. Yes, these are people with real problems, who seem to think they know better than doctors or groups like the American Heart Association. It is that disconnect, that funny enough, you are illustrating, that is the basis of PC culture.

Re: Better than SJW/PC COCs

[hairyfeet]

Wow...way to not know fucking history, kudos! Just FYI political correctness was a term originally from communist Russia to describe what life was like under Stalin, who in case you didn't know didn't give a fuck if something was true or not, just that it followed the party line or GO TO GULAG!

But this really isn't surprising as the new regessive movement (which has run off the liberals to replace them with SJWs just as the moral majority ran off the conservatives and replaced them with neocons) seems to really like the idea of gulags for those that engage in wrongthink.

Re:Better than SJW/PC COCs

[Stolovaya]

Degrading the person. When you speak out against PC culture, you are generally called a bigot, that you discriminate, that you're awful, etc. in an attempt to dehumanize the person. The tactic is to dehumanize the person, to make them an "other", to make them a pariah. It's to restrict. The purpose of calling out PC culture is to let freedom flourish, to stop those ideals that seek to censor and silence.

Like just now. You're attempting to dehumanize me by alluding that I'm a russian bot. You're working against me as an individual with that remark, rather than the argument itself.

Re:Better than SJW/PC COCs

[WaffleMonster]

Political correctness is a silencing tactic. By designating something political correctness you are saying that it's trivial and unimportant

It's actually more of an ignoring tactic. When you label something or someone PC you are not silencing them you are simply signaling to others what they have to say is not worth listening to or considering.

and therefore the person complaining is just whining.

Yep that's about right.

It really got going in the 80s when people were complaining about things like the building they studied in being named after the guy who owned their great great grandparents.

LOL cute.

Re:Better than SJW/PC COCs

[Raenex]

Then we get to the 1960s and civil rights legislation, and Southerners decided they hated black people more than they hated voting for "the party of Lincoln", so the Southern Democrats gradually converted to formally being members of the Republican party.

Is that so? Democrats only like black people when they vote for them. If they leave the Democratic welfare plantation, they get vilified.

Re:Better than SJW/PC COCs

[slack_justyb]

You assume that the speaker feels pressure to avoid doing those things

Well you're assuming an outcome on incomplete information. This would totally be an outcome for someone who didn't come to debate but to judge their bias, but it is not the only outcome and there example person listening and getting "upset" may be doing so because they don't understand the topic at hand and rather not learn the topic. There's plenty of way for the situation to unfold and you've picked a single one and then turned around and hung it up on PC. But you did mention something there that I'll touch on.

why it doesn't include emotive language or assign blame to an individual

There's always going to be this in that progress isn't happening fast enough or that the degree to which something is presented isn't persuasive enough. You cannot change the mindset of something that is always a constant fixture. But in turn, those folks are going to attempt to hang their disconnect with that which happens to that which they expected on something. That something may or may not have anything to do with the situation, such is the position of humans.

Cognitive dissonance, wherein some one or group tries to justify an illogical conclusion, is always going to find some hangup justifying their indefensible position. At the moment we're selecting political correctness, but there's all kinds of false justifications through out US history and more so in world history. That doesn't mean that they're correct. Or at least I wouldn't think it to be such. For a large amount of time the current party in power has fretted over the budget and mentioned reasons for why we ought to withhold from an action due to budget concerns, but in turn they have also increased the deficit spending. Now here's the thing, I'd like to have an argument not about budgets or if Republican deficit spending is justified because that's detracting from the point here. Cognitive dissonance. There's a lot of contorting that the GOP is doing at the moment to somehow justify their position to the public, and I'm less interested in their specific reasons and more interested in how clever they need to be or at least how clever they feel they need to be.

That's because somewhere deep inside their heads they know that they're having to justify something to which doesn't logically mesh with things they have said before. That same is true for the hyper-PC charged person when they do something like restrict someone's speech in the name of preventing outrage/hate speech/whatever justification they come up with that day. It boils down to this, in my mind, you're saying or doing something that you yourself wouldn't like or have previously stood against. However you're situation has now put you in a contradicting conundrum and you're just grasping for straws to somehow prop your position up. Probably best to realize where you are at the moment in the argument and evaluate what led you here. But in most cases, folks simply double down on their position. People don't like to believe in wrong.

And so that's the thing about your assumed position that the person would take. If they become hyper-PC charged, they began the whole thing not really wanting an honest debate. At the same time, since I don't want anyone to feel that this is a one-way street, there are those who would simply dismiss the argument as being too PC> You can see that in generalized statements where it goes something like "political correctness is killing this country" or whatever. It's simply trying to shutdown a conversation with a preconceived bias, that's all it is. And that happens all the time from both sides. Again, that's mostly because someone has already built a narrative about the workings of the world, their world view so to say, and it's not that they won't hear or listen to the counter view, but they will filter the counter view with their bias to arrive at something that will just solidify their positi

Re: Better than SJW/PC COCs

[MachineShedFred]

No, you are still free to think whatever you would like. But to be a participant in organizations with a code of conduct, you aren't allowed to be a belligerent shithead douche to people and remain a participant.

I don't know why it's such a big deal that you have to actually be cordial to people. It's really not that hard to just not be an absolute fuckwad.

Re: Better than SJW/PC COCs

[Cederic]

Curious. Who is this 'us'?

He makes himself look like an idiot but that's on him, nobody else.

Re: Better than SJW/PC COCs

[Cederic]

"don't call me [a woman] 'honey'" are politcal correctness

Well for a start, demanding gender based difference in treatment isn't PC, it's sexism. But you keep going.

Re:Better than SJW/PC COCs

[Lord_Jeremy]

That's an opinion that you linked to. A wrong one, in my opinion.

Re:Better than SJW/PC COCs

[Raenex]

That's an opinion that you linked to. A wrong one, in my opinion.

"The two scholars support their claim with an extensive survey of election returns and voter surveys. To give just one example: in the 50s, among Southerners in the low-income tercile, 43 percent voted for Republican Presidential candidates, while in the high-income tercile, 53 percent voted Republican; by the 80s, those figures were 51 percent and 77 percent, respectively. Wealthy Southerners shifted rightward in droves but poorer ones didn't."

Agree with guideline #2. Bless RMS. Hopes he survi

[Anonymous Coward]

2. I disagree with making "diversity" a goal. If the developers in a
specific free software project do not include demographic D, I don't
think that the lack of them as a problem that requires action; there
is no need to scramble desperately to recruit some Ds. Rather, the
problem is that if we make demographic D feel unwelcome, we lose out
on possible contributors. And very likely also others that are not in
demographic D.

Re4lated article - Weaponized Empathy

[SuperKendall]

It's interesting that a bunch of ideas seem to be floating around the same time now about improving communities - that article yesterday on the monastic code of conduct for SQLLite, this ideal from GNU, and also an article I read recently on Weaponized Empathy - the kinds of behaviors you want to lock out of communities as soon as you see them to keep them healthy.

It seems like between the three ideas you could build up pretty solid community and moderation guidelines that would really make for a lasting peace and a great place to hang out on the internet.

Re:Re4lated article - Weaponized Empathy

[AmiMoJo]

It's a great document. Slashdot could benefit from a lot of these ideas:

"Please assume other participants are posting in good faith, even if you disagree with what they say."
"Please do not criticize people for wrongs that you only speculate they may have done; stick to what they actually say and actually do."

"Go out of your way to show that you are criticizing a statement, not a person."

"Please recognize that criticism of your statements is not a personal attack on you."

"Please avoid statements about the presumed typical desires, capabilities or actions of some demographic group."

"Please respond to what people actually said, not to exaggerations of their views."

Re:Re4lated article - Weaponized Empathy

[Kohath]

Only if the SJWs call off their social justice war. Or if the 80% of the rest of us who oppose political correctness decide to stick up for ourselves and stop being pushed around by toxic bullies.

Re:Re4lated article - Weaponized Empathy

[jareth-0205]

Only if the SJWs call off their social justice war. Or if the 80% of the rest of us who oppose political correctness decide to stick up for ourselves and stop being pushed around by toxic bullies.

Or you could start acting as the bigger person instead of reverting to threats and childish three-letter-acronyms to belittle people who have opinions you don't like.

Re:Re4lated article - Weaponized Empathy

[Calydor]

http://dilbert.com/strip/2015-...

Re:Re4lated article - Weaponized Empathy

[Kohath]

Or you could start acting as the bigger person instead of reverting to threats and childish three-letter-acronyms to belittle people who have opinions you don't like.

Yeah, adults never use 3 letter acronyms. This is an awesome point. Everyone and everything that was ever referred to by an acronym is a victim. Like the people of the U.K., the USA, and the EU.

On behalf of everyone ever, please accept my apologies for every time anyone in the world ever used an acronym for anything.

Also sorry for the "threats" you seem to be imagining. So incredibly sorry.

Re:Re4lated article - Weaponized Empathy

[DNS-and-BIND]

Put your money where your mouth is: employ these guideilnes on the next Trump-bashing piece.

Ah, I'm just kidding - I know that will never happen. "Please avoid statements about the presumed typical desires, capabilities or actions of some demographic group" for one is a non-starter. Where would we be without sneering at the unwashed masses?

Re:Re4lated article - Weaponized Empathy

[jareth-0205]

You know as well as I do that "SJW" is a term made up specifically to group people you don't like and dismiss them en masse. But sure, deliberately pretend I mean the number of letters if it makes you feel better.

Re:Re4lated article - Weaponized Empathy

[AmiMoJo]

From the Code of Kindness:

"Please assume other participants are posting in good faith, even if you disagree with what they say."

Presumably you don't think that the GP really meant that the problem was three letter acronyms, but correct me if I'm wrong.

Re:Re4lated article - Weaponized Empathy

[Kohath]

Presumably you don't think that the GP really meant that the problem was three letter acronyms, but correct me if I'm wrong.

Complaining about words is a tactic to censor unfavorable messages. If they call off the war, they can be social justice supporters.

Is it a war? If not, why be so defensive?

Re:Re4lated article - Weaponized Empathy

[Kohath]

It's descriptive of motive and tactics.

Re:Re4lated article - Weaponized Empathy

[Immerman]

>How do you...

Easy. First recognize that noisy assholes are pretty much never actually even remotely representative of the groups they claim to represent. And that there will *always* be noisy assholes attacking *anything* with any public profile, for the simple reason that noisy assholes generally don't really care about the goal, they're in it for the fight itself. You can usually identify them by the fact that they throw around perjoratives and attack people expressing a different opinion, rather than actually engaging in a conversation.

The fact that you use the term SJW as a perjorative suggests your politics lean right. So can I assume you're fully in support of the racist corporate whores currently representing the party? And are on board with the many bigots harrassing random brown people going about their day, screaming at them to "get out of our country"? I'm betting not. And I'm betting that this paragraph got you a little fired up and ready to argue anyway.

So, you want to fight the assholes? The first step is to realize that the real problem is not their politics - it's that they're assholes. If their politics were aligned with yours then *you* might not see them, but they'd be pulling the same asshole shenanigans against the other side and be making your side look just as bad as they're currently making the other side look to you. In fact I can promise your that there's millions of them doing so right now - I run into them all the time.

Be the bigger man - don't try to shut them down for being SJWs or whatever - shut them down for being assholes. It probably won't work - if they could be shut up that easily they wouldn't still be annoying everyone. But it still lets you vent, and does so in a manner that reinforces in bystanders that the problem is not that their politics are different than yours - it's that they are acting like assholes.

Re: Re4lated article - Weaponized Empathy

[TimMD909]

Aren't these all common sense? My parents taught me these things in elementary school or earlier? Why the sudden need to codify obviousness?

Re:Re4lated article - Weaponized Empathy

[jeff4747]

I like how you claimed to agree with the concept in the post, and then immediately disregarded the concept in the post.

Re:Re4lated article - Weaponized Empathy

[Kielistic]

Honest question: do you, AmiMojo, think you follow these more or less than the average slashdot poster?

Re: Re4lated article - Weaponized Empathy

[ceoyoyo]

Some people have crappy parents. Others figure that when they turn 18 they can forget all those stupid rules.

Re:Re4lated article - Weaponized Empathy

[DaFallus]

SJWs do, in fact, have a term for what they consider to be "toxic femininity." It is, like so many SJW things, an acronym that probably meant something once but no one really cares any more: "TERF." A "TERF" is basically a feminist who believes that feminism is something for women and not "for everyone" or something like that.

If you can't figure out WTF that means, congrats, you're sane. There's no real difference between a "TERF" and a regular "feminist" but SJWs hate "TERFs" anyway even while they spout the same crap. It's actually kind of hilarious: TERFs have seen the same censorship that conservatives have, with some "feminist" college banning a feminist speaker because she was a "TERF." SJWs are insane.

I had never heard of this either so I searched it. Here is what I found on Wikipedia

The term "TERF" is short for "trans exclusionary radical feminist". The term is used by trans advocates to describe feminists who oppose the inclusion of trans people in female spaces and organizations, whereas those it is applied to see it as a mischaracterization and a slur.

Re:Re4lated article - Weaponized Empathy

[Prien715]

Totally agree.

Kindness is sorely lacking in our culture right now precisely because it's not profitable. Profitable is Jerry Springer problem solving -- throwing chairs at each other, insulting one another, and that's just Steve Ballmer -- but this sort of expression seldom solves problems. It mostly makes them worse -- which is perfect for a show that wants you to tune in next week.

One of the reasons I keep coming back to this space is seeing conservatives and liberals actually talking to each other on occasion about the types of values we should have as AniMojo and SuperKendell just demonstrated. There is no "silver bullet" but instead a practice of kindness -- where we all fall but get back up again as better human beings. None of us are perfect, but the point of a code like this, is that we try -- knowing that we'll fail sometimes -- rather than spewing insults at each other.

Re:Re4lated article - Weaponized Empathy

[Kohath]

I get what you are saying, I guess, but it's still true that warriors need to stop waging war in order for there to be peace.

Re:Re4lated article - Weaponized Empathy

[AmiMoJo]

I try to follow them. Maybe I don't always manage it... The arguments here are pretty energetic, but I try.

Re:Re4lated article - Weaponized Empathy

[hairyfeet]

Well many of us prefer "Toxic Unintelligent Regressive Douchenozzles" but it just doesn't roll easily off the tongue and the acronym while apropos tends to get filtered or butchered by autocomplete so SJWs will just have to do.

Re:Re4lated article - Weaponized Empathy

[Cederic]

reverting to threats

I've just reviewed his posts for the last months and there isn't a threat in any of them.

There isn't even a personal attack. I wish I could retain such self control. He is indeed

the bigger person

Re:Re4lated article - Weaponized Empathy

[Cederic]

As an autistic cunt I fully acknowledge that this does not excuse bad behaviour.

Unfortunately for you it does however fully excuse bad behaviour of which I am incapable of realising is bad behaviour and it's perfectly reasonable to ask others to stop imposing their neurotypical norms on me.

Even more unfortunately for you, you're not autistic. Just a cunt.

Re:Re4lated article - Weaponized Empathy

[jareth-0205]

'threats' was a bit strong in retrospect, I was being pissed-off, not clear.

The 'threat' I was referring to was the assertion that he wouldn't make any changes until some random group that he picked stopped doing something that he didn't like. That improving a particular community is contingent on some nebulous culture war that's happening.

Unless we think that online communities cannot be improved, that somehow everything's perfect.... surely atleast that we can agree isn't the case? Communities can be improved? Whether you approve should depend on what is being suggested, not on what a "SJW" might possibly want.

Thanks for asking

[Kohath]

Asking people to be kind is the right answer.

Zealots and totalitarians won't be happy though.

Re:Thanks for asking

[AmiMoJo]

He suggests respecting people's gender identity and chosen name, giving people respect by default, not using language that might discourage participation by certain groups etc. All the standard problems people here have with a Code of Conduct...

Which makes me wonder, why the mostly positive response? Is it the lack of any kind of enforcement, in which case what do you do about some toxic asshat causing trouble? Or is it just that people have respect for RMS and can't find some old tweets or blog posts suggesting he is a social justice warrior?

Re:Thanks for asking

[Kohath]

Which makes me wonder, why the mostly positive response?

He suggests. He is asking.

Do you really not understand the difference between asking versus demanding and threatening?

Or is it just that people have respect for RMS and can't find some old tweets or blog posts suggesting he is a social justice warrior?

A warrior who isn't waging a war is just a person.

Re:Thanks for asking

[AmiMoJo]

He suggests. He is asking.

Okay, so the question then is what if someone decides to ignore his polite suggestion and causes problems. I don't think he means to imply that there should be no way of dealing with such a person.

Re:Thanks for asking

[Anonymous Coward]

On the Internet no one knows you're a dog.

Re:Thanks for asking

[Kohath]

Okay, so the question then is what if someone decides to ignore his polite suggestion and causes problems. I don't think he means to imply that there should be no way of dealing with such a person.

Stop making up stories about that. Why would a non-totalitarian want to make up stories where he could justify using power against people?

A warrior who is building weapons and cataloguing the weakness of those around him is a threat.

Re: Thanks for asking

[jd]

USENET tried that with the Netiquette FAQ.

You still had trolls, abusers and the "pity me, I'm not allowed to kill anyone" brigade.

Fewer of them, but you still had them.

Such people won, which is why there are so many opposed to Netiquette or decency to others.

Re:Thanks for asking

[Immerman]

Great. So, will you drop your trousers please so that we can all confirm that your gender really is what you say it is?

No? Then why are you asking others to do the same? They say they're X, call them X. Especially online, where you're unlikely to see anyone's trousers in the first place, on or off. Or should every woman with a beard, and every man with breasts, be required to drop their trousers when talking to you before you'll use the proper pronoun?

Re:Thanks for asking

[ceoyoyo]

I suspect that a lot of the kneejerk reaction to preferred pronouns comes from a subconscious horror of making a mistake. Most of us probably have the "oh, that's a cute baby girl you have... oh crap, it's a boy" social fear. It's even worse when the subject of the error is an adult, you can't rely on norms of appearance anymore, the proper pronoun might not be one you've ever even heard of, and you have the impression that both the subject and the greater social group are liable to react very strongly to any mistakes.

The resulting social insecurity makes a lot of people act like dicks.

Re:Thanks for asking

[Cro Magnon]

But if your microphone is on, the barking will give it away.

Re:Thanks for asking

[infolation]

what do you do about some toxic asshat causing trouble?

Under the GNU Kindness Guidelines the appropriate nomenclature would be anally-challenged headwear

Double standards

[Anonymous Coward]

Likewise, be kind when pointing out to other contributors that they should stop using certain nonfree software. For their own sake, they ought to free themselves, but we welcome their contributions to our software packages even if they don't do that. So these reminders should be gentle and not too frequent—don't nag.

By contrast, to suggest that others use nonfree software opposes the basic principles of GNU, so it is not allowed in GNU Project discussions.

A: "Hey B, just my weekly gentle reminder that you should use free app X instead of the Y app you already paid for".
B: "X doesn't have feature M. If you need feature M, you have no choice but to buy Y".
A: bans B for violation of the rules.

There is no difference, that's the point

[SuperKendall]

What makes Rich-shart Stallman any more of a moral authority than the twitter team at Steakums (tm) or the good folk at Firestorne Tyres (tm)?

He is not any more or less of an expert than those people - and that's the whole point.

What he is is human, and fundamentally, deep down, all humans know how to be kind.

Ideas like these (not rules) help guide someone to remembering what it means to be kind, that other people are generally trying to be kind also and to remember that as well.

There will always be some outliers but the point is to at least try, if you don't take a first step you'll never get anywhere.

Re:There is no difference, that's the point

[Rei]

What he is is human, and fundamentally, deep down, all humans know how to be kind.

No matter how kind you think you are, German children are kinder.

Re:There is no difference, that's the point

[ArghBlarg]

This is excellent news. A proactive, gentle reminder to all to be kinder is a positive step.

And, the reaction to this, by those some pejoratively call 'SJWs' will be telling: if what they truly want is peaceful and respectful interactions in and around software projects, they should be optimistic at this development.

If, on the other hand, their *real* goal is surreptitious power grabs via identity-politics-based using reverse discrimination and 'victimhood' to tear down whatever 'privilege' structure bothers them, then this will make them go absolutely *nuts*.

In the end, if the code is bad, it won't work, so who wrote it is ultimately irrelevant.

Re:There is no difference, that's the point

[pablo_mccombs]

No matter how kind you think you are, German children are kinder.

OMG! That is perfect. You are the winner of internet for today.

Re:There is no difference, that's the point

[arth1]

In the end, if the code is bad, it won't work, so who wrote it is ultimately irrelevant.

Unfortunately, if the code is bad, it might still sell.

Re:There is no difference, that's the point

[mysidia]

by those some pejoratively call 'SJWs'

On the contrary: the term SJW is not a pejorative, but the opposite; it actually casts the person in a positive light... as "Warriors" or "Heros" of Social Justice. These people CHOSE that term for themselves, and then they twist the concept of Justice to mean various things including "eliminating perceived statistical inequalities in society by any means" ----- It would be nice if we had a replacement term for SJWs which was less romanticized and expressed more of the TRUTH behind the renegade groups which actively twist anyone opposing any of their views into claims of privilege, misogynist, racist, etc.

Frankly: I was astounded when Twitter decided that the "NPC Meme" joking about the behavior of certain progressives when questioned about their views is now considered possibly Illegal Hate Speech, because it's "Dehumanizing" to Joke about the behavior observed of certain people, when the people are not behaving like humans, because when interviewed they act like they are programmatically spouting some canned tag phrase (Like a NPC), but then cannot provide a coherent answer to basic questions that a person who rationally and so passionately came to such conclusions should definitively have an answer to.

The "SJW" are essentially a small vocal minority that have already started shooting in a power grab / pre-meditated culture war that the
targets' the SJWs are shooting at are barely starting to comprehend has even been planned or started yet.

If, on the other hand, their *real* goal is surreptitious power grabs via identity-politics-based using reverse discrimination and 'victimhood' to tear down whatever 'privilege' structure bothers them, then this will make them go absolutely *nuts*.

This is what I predict the result will be of efforts such as RMS' and the SQLite project to adopt more reasonable "Guidelines" that
promote kindness rather than ID politics.

Open source projects are a target, because the openness of community projects makes them easy to infiltrate, and they can make a message that seems good enough on its surface that a naive target will adopt.
Ultimately it's about controlling people on the projects, controlling speech, and trying to control the composition of projects' members though.

Re:There is no difference, that's the point

[CrimsonAvenger]

No matter how kind you think you are, German children are kinder.

Bad joke! Bad! No cookies for you....

Seriously, didn't get it right away, but when I realized what you'd said, was delighted!

Re:There is no difference, that's the point

[Highdude702]

Wait you're supposed to read the article?

Re:There is no difference, that's the point

[grilled-cheese]

New code review:

This code is full of poopy. It needs more purple.

Re:No ToeJam jokes!

[93 Escort Wagon]

the next ToeJam joker is going to the gulag.

Crap.

Re:IT's all so tiresome

[jellomizer]

The difference is people listen to him.
He is no better or worse then someone else but he has a soapbox and people to heat them.

Interesting comment from Stallman

[cascadingstylesheet]

2. I disagree with making "diversity" a goal. If the developers in a specific free software project do not include demographic D, I don't think that the lack of them as a problem that requires action; there is no need to scramble desperately to recruit some Ds. Rather, the problem is that if we make demographic D feel unwelcome, we lose out on possible contributors. And very likely also others that are not in demographic D.

There is a kind of diversity that would benefit many free software projects: diversity of users in regard to skill levels and kinds of usage. However, that is not what people usually mean by "diversity".

Re: IT's all so tiresome

[phantomfive]

Not to mention that he is in charge of a whole lot of open source projects, so this is going to affect a lot of places.

Re:Agree with guideline #2. Bless RMS. Hopes he su

[AmiMoJo]

RMS manages to explain the goals of people concerned about things like diversity really well. His footnote about genderless pronouns is really good too, taking it as written that a person's gender identity is their identity but also showing how what matters is respecting that, not the exact words or conforming to some arbitrary standard.

I'm always impressed by his ability to think and write clearly, getting to the heart of the matter in a concise way.

is there a fix for yahoo etc blocking tor browser?

[Anonymous Coward]

besides taking the 'oath'? which who knows what that allows to be done..?

Re:Agree with guideline #2. Bless RMS. Hopes he su

[jareth-0205]

2. I disagree with making "diversity" a goal. If the developers in a
specific free software project do not include demographic D, I don't
think that the lack of them as a problem that requires action; there
is no need to scramble desperately to recruit some Ds. Rather, the
problem is that if we make demographic D feel unwelcome, we lose out
on possible contributors. And very likely also others that are not in
demographic D.

Except you automatically lose out just by having a limited perspective... we all have that, it's just part of life. eg Text and UI controls requiring young levels of eyesight and motor control because nobody making the UI is old or disabled, Camera film being not very good at capturing black skin because it was calibrated by white people for white people, etc

Diversity is a net gain because it gives us perspectives that we can't hold ourselves, and we'll be able to build for everyone not just people who are similar to us. We just shouldn't go so far as to discourage anyone, but nobody is actually suggesting that apart from in the mad fantasies of the strawmen builders.

Re:IT's all so tiresome

[jareth-0205]

I will communicate with people how I feel they deserve to be communicated with.

Indeed, please do. And those communities will be just as free to shun you for being an arsehole.

Re:Agree with guideline #2. Bless RMS. Hopes he su

[Immerman]

That's happening too.

However, there have been numerous studies showing that if you take the *exact* same resume, changing only the name to sound white, black, or female, the one that sounds like a white man is substantially more likely to lead to an interview. And you can't really blame that on anything but bias in the hiring institution, a factor that's probably amplified by an existing lack of diversity.

systemic laws of organisations

[lkcl]

this has been studied for many decades, not related to software libre at all. the book i recommend is named "invisible dynamics": https://www.amazon.co.uk/Invis...

it outlines six systemic laws - and they are laws (not "guidelnes") - which, when you examine them closely, you will find that any software libre project (or any business) that violates one of those laws is a project that *will* be in trouble, in some form. as the book has to be paid for, i extracted the systemic laws and outlined them here: http://libre-riscv.org/charter...

they're really very simple, and are a down-to-earth reflection of the complexities of interaction between people. the systemic laws require that people recognise:

* the right to belong (to feel welcome)
* their role and the role of others
* the understanding of their difference in *their* level of expertise and that of others
* the understanding of the *seniority* of themselves (their length of service) and that of others
* the acceptance of reality (no "denial")
* the acceptance of both guilt *and* merit (no trying to take credit, and no taking away people's right to learn from their mistakes)
* REWARDING of achievements (this is *severely* lacking in the software libre world)
* RECOGNITION of achievements

if you think back on every newsworthy horror story on slashdot over the past 20 years, you will find, behind every one of them, that one of the above has been violated in some way.

* codes of conduct: so horrifically toxic that people feel sickened and repulsed by them, and leave. those that don't leave are under a constant cloud of toxicity and "guilty until proven innocent".
* corporations spongeing off of software libre projects results in shellshock, heartbleed, the GPG developer getitng USD $10,000 into debt; the gentoo lead developer having to work for microsoft due to USD $45,000 of debt
* the samba team taking credit, receiving awards, sponsorship, donations and shares based on my work, causing me to have to go work on building sites in order to feed myself.

there are many many more examples.

so it's been done... it's just not very well-known.

Re:systemic laws of organisations

[Ol Olsoc]

* the right to belong (to feel welcome)

I only feel welcome when I am not criticized.

* their role and the role of others

My role is to do the best for myself. Their role is to enable me

* the understanding of their difference in *their* level of expertise and that of others

I am not constrained by other people's level of expertise. This is about me. This is about my feelings, and no one has the right to hurt my feelings. Just because some guy has 25 years of experience merely menas that time has passed him by

* the understanding of the *seniority* of themselves (their length of service) and that of others

Seniority means nothing. Senior people are an impediment to me and my ideas.

* the acceptance of reality (no "denial")

My ideology is what is reality, if you deny it, you are in denial

* the acceptance of both guilt *and* merit (no trying to take credit, and no taking away people's right to learn from their mistakes)

Sorry, but if anyone criticizes may mistakes (which I don't make anyhow) that is a personal attack. They need to learn - not me I'll expand on that below

* REWARDING of achievements (this is *severely* lacking in the software libre world) * RECOGNITION of achievements

if you think back on every newsworthy horror story on slashdot over the past 20 years, you will find, behind every one of them, that one of the above has been violated in some way.

* codes of conduct: so horrifically toxic that people feel sickened and repulsed by them, and leave. those that don't leave are under a constant cloud of toxicity and "guilty until proven innocent".

Kinda like #metoo, amirite?

Anyhow, I'm tired of all the quoting and unquoting, and I'm sure I've pissed you off enough by now.

The problem with all of this is that enforcing the way that people act always comes down to the most delicate and easily offended and passive aggressive ending up turning the main tasking into not offending them.

I've seen this in every organization and place I've served in. A person comes in, starts being upset at other individuals, and people "walk on eggshells" in order not to upset them. But just as we all like to pile onto the assholes of this world, the precious snowflakes really do have problems of their own. You can bend over backwards for them, appeasing every demand, turn them into the ersatz leader and final arbiter of everything that just doesn't suit, and they will still find problems to get upset about.

The snowflake tends to try to elevate themselves by attacking others. We had a woman who did this, sad thing is it worked until she went after me - She went to the boss bitching about how secretive I was being on a new project, how I was trying to make her look bad by keeping needed information away from her, and how she was the main driver of the project, and demanded that I be punished.

The boss pulled out the 5 inch thick stack of memos from me that were addressed to him and her and another on the project. He asked if we needed to search he computer for the memos, perhaps something was wrong with the email system.

She went absolutely nuts, how dare we question her veracity.

That's what happens when you attack the guy who documents the hell out of everything. And the next turndown cycle, when we let her go, she had a litany of excuses, mainly because she was female. (we'll ignore the fact that the department was majority female at the time.

That's why I posted the link

[SuperKendall]

Only if the SJWs call off their social justice war.

The typical SJW behavior is the kind of thing that doesn't mesh well with a set if kindness guidelines, because it relies a lot of exaggeration and othering.

That's why I think it's such a great pairing with the article I linked to, which is the other side of the equation - how to decide who to remove if they cannot or will not abide by notions of kindness? It lays out what I think is an excellent structure to be able to dismiss the very worst sort of people for communities, the ones that in most systems spend 99% of the time skirting the boundaries for removal because they are expert at playing rule systems. Weaponized Empathy uncovers the very real psychological cost those people have, and I would warrant a lot of people deep into the SJW mindset would not last a day if the posts they made were looked at through this lens.

The GNU Kind Communication Guidelines, could be a way to keep people from drifting far enough down a path that you have no choice but to remove them, to make people re-evaluate how they interact with others. Everyone needs that kind of check from time to time and people often will not do it themselves without a bit of a push.

Re:Agree with guideline #2. Bless RMS. Hopes he su

[Kohath]

He is only asking. He can have his diversity goals, and you can have your colorblind focus on results. When it's only asking, you can agree to disagree. Everyone can get along.

When someone is only asking, it can be a discussion instead of a fight.

Re:Better but not good

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't understand why this is an issue for people in online communication. You have no idea of someone's objective gender; you have no alternative but to go with what they tell you.

Meaningless without enforcement

[Millennium]

The problem in rhe geek community these days is that it has been infested with people who took advantage of our refusal to reject anyone, abusing the system to bully and bullshit whoever they wanted without fear of consequences. And like many victims of abuse, we meekly complied to keep the peace when we should have kicked them out.

That needs to change. The incels and manchildren have had decades to prove that they won't change without enforcement, so it's time to bring in enforcement. There will be some initial pain, but the communities will ultimately be better off when the abusers are gone.

Re: Meaningless without enforcement

[Millennium]

I think I'll let the mods be the judge of that. Go ahead, report me.

Am I sexist? Well, I'm not a fan of contemporary feminism's refusal to accept "not all men" as a compelling argument despite holding analogous arguments up as the compelling argument against prejudice, and I suppose some of them will probably call me sexist for that. But this same behavior pretty much excludes me from your definition of sexism.

"Incel" is a gender-neutral term. Did you know that it was first coined by a woman to describe herself? The exact meaning was somewhat different at the time: she had a medical condition that prevented her from having sex even though she had a functioning libido, rather than the modern sense of just being too creepy to get a date. But the idea of involuntary celibacy was the same.

You're right about "manchildren", though: thad is, indeed, a gendered term. That was thoughtless of me, and I apologize. What would be a better term? "Kidults", perhaps? "Basement-dwellers", possibly? "Tendie-eating filth-spawn of /pol/"?

Re: Meaningless without enforcement

[Millennium]

I don't think Stallman is necessarily malicious for doing this. He's just misguided. And I can't even blame him for that: the whole geek community is made up of people who were targeted by the wider society's means of enforcing norms, most of us unfairly, and he probably isn't any different. Who wouldn't be reluctant to kick an abuser to the curb, after facing that kind of peer abuse? I sure am. Hell, I had to do it once, and it was like stabbing myself in the chest.

But as geeks, we've forgotten something important: some people are fairly ostracized. Sometimes this is even necessary, lest the abusers of your generosity wind up taking over, as the abusers of the geek community's generosity have. We're all about purging the bullies, but because of this blind spot, we're currently infested with a type of bully that went un-purged. It's time to fix that.

Re: Meaningless without enforcement

[Millennium]

I should point out that Stallman's guidelines would actually make a really good code, if they included a process to enforce them. The unenforceability is the problem, not the rules themselves. That's exactly why the abusers like these kinds of guidelines so much: no one will do anything about it if they break the rules, so they can just ignore the rules.

It would be nice if we lived in a world where enforcement weren't necessary. But the abusers ruined that for everyone. So, here we are.

Re: Meaningless without enforcement

[Millennium]

Slashdot does not operate under your preferred CoC...

Hold on a moment. How exactly do you know that? I never said what my preferred CoC was. For example, I've said in this very thread that the GNU KCG would actually make a pretty good CoC, if only it included an enforcement mechanism.

So I went back and looked over Slashdot's terms of service, which include the closest thing it has to a CoC. It's not bad. Better than the GNU KCG at this particular moment, anyway, though it does need to apply its enforcement mechanisms more consistently.

...and I think we believe a little more strongly in freedom of speech.

No you don't. You don't even believe in your own twisted definition of free speech, as evidenced by the fact that you think I should leave because of what I'm saying. You freeze-peach advocates are all about letting people say whatever you want them to, but dissent from your narrative? No, that must be locked down and purged. Someone pull down the screen and turn out the lights, because we've got a projector on deck.

Also, your use of "we" does not impress me when you're hiding behind an AC account. Get a mod account in here to tell me to stop, and we'll talk. But I think you and I both know that that isn't going to happen.

Also, thank you for your apology and your admission to being sexist. However, per your preferred CoC and the historic enforcement thereof, that would do nothing to keep you from being banned. Unless you are a hypocrite, please remove yourself from slashdot and/or any projects you have represented.

Aw, man, come on. I was just posting satire, and I said I was sorry. Can't you snowflakes even take a little joke?

By your preferred CoC and enforcement mechanisms, that should be all I need to do, am I right? So unless you are a hypocrite, you have to admit I can stay. Freeze peach, yo.

This also bars you from any future involvement as there is no statute of limitations for past transgressions and there is no path to forgiveness.

Statutes of limitations, if any, should be defined as part of an enforcement mechanism. Forgiveness is not something that can or should be governed by set rules.

Please refer to them as "dissenters".

You know what? I don't think so. You don't post any sort of dissent that you believe in, as I outlined above, so I can't call you dissenters. You aren't dissenting.

I think I'll go with "creepers". I prefer the vividness of "tendie-eating filth-spawn of /pol/", but that's just too long to type out on a keyboard, and it might be a little too on-the-nose.

Your language and intent come off as abusive.

Um... whoa. Somebody alert the media, because I need some backup here. Did you just admit that I'm hurting you? Oh. Imagine that.

And imagine this, while you're at it: what do other people feel when you do these very same things to them?

Re: Meaningless without enforcement

[Millennium]

Outstanding idea - it's obvious you speak for absolutely everybody. Just ask you.

Oh hell no, don't ask me. I'm way too hotheaded to judge things like that myself. Always have been.

I don't speak for everyone. But I do listen to everyone. Yes, even you; I couldn't do what I do nearly as effectively if I didn't. When I say nobody really wants you around, not even other geeks, it is because I've done the work to find out. When I say this is fair, it's because I've listened to both sides and considered them carefully, and while their sides have some very serious flaws, they at least have some valid points. Yours, by contrast, does not; it really is nothing more than the shrieking of a toddler who doesn't want to say "please" and "thank you".

Perhaps communities would be better off without you? It would be short term pain but we will all be better off when someone like yourself who makes it their mission to drown out anyone who disagrees with them is no longer around.

I prefer to let the communities be the judge of that. Because it's true: I really am a total asshole. I'm also a hypocrite, because although I say no one should ever be bullied (as opposed to fair ostracism, which is what you deserve), what I do does cross the line into bullying. I read through your bullshit to learn your insecurities, and then use what I've found to twist the knife. I take ruthless advantage of your most common mental states to reinforce the things the voices whisper to you when you're alone. There are places in this world where I could be held liable if you snapped and did something rash. You and I are not as different as you think; I am not an SJW, or even someone the SJWs would consider a very good ally. I'm not a Nazi or an incel either, of course, but I am a conservative, and I'm not sure I can even be called a moderate one. I am you, turned back against you.

And yet, to use just this one community as an example, my karma meter is full, my friendlist and freaklist are small but growing, your pathetic attempts at downvoting my posts quickly get countered, and I have never been banned or even warned despite breaking the rules six ways from Sunday. I'm not worshipped by any stretch of the imagination, but the community has spoken, and they certainly don't think they'd be better off without me; I'm not sure if they necessarily like me, but at the very least, I make myself useful and provide more value than I destroy, which is bwtter than you. And that's far from unique to this site. You'd have a stroke if you knew what the admins at 4chan let me get away with: yes, even at ground zero for your ilk, the admins would look the other way, and this is deliberate.

Why do they do this? How come I can get away with this form of bullying? I'll tell you the secret: it has nothing to do with me. I am allowed to do what I do because I do it to you. They hate you that much, even on your home sites. These communities, dedicated in part to protecting people from bullying, don't just deem you unworthy of their protection, they actually let people in to bully you as long as we stay pointed in the right direction. Which is also important: it's not just that I do it to you, but that I don't do it to anyone else. You're the only ones.

And that is why I am tolerated when you are not. Not because of me, but because of you. These things I do to you? You do them to everyone else. This pain you feel? You cause it in far more people than I ever will. And I'm probably not the first person to do this shit to you, and maybe I'm not even the first person to tell you all this. But seriously: you would think that by now, you'd have learned that bullying people is bad. Instead you became a cyclic bully. You're worst of the worst, because you should know exactly how it feels but you do it anyway.

Re: Meaningless without enforcement

[Millennium]

enforement of what. your ideals. maybe people were ok with the manchildren and incels.

Then they should be protecting you from me. They have the tools. I don't even hide behind anonymity: they could warn me or ban me or downvote me into oblivion or do whatever they wanted, and I would go away.

And yet, that does not happen. Technically I commit more bannable offenses before lunch than most of you do all day, and I never get banned or even warned. My posts don't get 5'd, and really shouldn't be, but total strangers still make sure to counteract your downvoting campaigns. Seems to me that people are generally okay with my being here.

Your assuming every community wants peace and happiness. Not every community wants those ideals.

You know, it's funny. This isn't the only place I operate, but different sites require different styles, just because of the way they're set up. Differing rules and moderation structures come into this, but there are other factors. Sometimes I really can't operate alone at all, but need to get at least some help from the moderation staff. Establishing those relationships can be a tricky business, and it can take some time to feel out the parameters and boundaries of the tacit agreement by which it all works.

But everywhere I go, I am welcomed. Even places that are emphatically not about "peace and happiness" appreciate what I do. Hell; in my experience, the places you've abused into submission seem to be the happiest and most cooperative of all. They dare not move against you openly, for fear of your kind melting down in a mass of hormonal nerd rage, but when offered opportunities to work more subtly against you, they bite. They always bite, even in places where I honestly didn't expect them to.

You have fewer friends than you think you do.

Questions for GNU Kind Communications Guidelines

[advancecoder]

On another note, here are my thirty questions due to the loaded, lossy, and opinionated terminology dictating the GNU Kind Communication Guidelines (https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/kind-communication.html). Please let me know if there is any confusion because I am totally confused and as a user and modder of GNU software in the past, present, and future, I feel it is not only my obligation but my duty to respond to this post on the gnu.org website. 1. What do you mean by advance? 2. What do you certain patterns of communication mean? 3. What do you mean by conscious effort? 4. What do you mean by specific? 5. What do you mean by good faith? 6. What do you mean by wrongs? 7. What do you mean by harsh tone? 8. What do you mean by accept it? 9. What do you mean by actually say and actually do? 10. What do you mean by preferences? 11. What do you mean by personal attacks? 12. What do you mean by hit back? 13. What do you mean by feelings? 14. What do you mean by private? 15. What do you mean by peace? 16. What do you mean by anger? 17. What do you mean by typical desires, capabilities, or actions? 18. What do you mean by kind? 19. What do you mean by conscientious? 20. What do you mean by mistakes? 21. What do you mean by nonfree? 22. What do you mean by not allowed? 23. What do you mean by exaggerations? 24. What do you mean by constructive criticism? 25. What do you mean by real views? 26. What do you mean by tangent? 27. Why not have a special hotline for GNU software w.r.t. that repository? 28. What do you mean by comfortable? 29. What do you mean by cater? 30. What do you mean by friendlier?

From the heart

[swm]

I'll bet this comes from the heart

Please do not criticize people for wrongs that you only speculate they may have done; stick to what they actually say and actually do.

Stallman is routinely and extensively criticized for saying things he hasn't said.

Re:IT's all so tiresome

[Megol]

I will communicate with people how I feel they deserve to be communicated with.

Me too, however I don't intentionally try to insult people even if they are, like you, idiots drooling on their keyboards. Unless they deserve it of course.

Compare with "How to ask questions the smart way"

[karlandtanya]

It seems that parents are no longer teaching their children how to behave in public.
Obviously this didn't start last week, because a lot of the offenders have been out of the house for a long time.
Lately it seems that it's become so prevalent that we need some (more) remedial education.

ESR's essay is instructive to people who want to participate in geek culture but don't yet know the social norms therein. It seems lately that the prerequisites for participating in any culture at all--starting with recognizing that dignity in others and in ones self are missing.

The grumpy old man in me suspects that society is crumbling and this is a doomed attempt to patch it.
The hopeful old man in me knows we have been assholes to each other for a long time and enough of us are fed up that all of are starting to hear about it.

This kind of self-discipline by communities is a messy process, but it really does seem like it's worth a try.

Re:Agree with guideline #2. Bless RMS. Hopes he su

[mysidia]

eg Text and UI controls requiring young levels of eyesight and motor control because nobody making the UI is old or disabled

This is not an issue of lack of diversity of your developers, but lack of feedback from a representative group of your users.

Camera film being not very good at capturing black skin because it was calibrated by white people for white people, etc

Camera film today being bad at capturing black skin because calibrated "by white people for white people" in general? That smells like bullshit.
Do you have recently taken pictures in side-by-fashion on a modern film properly exposed and developed without touch-up work as proof of this?

Cameras and camera film are designed for capturing arbitrary images --- MANY MANY, perhaps most being pictures of inanimate objects/scenes from nature, so the ability for film to accurately take a very high depth of color across the spectrum is necessary...

Unless you have some really really oddball special film... cameras are are meant to capture a scene with high detail containing any color; not just people, let-alone people with a particular skin tone.

OMG! It's filled with religious zealotry!

[Kludge]

From the Guidelines:

By contrast, to suggest that others use nonfree software opposes the basic principles of GNU, so it is not allowed in GNU Project discussions.

This is the kind of religious/political zealotry that turns people off CoCs!

(Just kidding BTW. I personally avoid nonfree software to an extreme.)

Re:OMG! It's filled with religious zealotry!

[OzPeter]

From the Guidelines:

By contrast, to suggest that others use nonfree software opposes the basic principles of GNU, so it is not allowed in GNU Project discussions.

This is the kind of religious/political zealotry that turns people off CoCs!

(Just kidding BTW. I personally avoid nonfree software to an extreme.)

You say "just kidding", but there are some problem domains where there are no FOSS solutions nor will there ever be any FOSS solutions. Absolute statements like this from RMS fly in the face of this position which means either I am not welcome in GNU projects, or I have to pick and choose which parts of his CoC I accept and which I reject - which in both cases defeats the point of the COC in the first place.

Re:OMG! It's filled with religious zealotry!

[ceoyoyo]

Unfortunately that seems to be a common issue with codes of conduct. Even with the good ones, somebody can't resist sticking in some absolute statement regarding their favourite issue.

The last word?

[sjmac]

"Rather than trying to have the last word, look for the times when there is no need to reply"

Re:Better but not good

[AmiMoJo]

I for one do not welcome our mentally ill gender neutral overlords. You can identify as mayonnaise all you want, but i won't refer to you that way.

This would seem to be covered by the Code of Kindness:

"Please do not criticize people for wrongs that you only speculate they may have done; stick to what they actually say and actually do."

"Please respond to what people actually said, not to exaggerations of their views."

Could probably benefit from something about not diagnosing people with mental illnesses too. Anyway, in this case the issue is clearly that no-one is trying to self identify as mayonnaise, and you are exaggerating their requests to make your point.

Also, note how RMS doesn't suggest using their requested pronouns even, he suggests using gender neutral ones for everyone and has a footnote expanding his ideas.

Free Work

[shaksys]

Most open source developers I know would leave a project before they would try to change personality.

Re:Free Work

[Ol Olsoc]

Most open source developers I know would leave a project before they would try to change personality.

Well, it is simply not worth it.

In today's world, a man can be destroyed career wise by the insinuation of anything. And let's face it, the CoC's are aimed straight at males. So why on earth would I or any sane male work gratis on a project that 1 person who disagrees with me can devastatingly affect my future?

I have found, and I suspect that most people have found, that when I have to second and third guess every word I write, I end up choosing not to write anything.

Re:Free Work

[Ol Olsoc]

This is why I choose to not talk about anything not work related at work. It's just too easy to get into the crosshairs of someone that could accuse you of anything just because they felt like it. This isn't court; accusations ruin careers without proof.

Exactly. There is a sliver of hope though. We are seeing the #metoo pogrom has reached it's limit.

The recent supreme court seating of Justice Kavanaugh backfired terribly on those who would insist that all is needed is an accusation.

In the end, a person who probably isn't fit to be a supreme court justice became an object of sympathy. But when you have a women's revenge network led by a pedophile and demanding that a man be fired when the woman he took on a date didn't enjoy herself, people eventually figure out what you are up to.

Protip - Ladies, if someone sexually assaults you, do not wait 30 years to report it. Because at that point, it kinda looks like you are trying to smear a person who isn't going to vote according to your wishes. This case shows why there is a statute of limitations in the first place.

Something to think about ladies..... If Kavanaugh actually did these things, and you reported it the next day, he probably would never have become what he is now.

Re:IT's all so tiresome

[AmiMoJo]

We need a name for this kind of thing. Maybe "toxic meritocracy"? Everyone starts out as pond scum and has to earn your respect on your terms, or you treat them with at best contempt.

Re: IT's all so tiresome

[jd]

How about:

a) He doesn't assert himself as such
b) Even if he did, he is a God

Re:Agree with guideline #2. Bless RMS. Hopes he su

[jareth-0205]

The camera example is from the past and not really valid any more, but well documented, and the reasons are still valid.

In an ideal world having good feedback from users would fix this, but we never have that in real life. How many times have we heard that innovation is made by people scratching their own itch? Developers have a massive influence on the product because of all the tiny decisions that they make to make their own lives better, improvements that don't go through the bureaucracy of making a change request, justifying it, etc. How many little improvements do you make for *you* vs what someone's told you to do. And how well would you understand it even then?

Re:Agree with guideline #2. Bless RMS. Hopes he su

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm always impressed by their ability to think and write clearly, getting to the heart of the matter in a concise way.

FTFY

That is incorrect. "Their" is plural of his/her/its. We know his sex. Their is NOTHING wrong with using the correct pronoun that corresponds with his known nature - It is the suppression of doing so that is becoming the insane norm.

I've never known Stallman to be wrong

[jd]

If he says a new and improved version is good, then the concept must be good.

There is no war

[jd]

The SJWs are doing nothing against you. They never have. Stop assuming that a lack of victims on a side that never existed is tantamount to you being attacked.

Re:There is no war

[Kohath]

The SJWs are doing nothing against you. They never have. Stop assuming that a lack of victims on a side that never existed is tantamount to you being attacked.

Not sure what that 3rd sentence is supposed to mean.

People who censor are absolutely doing things to injure the audience. Maybe you like bullies controlling what you can say and what you can hear others say, but 80% of people don't like it.

Re:Agree with guideline #2. Bless RMS. Hopes he su

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm always impressed by their ability to think and write clearly, getting to the heart of the matter in a concise way.

FTFY

That is incorrect. "Their" is plural of his/her/its. We know his sex. There is NOTHING wrong with using the correct pronoun that corresponds with his known nature - It is the suppression of doing so that is becoming the insane norm.

FTFMe

Re:Compare with "How to ask questions the smart wa

[sinij]

It seems that parents are no longer teaching their children how to behave in public.

You simply have no means to correct child's behavior in public if child is not cooperative. Leftist made "discipline" a dirty word and managed to conflate it with child abuse.

Re:Agree with guideline #2. Bless RMS. Hopes he su

[lgw]

There is just no reason for anyone contributing to an online collaboration needs to make their gender public. The normal English pronouns for a person whose gender is unimportant or unknown work fine: "he, him, his".

Fun fact, English used to have a distinct word for male adult: "were". It survives only in werewolf and wereguild. The gender-indeterminate "man" has replaced "were", because men are unimportant. We have words to highlight when a person is important or valuable, like "king" or "woman", but there was just no need for a word for "male adult" distinct from "adult".

Re:Better but not good

[Waited20yrsToReg]

I assume that people who look between their legs and deny or want to change what they see are mentally ill. I also assume that people who get body mods to look like a vampire are mentally ill.

GPLv3 ruined FOSS

[Anonymous Coward]

It broke the community worse than the Python version transition, and it made the GPL a dangerous word in the corporate world. The result? Resources are now being poured into BSD-licensed (or even more liberally licensed) projects.

Stallman was wrong.

Re:That just proves the stupidity of your side

[AmiMoJo]

White people have nothing to be ashamed about

Yeah, that's not the issue.

The issue is that the descendents of slaves still face a lot of problems stemming from that history, and honouring the people who were part of the problem with their name on a building doesn't help. In fact, it makes things slightly worse...

It's like those statues of Confederate generals. They were mostly mass produced cheaply long after the war, when the civil rights movement was gaining traction in fact. They were designed to remind the people demanding equal rights that they were not equal, that the communities they live in thought they were property and were willing to fight for that belief. The people putting them up didn't give a shit about the generals, they just wanted to make black people feel uncomfortable.

Re:Better but not good

[Waited20yrsToReg]

Yes, i am exaggerating and you make a solid argument. Ideally i would only know them by their handles, but that's not what i experience in my day to day life.

Re:Better but not good

[mysidia]

I for one do not welcome our mentally ill gender neutral overlords.

You can personally believe they are mentally ill all you like, but you don't get to say -- still "humor them" and respect
whatever preference a person says their gender Id is; if it comes up in a project-related discussion.

If a person makes an issue out of other people's gender identity or refuses to comply with their gender
preferences, then yeah, that person's toxic and should be given at least a timeout or suspension, And yeah....
someone responding with some junk like "You can identify as mayonnaise, but i won't refer to you that way" in
reply to someone stating gender preference would be considered hate speech nowadays
even by Twitter and FB (encouraging discrimination against gender identity), and would be an example of one of the rare cases
where a permanent insta-ban should be used.

Re:Agree with guideline #2. Bless RMS. Hopes he su

[lgw]

To quote a google email on the Damore memo "we don't want diversity of ideas".

Diversity of ideas is great. That's the last thing anyone pushing for "diversity" actually wants - they want lockstep orthodoxy of belief.

Re:Better but not good

[OzPeter]

I assume that people who look between their legs and deny or want to change what they see are mentally ill

Which is purely your opinion. A lot of other people believe very differently - especially with the distinction between sex and gender.

I also assume that people who get body mods to look like a vampire are mentally ill.

Again .. another personal opinion on your part. Do you also count other body mods such as piercings and tattoos in the same group of people you believe are mentally ill? If not, what qualifies as a body mod that you ascribe to a mental illness?

Re:That diversity comes from competition

[jareth-0205]

In the old days, people weren't afraid to fork a project in order to do their own damn thing.

That was true diversity: Prove your worth in the market place of ideas.

Until the marketplace of ideas stomps all over your little project for not having the scale or funding to survive. What's wrong with trying to make your own (very big successful) project appeal to a wider variety of people? I despair at the selfishness on this site.

Question

[Ol Olsoc]

What do we do about the person who takes even the mildest criticism as an insufferable personal insult?

I've worked with people like that.

What do we do about someone who simply doesn't like someone so decides that everything they they write is a thinly veiled insult?

I've worked with people like that.

What do we do in the case of the inevitable use of the CoC as a bludgeon?

To think that this will not happen is naivety in the extreme.

So here we have it. The Prime Directive is not the project any more. The prime directive is to avoid upsetting the most sensitive person in the group. This person now rules, and all must acquiesce to their demands.

This has actually existed for years. The name for this situation is walking on eggshells. And it has never worked out well.

Re:Question

[Alain Williams]

What do we do about the person who takes even the mildest criticism as an insufferable personal insult?

In the same ball-park that I came here to say. I absolutely agree that people should not set out to make offence, ie deliberately be rude about someone else. Likewise we should not too lightly take offence, ie interpret what someone else has said through your own prism and decide that it is rude.

We need to remember that many others who we interact with:

* do not have good English (or whatever language) and may not understand nuances that make a phrase offensive to some

* are unaware of (or have forgotten or just got wrong) your: sex, race, colour, age, etc. Thus they may say he about a woman, etc. If it is an error: forgive them

* Knowing the difference between an error and an insult is hard. Where there is ambiguity assume error rather than insult

* might not have seen/understood all of a conversation and thus not be aware of things said previously. Gently remind/inform them; but be aware that they might not see/understand what you say, even if you say it more than once

* Might not be as socially aware as you are and so not realise that something that they say could be seen as rude

* May be young ... we all make mistakes when we are young. Just because you have learned from youthful mistakes does not mean that others have (yet)

* May be from a different culture where the norms of what is polite and what is rude are different

The above is not to say that we must ignore all rudeness, but please be aware that not everything that you perceive as rude was meant to be rude.

Re:Question

[Ol Olsoc]

Chronic depressed people are simply insufferable. It doesn't matter what you say to them, they will always take it negatively. However, these people are sick and one should bear with them, even though it is hard. That is true kindness.

I've got work to do - empathy is good, but there are doctors, meds and hospitals for them to recover in, not making like hell for everyone around them.

Re:@#$% off, you #$%* trendy #$%@

[Immerman]

I'd love to. Stop whining. ;-)

"Treat other members of the community with basic respect and decency" isn't exactly some sort of new-age touchy-feely bullshit - it's pretty much been the foundation of every community in history - even hate-mongering groups like the KKK whose entire reason for existing it to chase off particular non-members with fear and violence. Klansmen are still decent to each other.

It's pretty much been the foundation of Free software communities as well - the only problem is that they've historically been a white boys club, and now that Free software has gone mainstream we're seeing an influx of non-white, non-boys. It's up to us whether we want to continue to be an open community in the face of rapidly growing membership appeal, with the growth and learning that involves.

So how do I tell a fuckup he/she is a fuckup now?

[gweihir]

Because that is something these people have to be told.

I really love teaching in contrast. There I can just fail the failures. No, no backlash, as here academic education does not serve to make a profit.

Re:Agree with guideline #2. Bless RMS. Hopes he su

[HornWumpus]

There have been a bunch of studies. Some one way, some another.

In tech, 'women's names' get more interviews. Because the recruiters are all under pressure to find female techs/engineers/programmers.

'Low class' black names do get fewer interviews than 'high class' white names, nobody has ever done a study comparing redneck 'white names' (e.g. BillyJoeJimBob) against made up spelling 'black names' (e.g LaTrina).

I'll use simple words this time.

[Anonymous Coward]

* Those statues and building names make their triumph all the more wonderful; they should be taking happy selfies in front of them.

* White people are responsible for the successes of the civil rights movement. They were the ones in power; they are the ones who made a success of it.

        Civil rights, tolerance, multiculturalism, respect for the individual, equality under the law.

        Those are all White ideas.

Re: I'll use simple words this time.

[Anonymous Coward]

Praise be to the white man.

Re:Better but not good

[HornWumpus]

My preferred pronoun in 'Huey', you know what I identify as but refuse to call me a 'super cobra'. Bigot! The government owes me two turbines.

Communication failure

[TimMD909]

These codes of conduct seem ludicrous to me. There's two ways they make sense. If I look at it as authoritarian asshats trying their best to attack freedom of speech, this pattern seems logical. If I look at it as poorly socialized children suddenly finding themselves in adult bodies, it also makes sense. Both could be true and seem to be 2 sides of the same coin. Where did all this moral posturing and white knighting come from? It's McCarthyism all over again, yet no one seems to be willing to admit that these witch hunts will lead us all into hell.

Re:Communication failure

[Hylandr]

Mod up pls!

Re:Communication failure

[TimMD909]

Thanks, but apparently several people got upset with my comments. It was equally modded up, as it was down. My guess is that some thin-skinned people thought I was calling them childish, when I was not, yet still took offense. Ironic enough, that is acting childish. Sometimes i wish I it was public how individuals spend their moderation points, but I'm not sure how that'd affect the tenuous balance we have here on Slashdot.

Re:Communication failure

[Hylandr]

The balance is tenuous indeed.

Sometimes I think the new owners have a say in how much the requirements of the real world make it to the public. Trying to balance moderation between 'poor' but still believable support or FUD as regards their ideological interests.

Re:Stallman and Torvalds?

[HornWumpus]

You gotta be cruel to be kind.

If someone can't code, they are _wasting_their_life_ trying to contribute the Kernel. The sooner they get on with getting a job digging ditches the better for them.

Re:IT's all so tiresome

[Etcetera]

Maybe this is a 'Only Nixon could go to China' moment for civil behavior.

I mean, if freaking Stallman can admit that it is time to be civil, then maybe everybody can make the same assessment

There's nothing wrong with being civil, and even Linus in his most inflammatory periods would agree (even if he's violating them). The CC and CoC-enforcement community wants far more than a minimal definition of "civil", and that's the rub.

RMS's statement seems quite reasonable, because it basically boils down to:
Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.

That's a much better foundation for a conduct agreement than the course listing at your local humanities department.

Re:Compare with "How to ask questions the smart wa

[AmiMoJo]

Over 11,000 words and more than 65k characters - my limited 16 bit brain overflowed.

The TL;DR version is search first, then pick the right venue, then ask nicely.

Re:Better but not good

[jeff4747]

So what should we assume about you when we demonstrate that sexuality and gender is a lot more complex than the structures that develop between someone's legs?

For example, there's people who are XY who are born with a vagina. Do you want to count their genes as the "right" answer or their crotch? What's the answer for people born with both?

This is biology. Nothing is binary. Everything is gradients, and many times things "don't work like they're supposed to".

Re:IT's all so tiresome

[Rockoon]

Its well known that moral authority grows through toe-jam consumption. Stallman therefore is the next jesus.

Re:IT's all so tiresome

[Rockoon]

Since I no longer have to earn your respect, go fuck yourself.

There's a recruiting company you'd love

[jd]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

It has all sorts of jobs for people like yourself. I won't bother correcting your history essay.

Re:That just proves the stupidity of your side

[liquid_schwartz]

White people have nothing to be ashamed about

Yeah, that's not the issue.

But it becomes an issue because you can't even say it. For example there are various pride organizations for every ethnicity, sans white. Why can't we have a white scholarship? It's an obvious double standard and it undermines anyone who is calling for equality. The failure to perceive this obvious double standard is why I feel like most left leaning types lack logic. If you're interested in fairness of outcomes tie it to the well established metric of income, not the dubious metric of race. To tie affirmative action to race is to promote racism and says that Obama's two daughters need help while some poor white kids from the Appalachian mountains don't. Tying affirmative action to economics is actually trying to achieve something closer to fairness instead of trying to balance the racial scales regardless of fairness.

...They were designed to remind the people demanding equal rights that they were not equal...

Much like how colleges, and the left, demean the hated white male at every chance while promoting others.

Re:I'm proudly emotional,and here's why this is wr

[lgw]

The Time Cube is strong with this one. AC may have discovered "four-cornered empathy". However, he left out that those who disagree have been "educated stupid" (which, in this case, I'd agree with). Keep pluggin away, AC, we all miss Time Cube.

Re:More times...

[Penguinisto]

*sigh*....

Stallman's problem is that he's trying to jam licensing into things that don't quite fit.

I saw some of this in 2000, when I ran across the conflict between going 100% open-source on teaching Linux, and the prospect of students copying/passing-around test answers under the banner of 'well, it's open source, isn't it?' Thus was born the incredibly clumsy Open Documentation License (okay, okay - I'm sorry already!)

Licensing works for simple self-contained items - code for instance. For documents, Copyleft works better, though by necessity some (corner-case) stuff must remain under proprietary lock-down, no matter how badly information wants free under those specific circumstances. For human behavior? Yeah, no... sorry dude, . Not gonna work at all.

I appreciate that he's trying to solve a problem here, but using legal licensing mechanisms to get people to be nice to each other? It is like trying to use only a pair of wire-cutters to perform an appendectomy (yes, it will probably work, but the results are gonna be real messy and painful.)

Re:That just proves the stupidity of your side

[OzPeter]

They were mostly mass produced cheaply long after the war, when the civil rights movement was gaining traction in fact. They were designed to remind the people demanding equal rights that they were not equal,

This is no better illustrated today than the news that popped up of Stacey Abrams (D candidate for Governor of Georgia) burning the Georgia state flag back in '92. In 1956 the Confederate battle flag emblem was added to the Georgia state flag (finally removed in 2003). Opponents of Abrams are basically pointing at her and saying "OMG she should never be Governor because of how she treated the state flag, wherein all likelihood the flag was figuratively desecrated back in '56 in order to intimidate a section of the populace, and Abrams object to that desecration.

Re:Agree with guideline #2. Bless RMS. Hopes he su

[AmiMoJo]

This is not an issue of lack of diversity of your developers, but lack of feedback from a representative group of your users.

For an open source project if someone comes to you with a bug that can only be reproduced by being black, and you aren't black... More over it really helps to think about this stuff earlier in the development of features, rather than someone come along when it's all done and point out that your UI is difficult for colourblind people or the fact that you can't change the font size is a major issue for them.

Honestly the best thing to happen to computers in the last decade has been the ability to properly scale UIs, and I'm not even that old.

Camera film today being bad at capturing black skin because calibrated "by white people for white people" in general? That smells like bullshit.

Even these days with cameras being mostly digital it's still an issue. It's only really in maybe the last five years that Hollywood has got really good at filming black people in anything less than ideal lighting. Even once the technology got there, it took a while for cinematographers to figure it all out.

That's why so many films with black actors won awards for cinematography lately.

Re:Left? Is binary the whole extent of your thinki

[Stolovaya]

It's like when Americans say they stop believing in some religion, and then keep the exact same mannerisms and mindsets, but merely apply them to an ideology".

FTFY

Re:Better but not good

[lgw]

If someone demands to be referred to as "Admiral Krang of the Klingon Empire", it's not a stretch to assume they have mental issues. If their code comments are only in Klingon, or they only respond to questions in Klingon, they may not be welcome. If someone clarifies that they are a "she" or a "he", sure, whatever, it's irrelevant to code. But if someone starts making up pronouns and insisting on them, or changes their pronouns from day to day, or otherwise becomes a pain in the ass to have a simple communication with, then their mental illness has become a burden on others, and they may not be welcome.

It may be a bit different in an in-person interaction. If someone is at a gaming or SF convention, and is wearing full Klingon makeup and regalia, I'll be delighted to play along. Outside of that context, I'll be backing away slowly while reaching for a stick. Normal social interaction is only made possible by the assumption of sanity

Re:Agree with guideline #2. Bless RMS. Hopes he su

[AmiMoJo]

To quote a google email on the Damore memo "we don't want diversity of ideas".

I searched and this doesn't seem to be a quote. Do you have a link perhaps?

The nearest I could find was:

Part of building an open, inclusive environment means fostering a culture in which those with alternative views, including different political views, feel safe sharing their opinions.

http://fortune.com/2017/08/07/...

Re:Agree with guideline #2. Bless RMS. Hopes he su

[ceoyoyo]

Not true. Good photographers use different film for different situations. Fuji Velvia is beloved by landscape photographers, but it makes people in portraits look weird. Portrait photographers will often use film that is balanced to warm the colours up a bit because it tends to make people (of all colours) look better.

If I remember correctly, the supposedly racist film is actually early black and white film that would preserve detail in white faces but make people with very dark skin just look black. That's actually a basic property of film: the light response is nonlinear so you get more contrast at the dark end and less at the light end.

Re:That just proves the stupidity of your side

[Oceanplexian]

Do Chinese Americans still face a lot of problems stemming from history? You know, given that Chinese were effectively slave labor in the late 1800s, or that most Americans were blatantly racist against Chinese people for the better part of two centuries? Actually no, they don't. That's because victim culture isn't part of their ethos. If you go back far enough we are all "descendants of slaves", or something equally as bad in one form or another. The Irish came to America to escape starvation and were then exploited. It was not uncommon for (white) women and children were effectively worked to death in textile mills in the 1800s and early 1900s. How are their descendants doing today? Do they blame all their problems on things "stemming from history"?

Slavery is over. It has been over for over 150 years. It was a terrible time in history, but guess what.. there are lots of them. Communism tortured, killed, and dehumanized millions of more people and is celebrated by the same people who support affirmative action and repatriations for slavery. How about, instead of blaming our current problems on long-dead generations past, maybe people of all races and backgrounds should be held accountable for their actions in the present?

Re:CoC bunch on nonsensical crap

[Darinbob]

Only in the open source all-volunteer army. In the professional world they're called Employee Manuals. In the employed world, you can't go on a loud swearing rant against your coworkers unless you're the CEO, and even then the board will step in and ask you to tone it down.

Re:IT's all so tiresome

[Hognoxious]

He is no better or worse then someone else but he has a soapbox

I suspect it's empty.

Re: IT's all so tiresome

[illiac_1962]

Shunning is worse than dressing someone down. Why would you act like that to someone?

Re:That just proves the stupidity of your side

[werepants]

But it becomes an issue because you can't even say it. For example there are various pride organizations for every ethnicity, sans white. Why can't we have a white scholarship?

Here's the thing: there IS scholarship of German-Americans, and Irish-Americans, and Italian-Americans, and various other Americans of European descent, and that is a perfectly legitimate and worthwhile endeavor. If there's some particular European culture you come from, go for it, have some pride, put on your lederhosen or clogs or kilt and celebrate the grand traditions of your forebears. Nobody will give you a hard time about it.

If, however, you aren't trying to celebrate any of those cultures in particular, you are going to have a hard time, because of these issues: If you want to celebrate white pride, what, in precise terms, are you trying to celebrate? Who gets to be in your white pride march? Is the criteria the color of your skin? Is it that you come from Europe? Or specific parts of Europe? How about Mexicans, whose ancestors come from Europe as well? Many Jews are light-skinned and had ancestors in Europe - do they get to be a part of it? Who is it, exactly, that is included as "white"? And, more importantly, who is it that is excluded?

Re: That just proves the stupidity of your side

[illiac_1962]

Bigly worse...bad stuff

Re:Questions for GNU Kind Communications Guideline

[Ol Olsoc]

I have very respectfully read and given much kind thought to your very professional and 100 percent correct and above any reproach post, and thought that I would very kindly and humbly offer a possible addition to it, although I want to assure you that if in your wise and considered truth, please accept this humble remark as something not meant to criticize, demean, or castigate your gender nor insult your time honored and proven mastery of intellect that ranks with the highest if not already the zenith in the organization.

So if it please you, and I mean not to criticize, but to help you to acheive your well deserved goals, and further explore and find yourself, I would like to humbly submit, although if you find this overbearing, and bigoted, I apologize in advance. I would certainly be most sorry if I inflicted great harm upon your freedom of expression.

You did not place a period at the end of your post.

Re:That just proves the stupidity of your side

[Stolovaya]

It basically comes down to: if is able to do something, then all groups are able to do that same thing.

Re:Better but not good

[AmiMoJo]

I refer you back to the Kind Communication Guidelines:

"Please respond to what people actually said, not to exaggerations of their views."

Perhaps we can stick to realistic examples rather than ridiculous exaggerations.

Re:That just proves the stupidity of your side

[AmiMoJo]

For example there are various pride organizations for every ethnicity, sans white. Why can't we have a white scholarship?

Imagine you saw a homeless guy on the street, and a bloke in a Porsche rolled up beside him. You dug into your pocket and gave your loose change to the guy in the Porsche. People might think you were a bit of an arsehole.

Obviously that's exaggerated but if you are helping out underprivileged white kids somewhere I don't think anyone will mind.

On the other hand I don't think the idea that it's not okay to be white is in any way common or visible in popular culture etc. so it would be kind of odd to have a white pride parade. In fact people would probably assume you were some kind of white supremacist, since they are the only ones who do that kind of thing. That's just how it is.

If you think there is a problem you can work to do something about it, but gay people didn't go right from illegal to gay pride overnight either so maybe come up with a plan first.

Re:More times...

[mysidia]

I appreciate that he's trying to solve a problem here, but using legal licensing mechanisms to get people to be nice to each other?

I believe your comment itself can be considered a violation of his code, see:
Please respond to what people actually said, not to exaggerations of their views. RMS is not trying to use "legal licensing mechanisms" to get people to be nice to each other

GNU Project guidelines and Policies the FSF adopts regarding communications between contributors on their mailing lists, etc are not licenses. RMS never describes the guidelines as a license....

Licensing works for simple self-contained items - code for instance. For documents, Copyleft works better, though by necessity some (corner-case) stuff must remain under proprietary lock-down

It begins to become apparent that you don't seem to have be clueful about what you are writing.
All such works are subject to copyright, and the default is All Rights Reserved. Licensing is required for all of them.

Copyleft was RMS' name for Software that includes source code and includes GPL-style protections requiring that anyone making a modified work include the modified source code. Copyleft licenses are required primarily for SOFTWARE not documents.

The authors of open source documentation had some special needs beyond what the generic GPL provided, so the GNU Free Documentation license was introduced to add increased flexibility to allow publishing print documentation with similar protections to the GPL BUT reduced burdens for the publisher, so you can distribute a book under the GFDL without having to include the raw .DOC, Docbook XML, SGML, NROFF, or TeX Sourcecode in every copy of your printed book, and the original author can specify mandatory cover texts and backtexts which later editors are not allowed to remove, etc.

though by necessity some (corner-case) stuff must remain under proprietary lock-down, no matter how badly information wants free under those specific circumstances.

This has been promulgated at times but has been proven simply not true. There is no need to encourage or allow anything to be under proprietary "All Rights Reserved" lock-down within OSS.

At one time it was even thought necessary for example, that hardware drivers and proprietary vendor firmwares (such as Intel boot-time-loaded NIC firmwares included with the driver) would always have to be allowed in the kernel distro and be a permanent exception ---- thanks to purist projects such as Debian, such firmwares were eliminated, and eventually even those drivers came into compliance with open source.

I ran across the conflict between going 100% open-source on teaching Linux, and the prospect of students copying/passing-around test answers under the banner of 'well, it's open source, isn't it?'

The problem there is not OSS, but Student Evaluation Rubric.
If you ask students an essay question, then for actual scoring Required Originality and Demonstration of Understanding the topic should be on the rubric.

If the question is of a form such as multiple choice, then you can build extremely large question/answer pools; and use pre-determined randomization
algorithms to generate individualized examination.

But probably the best way to evaluate is for an instructor to create an individualized exercise for their group of students to
demonstrate mastery of the material. The creation of the exercise AND the performance of the exercise AND the write-up of the response
are all "Works in Progress," just like the student's learning, and while open source, they're not actually developed until completed, and
the individualized exercise for this generation is not going to be the same as the exercise in a later sitting of the course ---- Because those
in the next sitting of the course will have the open-source deliverables from this sitting of the course to review and add to their collective experience.

Re:You are the one talking about exclusion

[Tyler Durden]

A white person first and foremost an appearance, and is secondarily an adherence to a certain culture.

But as the GP touched on when mentioning Irish, Germans and Italians, there is no general white culture. You'll find that the multiple cultural regions of Europe are extremely different from each other, and would probably be offended to be lazily grouped together under one broad umbrella. If anything, what we think of as "white culture" in the US is the result of our immigrant ancestors giving up all the things that made their mother cultures unique and cool in a desperate attempt to fit in. An anti-culture, if you will.

People tend to get offended when they hear mention of celebrating "white culture", but not a particular white culture. I haven't seen anyone particularly offended about the existence of St. Patrick's Day for instance. Have you ever wondered why that is?

Re:So this patch is useless?

[Immerman]

Because the nature of the community is changing - I thought I made that clear.

Let me be more explicit - the community has traditionally been dominated by white men, with a strong streak of the sort of insular shit-talking routinely present in groups of white men.

It's now expanding to include ever more non-whites and women, and a lot of that insular shit talking that's deemed acceptable among white men, is *not* acceptable to non-whites and women. So, either we grow up, start acting as part of an inclusive community, or we become a fringe hate group, while the larger community moves on without us.

Re:That just proves the stupidity of your side

[Stolovaya]

It basically comes down to: if (insert group) is able to do something, then all groups are able to do that same thing.

Re:IT's all so tiresome

[arth1]

You think he's used all the soap?

Re:Stallman and Torvalds?

[arth1]

If someone can't code, they are _wasting_their_life_ trying to contribute the Kernel.

I think it's even a bit worse than that, and an even higher standard is needed. That you can code isn't enough.
The saying is that greatness is 10% inspiration and 90% perspiration, but in the case of something like the kernel, it falls down if the 10% isn't there. You need to be a programmer with a good understanding (and not just memorization) of logic and algorithms, not just a coder, or you may do more harm than good. There are eyes on the code that will catch many problems, but still, bad code slips through. The code itself may be wonderful, but when the logic behind the code isn't, it goes south.

Re:More times...

[Jappus]

I saw some of this in 2000, when I ran across the conflict between going 100% open-source on teaching Linux, and the prospect of students copying/passing-around test answers under the banner of 'well, it's open source, isn't it?'

I believe the correct answer would have been:

The code may be open source, but my grading isn't. It's more akin to absolute monarchy, if you recall.

Re:That just proves the stupidity of your side

[AmiMoJo]

I see Mashiki's sock puppets have mod points again, but how the hell does this add up?

30% Informative
20% Troll
20% Insightful

Starting score 1, excellent karma, and it's now at +1 Insightful. Surely it should be at least +2. The mysteries of the Slashdot moderation system I guess.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:I KNOW why that is.

[Tyler Durden]

In the end it all comes down to culture. A lot of culture comes from what nation you are a part of. And if not that, the general region you are from as you tend to get cultural influences from those close to you. That can relate to the ethnic makeup of people as they adapt to the demands of their geographic location. But they are NOT directly correlated. Ethnicity is not the same thing as culture. To say that is to suggest that there is some white-related gene that makes some races genetically capable of coming up with an Enlightenment and others inferior. And if you believe that we don't have to continue with this debate. I'd hate to keep you from some Klan meeting or something.

Even though the Enlightenment happened to come to a head in Europe, there were a lot of influences from different regions that led up to it. In particular, there was an increased availability of Muslim region based discoveries from the Middle Ages that helped them out. So yeah, you can argue that some of the Enlightenment came from Muslim values. I'm sure there were others as well.

I myself do not mind if a white person wears dreadlocks. (It sometimes looks a little goofy to me but, hey, it's their life). I'm a fan of multi-culturalism. I celebrate the things I like about my cultural background and if someone from another culture takes something they like from it then, good for them. Maybe there's something positive from theirs I can get as well. I'll leave the separatist attitudes to the alt-right and extreme social left.

Re:Stallman and Torvalds?

[HornWumpus]

Someone who can code can at least do productive things under the wing of a mentor.

Someone who can't code is just stealing oxygen from the rest of the team.

Re:More times...

[mschuyler]

" I appreciate that he's trying to solve a problem here, but using legal licensing mechanisms to get people to be nice to each other?

I believe your comment itself can be considered a violation of his code, see: Please respond to what people actually said, not to exaggerations of their views. RMS is not trying to use "legal licensing mechanisms" to get people to be nice to each other"

I find this exchange laughingly ironic. it kind of proves the point that these so-called "codes" cannot control people's behavior. Already your accusing someone who made a rather benign statement of "violating the code." And that these open-source communities are voluntary is even funnier. I doubt many developers will put up with this crap. The "open source community" needs them far more than they need the open source community.

Re:IT's all so tiresome

[AmiMoJo]

You don't have to earn it, but you can certainly lose it.

Re: IT's all so tiresome

[Zero__Kelvin]

There is nothing to "admit". There is a time for civility and a time to be not so civil. Not everyone is civil all the time. Besides, why is it OK for someone to "identify" as something and they *must* be accepted by all *unless* that person self identifies as an "asshole", in which case they must be ostracized?

Re:More times...

[mysidia]

Already your accusing someone who made a rather benign statement of "violating the code."

Benign statement? What part of using legal licensing mechanisms to get people to be nice to each other?
is (1)consistent with something RMS actually said and (2) not implying ridicule against RMS?...
See also: *sigh*....
 
Stallman's problem is that he's trying to jam licensing into things that don't quite fit.

The GP is claiming both that Stallman has a "problem", and this simple set of guidelines is an example of the problem.

I would point out that RMS published a guideline, and neither in his e-mail message nor in the guideline itself is there a reference
whatsoever to any kind of licensing mechanism other than copyrights asserted for the webpage itself.

Re:That just proves the stupidity of your side

[AHuxley]

Re "The issue is that the descendents of slaves still face a lot of problems stemming from that history"
A constant looking back over history will not help next gen computer code be the best it can.

Re:Agree with guideline #2. Bless RMS. Hopes he su

[mysidia]

rather than someone come along when it's all done and point out that your UI is difficult for colourblind people or the fact that you can't change the font size is a major issue for them.

This is why you have Alphas and Betas. Anyways, in the OSS world UIs are usually made by one person who has sufficient knowledge to do so -
and sometimes you get GUI nightmares with thousands of obscure checkboxes, kinda like This.

In an ideal world the UI designs would be made or reviewed by UX experts -- in the corporate world, there would be a committee of beancounters to approve the design - a luxury most projects don't have.

The end of our civilization

[William Baric]

We were once strong people, who never hesitated to brave the world. Our strength allowed us to create the greatest civilization that ever existed. We used our strength to help others. We developed their countries, we gave them science, technology, medicine, and advanced philosophy. The whole world benefited from our strength and our generosity.

Now, we are a bunch of weak individuals who are afraid someone might use bad words. We feel so weak that we can't tolerate strength anymore. We shame strong people, because we are afraid of them. We are so weak that now the only thing we can do is to virtue signal, in the hope that other people won't hurt us.

Torvalds and to a lesser degree Stallman are in the image of our civilization. They were once strong men. Their strength allowed them to create great and successful projects, that the whole world could benefit from. Now they have become weak. They don't hope for excellence anymore, they hope for kindness, so they don't get hurt. It's sad.

How to do good computer projects

[AHuxley]

Create a web site and forum and have clear project set out.
Some sort of chat app for support.
Write a lot of quality code.
Tell the world about the project and the skills used in interviews and reviews.
Get up at 2 am to do live interviews if the timezones are different.
Find a translator to help spread the message in other languages.
Be ready for non computer questions and challenging technical questions in the same interviews.
Invite in people of skill who have a past in really great computer work.
Keep growing the project. Doing interviews.
Always read than then respond to every security related report quickly giving the person who reported the problem an outline of how their report will be worked on.
A timeline and the complexity of the problem can be set out. Keep them updated as the problem is worked on.
Thank them for their security related report.
A good project needs the best code and great people who can keep their code secure and updated.

Re:Preserving the West

[Tyler Durden]

Preserved and built upon a lot of it as well.

I mean, seriously. Don't you have any interest in history and science/mathematics beyond "hooray white people"?

Re:Agree with guideline #2. Bless RMS. Hopes he su

[Wrath0fb0b]

That is incorrect. "Their" is plural of his/her/its. We know his sex. Their is NOTHING wrong with using the correct pronoun that corresponds with his known nature - It is the suppression of doing so that is becoming the insane norm.

First of all, singular they has a long history within the English language dating back at least as far the Bishops (1568) and King James (1611) Bibles, Shakespeare, Emily Dickinson, Jane Austen and many other notable authors.

Or, as Language Log put it:

By all means, avoid using they with singular antecedents in your own writing and speaking if you feel you cannot bear it. Language Log is not here to tell you how to write or speak. But don't try to tell us that it's grammatically incorrect. Because when a construction is clearly present several times in Shakespeare's rightly admired plays and poems, and occurs in the carefully prepared published work of just about all major writers down the centuries, and is systematically present in the unreflecting conversational usage of just about everyone including Sean Lennon, then the claim that it is ungrammatical begins to look utterly unsustainable to us here at Language Log Plaza. This use of they isn't ungrammatical, it isn't a mistake, it's a feature of ordinary English syntax that for some reason attracts the ire of particularly puristic pusillanimous pontificators, and we don't buy what they're selling.

Second, the sneering and incorrect hyper-grammar-policing of a historically acceptable construction is bad enough, but did you really have to do it in a post mistaking "there" and "their" in the second sentence? Because that's not some marginal or debatable rule of grammar, that's actually two different words with totally different meanings. Even Safari's god-awful grammar checker flags that one as questionable . . .

Re:IT's all so tiresome

[Highdude702]

And you have to accept that those people will exist, and you will come across them. Then you ignore them and act like nothing happened and they go away.

The first step

[DulcetTone]

The first step toward showing kindness toward others is to wash your hair every so often.

Re:Don't act innocent

[Kohath]

I like how you call for the warriors to stop waging war without asking one time what it is they are fighting. Your claims throughout this thread are vague enough to imply that SJWs are just out screaming at people for no reason.

Everyone who does anything in the name of "justice", no matter how evil the act, claims to have a good reason. There will always be an infinite list of excuses or rationalizations or justifications for anything.

You do not call for the conservative (and your) side to stop the discrimination and active hostility towards the SJWs. You want us to accept your hatred for us and to abide by whatever arbitrary law you've come up with this week, but the minute we ask for the same from your side, we get the big F U. We're tired of that. We don't stop defending ourselves until you stop attacking. Besides, war is what you conservatives always want so again, stop acting coy.

That's a plan to make your life about nothing besides an endless series of half-imagined grievances (which you intend to exact "justice " for). Besides the obvious question of why anyone would choose that life for themselves, there's the much more relevant question of why anyone else would ever want to interact with SJWs in any way. I know I certainly don't.

There's a whole big world out there full of wonder and opportunity. That world can be pretty cool when you aren't actively seeking out things to complain about.

Re:That just proves the stupidity of your side

[Anonymous Coward]

Since the Jim Crow laws only applied to blacks in the South, does blacks in the North or West, or that came from other countries (Africa, Carribean, etc.) would only have the same problems as other oppressed groups (Jews, Chinese, etc.)?

I find it rather peculiar that only the extremely specific combination of factors that applied to blacks in the South could cause the conditions that all African Americans are in, yet similar conditions seemed to have no effect on any other population.

dom

Re:Questions for GNU Kind Communications Guideline

[Ol Olsoc]

You did not

This kind of reproachful tone is completely unacceptable and will not be tolerated.

It is exactly the sort of thing that keeps women out of STEM careers. My Bad.

Re:More times...

[i.r.id10t]

I pull out the Discworld thoughts of the tyrant Vetinari "I believe in one man and one vote... and I am the man that has that vote"

Photo Film

[jrumney]

If I remember correctly, the supposedly racist film is actually early black and white film that would preserve detail in white faces but make people with very dark skin just look black. That's actually a basic property of film: the light response is nonlinear so you get more contrast at the dark end and less at the light end.

The non-linearity applies to color film as well. Up until the 1970's color film had poor contrast in darker tones, and it was reportedly (according to a Vox documentary on the subject) chocolate and wood product manufacturers complaints about their products lacking detail in advertisements that triggered improvements. It wasn't until the mid 1990's (just before digital started to take over) that dark skin tones could be seen with the same detail as light ones in the same photo by even consumer grade film, though the photographer's attention to lighting still plays a big part.

Re:Photo Film

[Cederic]

I've noticed that my digital cameras struggle to capture texture and definition when photographing people with dark skin too.

Of course, my cameras were designed by people in Japan so good fucking luck to any idiots that want to blame this on white people.

It's almost as though there's more light coming from lighter objects with which to create an image.

Re:So how do I tell a fuckup he/she is a fuckup no

[gweihir]

What are you talking about?

Re:So how do I tell a fuckup he/she is a fuckup no

[Hylandr]

The Future.

Re:That just proves the stupidity of your side

[Raenex]

On the other hand I don't think the idea that it's not okay to be white is in any way common or visible in popular culture etc.

You're a liar. There would never be an "investigation" if somebody posted, "It's okay to be Black|Hispanic|Jewish" signs.

Colleges don't have conferences about "Jewish privilege", but they have them about "White privilege". It's completely acceptable and routine to complain about an organization being "too White", but never "too Jewish" or "too Black". It's only in majority white countries where it's celebrated that the majority will become a minority. Nobody complains that Africa, China, or India is not "multicultural" and "diverse" enough.

Re:That just proves the stupidity of your side

[AmiMoJo]

So say you had a Jewish Privilege Conference... What kind of issues would you discuss?

Re:That just proves the stupidity of your side

[Cederic]

Depends, are we discussing the religion or the race?

Religiously we can cover the insanity of believing in mythical sky fairies, the inherent racism in its approach to marriage, the extent to which it excludes others and creates self-supporting networks whose use of in-group advantages leads to jealousy and hatred.

Racially we can explore the observed and measured intellectual variation from other populations and also the use of religion to racially exclude and diminish others.

Or we could acknowledge that almost all Jewish people are behaviourally at worse no worse than anybody else, frequently better and work hard to achieve the successes that they do.

Which is what I'd do with white people too.

Re:Agree with guideline #2. Bless RMS. Hopes he su

[Cederic]

Check Exhibit B in the Damore et al class action suit against Google. Pages 8, 9, 18 explicitly don't want diversity of ideas. Many other pages include people attacking others because of a perception of their views.

But hey, that's just one source.

Re:That just proves the stupidity of your side

[Raenex]

So say you had a Jewish Privilege Conference... What kind of issues would you discuss?

Notice how you move the goalposts, and completely ignore that your initial premise was destroyed?

Re:That just proves the stupidity of your side

[AmiMoJo]

You seem to be confused about what the White Privilege Conference is about. It's nothing to do with white people being inherently worse than anyone else, it's about understanding the ways in which history and current social structures benefit them in ways that non-white people aren't.

There is no blame, no racism, just an attempt to understand the world as it exists.

Re:That just proves the stupidity of your side

[AmiMoJo]

It can be hard to follow threads on Slashdot... Anyway, I question the premise. People absolutely are complaining back lack of diversity in China, for example. Right now the front page of BBC News has a story about the oppression of Muslims in China. Last time I looked it was the top story.

Re:Agree with guideline #2. Bless RMS. Hopes he su

[AmiMoJo]

I just checked those pages again. None of it contradicts what the CEO said. He said in his statement that they are tolerant of ideas as long as expressing them doesn't cause a Code of Conduct issue. Also, those emails are from individual employees and don't represent Google corporate policy.

I really can't wait for this lawsuit. The arguments are going to be fascinating. Doubtless this will come up and I expect these emails will be dismissed fairly quickly because no reasonable person would expect tolerance to extend to open intolerance of other employees.

Re:That just proves the stupidity of your side

[Cederic]

I am far from confused about what the White Privilege Conference is about. It's about racism.

Stop fucking pretending that skin colour confers privilege. It does not.

For example, people with white skin run at most a third of the countries on the planet and maybe 10% of the businesses. They don't have the highest educational outcomes in the countries in which they're the majority. They're legally discriminated against in multiple countries.

That conference is for racists to discuss their racism.

Re:Agree with guideline #2. Bless RMS. Hopes he su

[Cederic]

Yet again, you ask for evidence to support someone's claim, evidence is provided and you switch to "well, that's irrelevant".

reasonable person would expect tolerance to extend to open intolerance of other employees

Given that's exactly what many those emails and communications demonstrate I'm bewildered that you think that would cause them to

be dismissed fairly quickly

Shit, you're not even consistent within the same fucking sentence. Seriously, learn how to fucking think, it might help you avoid the intellectual dishonesty I highlighted in the first half of this reply.

Re:That just proves the stupidity of your side

[Raenex]

It can be hard to follow threads on Slashdot...

I conveniently quoted it for you in my reply. It was the first sentence. You chose to ignore the direct refutation and instead wanted to move the goalposts. Here, let's do it again:

On the other hand I don't think the idea that it's not okay to be white is in any way common or visible in popular culture etc.

You're a liar. There would never be an "investigation" if somebody posted, "It's okay to be Black|Hispanic|Jewish" signs.

People absolutely are complaining back lack of diversity in China, for example. Right now the front page of BBC News has a story about the oppression of Muslims in China.

That's a complaint about how they are treating Muslims in China. They aren't advocating that China becomes less "Chinese" by mass migration. They don't advocate that China takes in more "refugees" or economic migrants. That's reserved for White countries, where it's celebrated that Whites will become the minority.

Re:That just proves the stupidity of your side

[AmiMoJo]

Oh I see, I didn't realize you meant the idea it's not okay to be white is mainstream is untrue. It was just a troll cooked up by 4chan, and most people recognized it as such. I didn't realize you were taking it seriously.

In any case, the opposition to it is because it's a racist troll designed to be diminish efforts to tackle actual racism. They don't think there is anything wrong with being white, they think there is a problem with racist trolls and the useful idiots who get used by them.

Re:Agree with guideline #2. Bless RMS. Hopes he su

[AmiMoJo]

I'm not saying it's irrelevant, I'm saying it's not evidence of what you claim. In the context it was written it clearly doesn't mean what you think it means, and in court I'm sure that will be argued.

See, the law has this concept of a reasonable person, precisely to stop people making far fetched interpretations.

Re:That just proves the stupidity of your side

[AmiMoJo]

For example, people with white skin run at most a third of the countries on the planet and maybe 10% of the businesses. They don't have the highest educational outcomes in the countries in which they're the majority. They're legally discriminated against in multiple countries.

Ah okay, you don't understand what privilege is in this context.

Think of it this way. If you are being lynched it's probably of little comfort to know that others of your $group on the other side of the world are doing rather well for themselves.

Re:That just proves the stupidity of your side

[Raenex]

Oh I see, I didn't realize you meant the idea it's not okay to be white is mainstream is untrue.

You just ignored it. It was the very first thing I quoted and responded to.

It was just a troll cooked up by 4chan

4chan was proved right. Merely putting up a sign that said, "It's okay to be white" was enough to cause an "investigation". That's how fucking absurd the whole thing is. Which is why it's laughable you led with, "On the other hand I don't think the idea that it's not okay to be white is in any way common or visible in popular culture etc."

In any case, the opposition to it is because it's a racist troll designed to be diminish efforts to tackle actual racism.

No, the opposition to it is because, culturally, it's not okay to be white. White's have to be made to feel guilty, have to fall on their swords, celebrate being turned a minority in their own countries, and forever grovel and apologize. They, of all races, are alone in not being allowed an identity or culture.

Re:That just proves the stupidity of your side

[Raenex]

Think of it this way. If you are being lynched it's probably of little comfort to know that others of your $group on the other side of the world are doing rather well for themselves.

Nobody is getting lynched. If whites are so "privileged", then why do Asians and Jews systematically outperform them in the United States? Must be because of Asian and Jewish privilege.

Re:Agree with guideline #2. Bless RMS. Hopes he su

[Immerman]

> Because the recruiters are all under pressure to find female techs/engineers/programmers.

I think that reinforces the point - *if* there's pressure to diversify, it helps counteract the pre-existing bias. If there weren't a pre-existing bias, then there would be no lack of diversity to justify such pressure.

Re:That just proves the stupidity of your side

[Cederic]

People in my country lynched because of their skin colour in the last few decades : 0

None. Nada. Zilch. Absolutely fucking none. Ok, that may not be true; I don't know the reason behind every murder for the past few decades. Certainly I can't remember any, and that's not selective memory either. It just isn't a thing.

But since you want to play this game, lets expand to other serious organised crimes: Slavery and rape rings.

Slavery isn't happening because of skin colour. It's happening to people of all skin colours. So lets skip slavery as it's an equal opportunity crime.

Rape rings however.. the only ones that target people of a specific skin colour are the ones targeting white girls.

If it was a one-off I'd write it off as an single group of fuckwits, but separate rings in Aylesbury, Halifax, Rochdale, Rotherham, Huddersfield, Oxford..

Yeah, those white girls are very fucking privileged.

Re:Preserving the West

[werepants]

Yeah, that whole algebra thing is pretty lame and useless. Chemistry too.