clone 263084 -1 reassign -1 developers-reference thanks On Mon, Aug 02, 2004 at 11:42:56PM +0100, Helen Faulkner wrote: > This bug reports a problem with content on the website. It was > suggested that I file it against www.debian.org, but if there is an > actual different package name for the website (I couldn't find one), > please file this bug against that.
www.debian.org is the right package for problems with the official web site. We don't handle all of the URLs you listed, however. > I have noticed some examples of sexist language on the debian website, > looking at the English-language pages. Most examples take the form of > assuming that a developer will always be male, a project leader will be > always male, etc. This can be offputting and potentially offensive to > women like myself who wish to become debian developers, and encourages > people make the assumption that all developers etc are male. > > Note that most of the pages I have looked at on the website are fine in > this regard. The most common strategy seems to be avoidance of gendered > pronouns (ie writing to avoid use of he or she), and use of he/she where > it's too awkward to avoid the pronoun altogether. Some pages use "they" > as a gender-neutral pronoun. I prefer changing inappropriate uses of "he", "him", and "his" to "they", "them", and "their". It's easier than rewriting the text, and the other option sounds awkward. > The worst example I have seen is here: > http://www.debian.org/devel/join/nm-advocate > > I suggest rewording that page as follows (between ***s). The first > paragraph of this was written by Carla Schroder: > *********************************************************** > "There is a checklist of what a NM has to do. The NM needs a GPG > key signed by a developer, then has to answer some Philosophy and > Procedures questions. The Tasks and Skills test proves that the NM has > the experience to be a good Debian developer. > > You should advocate someone when you think that he/she is ready to be a > developer -- i.e. has the required skills and has been involved with the > project for some time. Just ask yourself if you want to see this person > in Debian -- if the answer is yes then go ahead with your recommendation > > The exact steps are like this: you agree to recommend a prospective > developer and he/she signs up. Then you have to go to this site, click > on the correct name in the listing of applicants, go to the "advocate > this application" page, put in your Debian login and press the 'submit' > button. You will then receive an e-mail with an auth key which you have > to return GPG/PGP signed. When this is done, an AM will be assigned to > goes through the NM steps with the prospective developer." > *********************************************************** I've removed the gender-specific terminology from this page. > Other examples of similar problematic wording are at the following > pages. I doubt this is an exhaustive list. In most cases, the change > would be a case of substituting "she/he" for "he" in a small number of > places. I wonder if it is possible to automate the process of > searching webpages for "he" and "his" and subsitituting "he/she" and > "her/him", as a way of ensuring that there aren't any other pages on > www.debian.org with similarly sexist language. Presumably other such > things could be done for the pages in languages other than English, if > the problem arises in those languages. I don't think we should perform an automatic conversion; at least some of the words are probably correct (i.e., they do refer to men). As for the other URLs, > http://people.debian.org/~mpalmer/debian-mentors_FAQ.html You'll need to e-mail [EMAIL PROTECTED] about this. > http://www.internatif.org/bortzmeyer/debian/sponsor/ > (I wonder if I were to fill out the form would it come up with "he's > looking for a sponsor", like the others?) Please contact [EMAIL PROTECTED] > http://www.debian.org/doc/packaging-manuals/developers-reference/ch-resources.en.html > > http://www.debian.org/doc/packaging-manuals/developers-reference/ch-pkgs.en.html > > http://www.debian.org/doc/packaging-manuals/developers-reference/ch-beyond-pkging.en.html I've cloned this bug and refiled it against the developers-reference package. > http://www.debian.org/security/faq I've fixed the one problematic word I found on this page. Please let me know if there are others. > http://www.debian.org/doc/user-manuals Please report this to [EMAIL PROTECTED] In order to fix the other problems, it would be very helpful if someone would run grep -Erw '(he|him|his)' english in a webwml checkout and send either a patch or a list of pages that should be fixed to this bug. -- Matt Kraai [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://ftbfs.org/
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