[ruby-core:73579] Re: [Ruby trunk - Misc #12004] Code of Conduct

On Fri, Jan 29, 2016 at 3:36 AM, <[e-mail]> wrote:

> Issue #12004 has been updated by Chris Travers.
>


> For those of you who maintain projects using the Contributor Covenant, I
> hope this post provides some reason why the jump to protect certain classes
> and not others feels exclusionary to many of us, though with the inclusion
> of culture as a protected category, these are so watered down as to be
> harmless (keep in mind, if culture is a protected category, then sides in a
> culture war are protected too).
>

Codes of conduct are not about protecting classes of people—although it may
seem such because of the enumeration of classes to remind people that
behaviour against those classes could be considered contrary to good
conduct. They are, quite literally, about *conduct*. If someone is, for
example, a racist but never attempts to restrict the rights of other races
and never conducts themselves in a way as to make clear that they believe
that those rights should be restricted, there is no conduct to be dealt
with.

Let’s take the anti-side’s favourite example, Opal. The individual in
question openly identified as a core committer to Opal and made
exclusionary statements against a class of people (in this case,
transfolk). It is *entirely legitimate* to ask the maintainers of Opal
whether they want to be represented by someone who expresses such
exclusionary positions. (The means how Coraline approached this particular
issue were unnecessarily combative *and she has said as much in a later
follow-up*.)

If said individual had *not* had the text “@opalrb core” in his Twitter
bio, his statements could have been decried as regressive, but not as
someone attempting to represent the Opal project. In other words, no one
really cares what some random person says on the internet. But *this*
random person claimed (still claims) importance in the Opal project, and
his unending stream of GamerGate-esque tweets do not reflect well on the
Opal project and its inclusiveness toward non-Western European straight
males.


> I want to thank Coraline for being open to adding culture to the list of
> protected categories.  With the protection of culture comes the protection
> of political viewpoints relating to sexuality and gender and these are
> perhaps the most touchy issues today in terms of worldwide participation.
> Given the rest of the discussion I am not sure she would be happy with the
> result, but it is a nice step regarding compromise and it does leave space
> for disagreement on these issues.
>

Here’s the rub: there is room for cultural disagreement, but there is no
room in any project for exclusionary *behaviour*. Harassment and threats
and statements that people’s lived reality doesn’t matter are exclusionary
and are negative behaviour that should be treated seriously.


> In her comment on Opalgate, Coraline asked whether transsexuals would feel
> comfortable contributing to a project where a maintainer expressed views
> that were understood to be transphobic.  But there is another side to this
> question too.  For those who live in places (like India, Malaysia,
> Bangladesh, Indonesia, and much of the rest fo the world) where procreative
> marriage is the foundation not only of the transmission of culture to the
> next generation but also of the business economy, should such people feel
> comfortable even using software if the community takes a political position
> that their way of life is not legitimate?  Issues involving gender, sexual
> orientation, etc don't always have the same implications in all cultures,
> and I think there is a need to understand that we all have to work with
> people we vehemently disagree with.
>

I believe that you are being much too broad in your assumption that
“procreative marriage is the foundation…” being true for all of the nations
and places you mentioned (consider the hijra). I am also willing to take a
firm stance—if one’s beliefs includes the belief that another class of
person does not have the right to exist or participate in the workforce
or…then I do not believe those beliefs are worthy of protection or
promotion. The difference is that there are people who believe that
transfolk do not have the right to exist; transfolk (by and large) do not
believe that those first people have the right to enforce that belief
denying them the right to exist. They would prefer acceptance, but would
probably settle for quiet tolerance that doesn’t include threats of
violence, loss of job, etc.

-a
-- 
Austin Ziegler • [e-mail] • [e-mail]
http://www.halostatue.ca/ • http://twitter.com/halostatue

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