This entire thread makes me worry quite a bit about the current state of Debian, so I feel the need to respond to several posts in it.
Tl;dr: Debian should be a project where everyone can feel comfortable to contribute. That is not possible if we allow bullying to stand unchallenged. On Wed, Mar 23, 2022 at 07:23:25AM +0100, to...@tuxteam.de wrote: > On Tue, Mar 22, 2022 at 09:01:27PM +0100, Thomas Goirand wrote: > In my opinion it seems better to let it be. Granted, Norbert's > behaviour comes across as resenful, which isn't very constructive, > but trying to respond in kind risks making things worse rather > than better. I understand this impulse and in my personal life, this is often what I do. However, it is wrong, especially in an environment where more people are involved. If someone tries to make me feel bad and I ignore it, there is not much harm. However, if they do the same to someone else, it's different. This is because the other victim may not be in a position to ignore it. For whatever reason, they may not be able to mentally defend themselves as I can. So while I might conclude "they're ignoring it, so it's probably not a real problem", that conclusion may be incorrect. Therefore, it's up to people like me, who can handle the abuse that may result from it, to speak out and try to stop the behavior. Because of this, while I'm sympathetic to your impulse of ignoring bad behavior, that is in fact a very counterproductive thing to do. On Wed, Mar 23, 2022 at 06:01:02PM +0000, Martina Ferrari wrote: > I saw this message yesterday, and left me thinking how nobody seems too > concerned with how Preining's actions have impacted and continue to impact > members of this project. Indeed. Thanks for posting this. I have not followed Norbert's interactions with the project closely, but the things you mention here make it overwhelmingly clear that he is indeed the abuser, not the victim. > It is funny (not) to see the person I called an asshole back then -for > stating publicly that he chooses to intentionally misgender transgender > people- is still having opinions in this thread. It is all very polite, of > course; after all, nobody really cares about the people who get hurt. It's not entirely clear to me if Norbert was the one doing the misgendering or someone who defended him, but I'm leaving this quoted as an example of behavior that is extremely hurtful, and for which the victims typically aren't in a mental state to defend themselves properly. Anyone who cares about the wellbeing of our contributors should realize this. "This person misgendered someone on purpose" and "someone complained about it" are not equally offensive. On the contrary: the former is offensive and because of that the latter is a positive thing to do. > Debian keeps showing for anybody to see that as long as you keep your tone > down, you will be allowed to bully, harass, and generally make others > miserable; that nobody cares enough to stop it. Again, thank you for posting this. I hope you're able to handle everything. Let's all make sure that this problem goes away. On Wed, Mar 23, 2022 at 05:07:06PM +0100, Diederik de Haas wrote: > On woensdag 23 maart 2022 14:05:57 CET Antonio Terceiro wrote: > > ¹ of course correlation is not causation, I am not saying the perceived > > growth is happening *because* of the CoC etc. > > Indeed. It could also be *in spite of*. > There's an equal amount of evidence for that: zero. Your post suggests that until causation is proven, correlation should be ignored. Why would you think that? There was an assertion that we are losing lots of contributors because we trying too hard to be nice. Instead of going "no they aren't", "yes, they are", Antonio got the numbers that can show such an effect. I thank him for that, this is how we want to debate among smart people. But of course those numbers aren't purely showing one effect, so he adds a disclaimer about it. Even better. To go from there to "those numbers mean nothing at all" is nonsense though. They are still the best way we have to check if the assertion is true. Even if they don't give a definitive answer, they do give an indication. That has value. And the alternative is a fact-free opinion war, which has zero value. > > > Mailing lists seem to be really quiet compared to older times, traffic > > > on IRC is also far less traffic than it used to be. Maybe > > > communication shifted to other media or maybe DDs are more silent > > > because they fear to be punished in some way or another for what they > > > say. > > > > I see that being thrown around a lot, yet nobody has never received any > > real sanction in the project for giving their opinion on a topic, > > Self-censorship is also a thing. > I could say there's a correlation between self-censorship and lower ML > traffic, > but for that there's also an equal amount of evidence: zero Yes, self censorship is the entire point here. Antonio's statement was that it's hard to believe that it's a serious issue if nobody has ever been sanctioned for the action that some claim people are self censoring over. In other words: why would people be afraid to speak out about things, when they have never seen anyone getting sanctioned for it? On Wed, Mar 23, 2022 at 05:26:42PM +0100, Martin Steigerwald wrote: > Ulrike Uhlig - 23.03.22, 17:02:14 CET: > > On a sidenote, I would like to urge the people who did so in this > > thread to stop using the word "toxic" to describe that someone is > > being called out for bullying, abusive behavior, discriminatory, or > > (passive-)agressive remarks. This is victim reversal. > > This is disagreement. No, it's not. Norbert is no longer a DD. He has appealed and lost. It may have been a disagreement before, but by now the project has decided that those are the facts. You're free to disagree with the project's decisions on this, but please don't pretend that the discussion is still ongoing. > Yet, beyond doubt, from what I see here, there is unresolved > disagreement whether what you state as fact is actually factually true. It may be unresolved for you, but that is your problem, I'm afraid. At some point you have to accept that you disagree with the project and that that's not going to change. And at that point the disagreement is resolved, even if it doesn't go away. > Calling a fact, what is not a fact, may in itself be abusive and may in > itself make someone else a victim. I would like to refer back to the misgendering that was referenced before. That's an act of intentionally trying to hurt someone. There is no benefit to it that may compensate for it. Someone who intentionally misgenders is not a victim. On Wed, Mar 23, 2022 at 05:18:40PM +0100, Martin Steigerwald wrote: > I am astonished to see, again, how people here seem to project all > badness in the world onto a single former, cause expelled, Debian > developer. Especially one with whom I had zero problems with and one who > contributed a huge lot of work. It is quite common that people can be horrible to some and perfectly nice to others. The fact that you haven't had problems with him doesn't mean all his behavior is acceptable. The project has decided that it wasn't, and obviously that wasn't because of the nice interactions that he had with you. I'll note that I don't see where people are projecting all badness in the world onto him. What is being pointed out is simply that his behavior in certain referenced cases is unacceptable. There have been enough such cases that the project decided to apply sanctions. Nobody has referenced unrelated vague "badness" as a reason for punishment. > I believe it to be about time for people to look into themselves for > their contribution to all of this conflict. It is always easier to bash > someone else, I know, but it does not make Debian a friendlier place to > begin with. This sounds like surprisingly good advice compared to the rest of your posts in this thread. Are you following it yourself? How does Debian become a friendlier place if someone who intentionally misgenders people (yes, it's the same example again, because it's so extremely clear that this is wrong) is allowed to continue to use our resources to amplify their statements? > It just increases the fear to be bashed for speaking out one's own truth. I > really still hope that Debian community can do better than that. If someone's truth is that other people should suffer, I think the best thing that Debian can do is silence them. Their "truth" is not a debatable opinion as far as I'm concerned. > There is work to be done. Uneasy work. But important to do, nonetheless. There was work to be done. It has been done. The result is that Norbert was sanctioned. Please accept that and stop pretending that the debate is still ongoing. Thanks, Bas
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