The GNU Kind Communication Guidelines Are Bad for Free Software
blog.emacsen.net
blog.emacsen.net
Emotional labor? Give me a break.
Being inclusive does not require anything more than the absence of barriers. What does the author mean specifically when they advise that we alter our approach to match the cultural norms of other groups? My "approach" in writing online is to talk to a person, not specifically a male or a white person or whatever distinction you care to name. The internet has always been great that way. No matter who you are in real life, in IRC you're just a nick, and on mailing lists you're just an email address. That's what drew many of us to it in the first place. It seems bizarre to now claim that in fact the opposite is true.
Emotional labor is a thing. As someone who both prefers direct communication and (thinks that he) can relate to what other people feel, I'm always facing a choice between spending some emotional effort to be "nicer" or having my counterparty deal with it. I tend to choose the former and it does feel like labor.
Absence of barriers is also not the same as making one feel welcome. But I feel the KCG are actually a step in the right direction in this regard; and since it doesn't alienate as much of the anti-CoC crowd, it seems foolish to battle it.
You may be right that I'm being harsh, at the same time, I don't see this the KGC as a neutral thing. It says "Here is the line", but sets that line very far from aspirational. If anything, it seems designed to address how people are to interpret his comments.
We can (and need to) do better.
What sort of "equality" (as opposed to equity) does it impose? (ie closing of men's sports programs)
It seems like either path goes down the road of victimhood hierarchy, SJWs and discrimination due to identity politics while ignoring merit of substance. Count me out of that crybully nonsense.
If you're speaking on behalf of yourself, or one project, that's fine, but RMS is in a very special situation of being both the father of the Free Software movement, and the leader of the GNU project, so what he says has more gravitas.
> I would add that they create a somewhat "ominous" or "heavy" atmosphere, making for a less playful and creative environment.
For you, but what you may find playful may be the thing that keeps someone feeling oppressed and keeps them away.
All the more reason to respect his wisdom on the matter.
> For you, but what you may find playful may be the thing that keeps someone feeling oppressed and keeps them away.
I think we can agree we don't want to oppress anyone. To me it's the difference between using fear of punishment to motivate, and working with human nature to inspire. I really enjoyed the book "Nonviolent Communication" by Marshall B. Rosenberg, Phd. It cuts to the core of this debate.
I understand that ceasing a poisonous practice is only the first step in remedying the effects of that poisonous practice. But I guess I didn't take the "kind communication" guidelines as something that would by definition prevent further actions.
> "The GNU Kind Communication is not wrong in its words, it's wrong in that it only addresses a tiny slither of the problems we have in the community"
> "In the [..] announcement, RMS explicitly states that diversity is not a goal of his. This is a mistake"
> "if people feel excluded, they will never join the community and thus we'll never see their contributions."
It ends with a call to "ignore" or "entirely rewrite the guidelines" and "adopt more comprehensive Codes of Conduct which provide guidelines on what behavior is acceptable, what behavior is not, and what steps the community will do in enforcing them" without addressing the points Stallman raised, such as "A code of conduct states rules, with punishments for anyone that violates them. It is the heavy-handed way of teaching people to behave differently".
I don't have the exact quote but he's written that the reciprocal nature of the GPL only effect people who want to do bad things. That's how I feel about Codes of Conduct.
The freedom that the GPL protects is singular and explicit.
Codes of conduct are not similar in these aspects. They each define a unique list of "user protections" that chill speech.
Something that has stood out for me in the the modern political climate is that progressives tend to claim all of this is ultimately to protect us from fascists. And it tends to be what you are accused of being (or at least an enabler of) if you stand in the way of their policies. I've had long debates with radical leftist friends and we always somehow end up at fascism. I'm a useless center-left, fence sitting, Nazi enabler according to them.
But many of the loudest public voices (from all sides of the political spectrum) advocating for free speech are Jewish or have Jewish heritage. Ben Shapiro, Dave Rubin, Sam Harris, Eric and Bret Weinstein, RMS and probably many more that I don't know of.
Jews are the O.G. of oppressed minorities and are often the strongest advocates for free speech, science, democracy and so on.
Maybe we should listen?
Feel free to correct me. There may be some selection bias going on.
Side note: I really like that Person/Pers/Perse idea. It sounds little odd at first, but it's the best gender-neutral pronoun I've heard so far and we really do need one.
I like RMS' CoC but I would never use it in any of my projects. users should not fear to be censored at all. users should be treated as adults. devs whining about being attacked is not adult behavior.