[Osmf-talk] May 2017 use of Code Of Conduct (CoC) for Membership control in HOT US Inc internal governance

[Rory McCann]

Yes the original point was about something else, but I've seen many "We
shouldn't be afraid to have this conversation", to get a bit wary.

Yes, OSM is quite topic based, and Holocaust denial is quite rare, but
CoC's often apply to other spaces where people are identified with the
project, and 2 (maybe 3) of those examples did happen.

(i) "OpalGate" was when a core maintainer tweeted transphobic stuff[1]
(ii) someone wrote homophobic stuff that was syndicated to
planet.mozilla.org[2] (we have blogs.osm.org which isn't all OSM stuff),
(iii) "Google Memo" was in the line of "women are biologically bad at
coding"[3], if a prominant OSMer blogs/tweeted in support of that, would
that be a CoC violation?

When crafting a CoC, we should think about what spaces should be
covered, and if certain statements, regardless of their civility, fall
foul of the CoC.

[1] http://geekfeminism.wikia.com/wiki/OpalGate_incident
[2] http://geekfeminism.wikia.com/wiki/Planet_Mozilla_controversy
[3]
http://geekfeminism.wikia.com/wiki/Google_engineer_writes_anti-diversity_manifesto

On 02/12/17 20:35, Christoph Hormann wrote:
> On Saturday 02 December 2017, Rory McCann wrote:
>>
>> Things like "Are gay men a threat to children?", "Did the Holocaust
>> happen?", "Are women biologically stupider than men?", "Are trans
>> women in a women's bathroom a threat?" "Are black men biologically
>> more violent?" "Are muslims terrorists?" *MUST* have no place here,
>> even you talk about them in nice, calm, reasonable way.
> 
> I don't think this has anything to do with the matter at hand.  All OSM 
> communication channels are purpose oriented - there is no true 
> off-topic channel where you can discuss things with no relation to OSM.  
> You don't need a CoC to sanction such discussions - just like you do 
> not need a CoC to prevent spam.
> 
> Michelle's comment is about something completely different, it is about 
> the value of uncomfortable and inconvenient communications (and i would 
> add to that even offensive communications) to a progressive, tolerant 
> and open society.  Such communication would be severely affected by 
> a 'be nice' style CoC.  Dismissing that with the argument that a CoC is 
> necessary to prevent statements denying the Holocaust is - frankly - 
> fairly weird.
>