[Osmf-talk] Dale Kunce (OSM, OSMF and HOT US Inc president) on [OSMF] mailing list: "a viper pit of racism and misogyny"; a statement which minimally calls for answers and facts

[Christoph Hormann]

On Tuesday 19 December 2017, Ben Abelshausen wrote:
> Hi Christoph,
>
> I'm not *spinning* anything, [...]

Ok, you are criticizing me for a lot of things i have not said - i am 
going to skip that because i see no point in arguing these things and 
am going to assume you just misunderstood me there.  I am fine with you 
disagreeing on what i said but without any actual arguments i am not 
going to change my opinion.

What i want to explain is the observation of spinning things though.  If 
you look at recent discussions here it has been a recurring pattern 
that someone in the course of a discussion brings up tone/communication 
style questions and in the following the discussion gets derailed and 
is used as a platform to express desire to have a CoC in some form.  
Just look at how many theads on this mailing list in the past weeks 
have in some form touched this topic.  This is what i call 'spinning' 
and i would like to repeat my call for everyone not to contribute to 
such derailing.  If you want to discuss communication style/tone in 
general in some form create a distinct thread for that.  If you want to 
point out someone is saying offensive or hurtful things in a discussion 
do so but keep it specific and do not generalize things.

I would like to go a step further and say i think that at this point the 
discussion on how to support friendly, respectful and open cross 
cultural communication in a growing global OSM community is only going 
to be productive if all participants in the discussion accept to 
dispose of any fixed premises they are not willing to question and 
start approaching the subject with an open mind.

Back at the beginning of this month i stated my working hypothesis on 
the subject [1]:

"given the nature of the OpenStreetMap project as a 
global, decentralized multicultural community creating a morally 
defensible CoC is likely an impossible task"

I have been critically evaluating this hypothesis ever since and i would 
really enjoy having a constructive philosophical discussion on this 
with someone who thinks a CoC is a good idea but sadly so far i have 
not seen anyone bringing any argument even remotely on a level that 
would allow for such a discussion.

[1]https://lists.openstreetmap.org/pipermail/osmf-talk/2017-December/004580.html

-- 
Christoph Hormann
http://www.imagico.de/