On the whole, the new code is pretty good. There was one thing that troubled me, though: "even outside of Pharo's public communication channels." What business is it of the Pharo Board what anyone says in any other community? I've heard too many cases where A says something to B and C complains about it as harassment when B didn't mind. I have personally known people *affectionately* address each other in terms that most would consider a deadly insult. My behaviour in all digital media is subject to the Harmful Digital Communications Act 2015. See http://www.legislation.govt.nz/act/public/2015/0063/latest/whole.html which extends the Harassment Act 1997. See http://www.legislation.govt.nz/act/public/1997/0092/latest/whole.html for a definition of harassment. If I harass anyone according to these Acts, they have a legal remedy. I understand the the UK and the EU have similar laws. So I don't understand why the Pharo Board want to extend their reach. On Fri, 20 Sep 2019 at 07:21, Esteban Lorenzano <estebanlm@gmail.com> wrote:

Hello,

I’m talking on behalf of the Pharo Board here. As start, we accepted Serge’s proposition without actually discussing it much because we didn’t think it was going to be really a problem. Our community has been self-regulating since the beginning and we were doing it fine until now. Once or twice we (the board) needed to act, but never had a real situation as the ones the CoC tries to cover. So, we can say we opened the umbrella without rain, just in case.

Now, after observe the situation, we have decided to retract the code. But sadly, we cannot just remove it and let things continue as before because as it’s know “it you open a can or worms, you will need a bigger can to put them back in”. Which means now we need a code of conduct.

So we are going to take the simplest one we could find that still can serve our community, you can see it here:

https://github.com/pharo-project/pharo/pull/4660

This PR will be accepted, but as anything in our community, you can still discuss it and propose modifications. Just remember be respectful of people disagreeing with your ideas :)

Cheers, Esteban

PS: As personal note: I blocked a github user that insulted a member of our community, a user who did not had history with us (or any other visible project), who did not had a name or ways to contact him so I assumed it was just another troll. Now, he identifies himself here... I will unblock him, but that does not means the kind of disrespectful messages he sent can be sent :)

On 19 Sep 2019, at 19:47, Ben Coman <btc@openinworld.com> wrote:

makes me wonder whether he's such a machiavellian sociopath, or a useful idiot.

On Thu, 19 Sep 2019 at 23:07, Eugen Leitl via Pharo-users < pharo-users@lists.pharo.org> wrote:

...

Let's see, I've posted one email to this list describing the dangers of abusing CoCs

I guess you refer to this one...

...

On Tue, 17 Sep 2019 at 19:39, Eugen Leitl via Pharo-users < pharo-users@lists.pharo.org> wrote: I agree. Technical people are too easy to exploit by malignant manipulators of people. All too often they don't even realize it after the fact.

Thats fairly benign and doubt it had anything to do with being blocked on github.

...

and one post to GitHub describing the motivations of people who introduce CoCs, and immediately get banned on GitHub from

Note, the board member who blocked your GIthub account and deleted your post there also voiced their opinion as being... For me a "welcome and be nice" should be enough to just continue as before. I find the introduction of CoC was a noise we didn't need, our community was doing well and self-regulated without problem until now.

So in spite of your implication, I doubt there is anything sinister from the CoC in play here. Comments such as "makes me wonder whether he's such a machiavellian sociopath, or a useful idiot." have been consistently condemned years before thought of a CoC.

...

I'm getting called a troll and a nobody in public by members of the project,

Its not that you are a "nobody", but actually you were "unknown to us" two days ago. Maybe you don't know Serge, but we've know him for years and his good work including governance of our GSoC participation so please consider why such comments from a newcomer may be dealt with as a troll. Community standards do not maintain themselves: They're maintained by people actively applying them, visibly, in public.

Now personally I'm not going to condemn you on one slip. I've been told to pull my head in before and they were right - I was venting after a bad day at work. But no one held it against me long. These nontechnical and emotion-charge debates are infrequent and I hope get a chance to see how things normally run once we are past it.

cheers -ben

Before doing that would you be willing to submit a PR with a proposed improvement (and a discussion of why)?

On Sep 19, 2019, at 9:17 PM, john pfersich <jpfersich@gmail.com> wrote:

And I don’t intend to abide by it. I’ll cancel my Pharo Association contribution and my contribution to Stephane’s Spec book. I have no interest in supporting a left-wing snowflake “Code of Conduct”.

/*—————————————————-*/ Sent from my iPhone https://boincstats.com/signature/-1/user/51616339056/sig.png <https://boincstats.com/signature/-1/user/51616339056/sig.png> See https://objectnets.net <https://objectnets.net/> and https://objectnets.org <https://objectnets.org/>

On Sep 19, 2019, at 20:44, Richard O'Keefe <raoknz@gmail.com <mailto:raoknz@gmail.com>> wrote:

...

On the whole, the new code is pretty good.

There was one thing that troubled me, though: "even outside of Pharo's public communication channels." What business is it of the Pharo Board what anyone says in any other community? I've heard too many cases where A says something to B and C complains about it as harassment when B didn't mind. I have personally known people *affectionately* address each other in terms that most would consider a deadly insult.

My behaviour in all digital media is subject to the Harmful Digital Communications Act 2015. See http://www.legislation.govt.nz/act/public/2015/0063/latest/whole.html <http://www.legislation.govt.nz/act/public/2015/0063/latest/whole.html> which extends the Harassment Act 1997. See http://www.legislation.govt.nz/act/public/1997/0092/latest/whole.html <http://www.legislation.govt.nz/act/public/1997/0092/latest/whole.html> for a definition of harassment. If I harass anyone according to these Acts, they have a legal remedy. I understand the the UK and the EU have similar laws.

So I don't understand why the Pharo Board want to extend their reach.

On Fri, 20 Sep 2019 at 07:21, Esteban Lorenzano <estebanlm@gmail.com <mailto:estebanlm@gmail.com>> wrote: Hello,

I’m talking on behalf of the Pharo Board here. As start, we accepted Serge’s proposition without actually discussing it much because we didn’t think it was going to be really a problem. Our community has been self-regulating since the beginning and we were doing it fine until now. Once or twice we (the board) needed to act, but never had a real situation as the ones the CoC tries to cover. So, we can say we opened the umbrella without rain, just in case.

Now, after observe the situation, we have decided to retract the code. But sadly, we cannot just remove it and let things continue as before because as it’s know “it you open a can or worms, you will need a bigger can to put them back in”. Which means now we need a code of conduct.

So we are going to take the simplest one we could find that still can serve our community, you can see it here:

https://github.com/pharo-project/pharo/pull/4660 <https://github.com/pharo-project/pharo/pull/4660>

This PR will be accepted, but as anything in our community, you can still discuss it and propose modifications. Just remember be respectful of people disagreeing with your ideas :)

Cheers, Esteban

PS: As personal note: I blocked a github user that insulted a member of our community, a user who did not had history with us (or any other visible project), who did not had a name or ways to contact him so I assumed it was just another troll. Now, he identifies himself here... I will unblock him, but that does not means the kind of disrespectful messages he sent can be sent :)

...

On 19 Sep 2019, at 19:47, Ben Coman <btc@openinworld.com <mailto:btc@openinworld.com>> wrote:

makes me wonder whether he's such a machiavellian sociopath, or a useful idiot.

On Thu, 19 Sep 2019 at 23:07, Eugen Leitl via Pharo-users <pharo-users@lists.pharo.org <mailto:pharo-users@lists.pharo.org>> wrote: Let's see, I've posted one email to this list describing the dangers of abusing CoCs

I guess you refer to this one...

...

On Tue, 17 Sep 2019 at 19:39, Eugen Leitl via Pharo-users <pharo-users@lists.pharo.org <mailto:pharo-users@lists.pharo.org>> wrote: I agree. Technical people are too easy to exploit by malignant manipulators of people. All too often they don't even realize it after the fact.

Thats fairly benign and doubt it had anything to do with being blocked on github.

and one post to GitHub describing the motivations of people who introduce CoCs, and immediately get banned on GitHub from

Note, the board member who blocked your GIthub account and deleted your post there also voiced their opinion as being... For me a "welcome and be nice" should be enough to just continue as before. I find the introduction of CoC was a noise we didn't need, our community was doing well and self-regulated without problem until now.

So in spite of your implication, I doubt there is anything sinister from the CoC in play here. Comments such as "makes me wonder whether he's such a machiavellian sociopath, or a useful idiot." have been consistently condemned years before thought of a CoC.

I'm getting called a troll and a nobody in public by members of the project,

Its not that you are a "nobody", but actually you were "unknown to us" two days ago. Maybe you don't know Serge, but we've know him for years and his good work including governance of our GSoC participation so please consider why such comments from a newcomer may be dealt with as a troll. Community standards do not maintain themselves: They're maintained by people actively applying them, visibly, in public.

Now personally I'm not going to condemn you on one slip. I've been told to pull my head in before and they were right - I was venting after a bad day at work. But no one held it against me long. These nontechnical and emotion-charge debates are infrequent and I hope get a chance to see how things normally run once we are past it.

cheers -ben

Sven I think all your complaints against John Pfersich are misconceived: 1. He is talking about the content of the code, which is exactly the topic of the thread. 2. He is claiming that the code as drafted has a political slant. This may be true, false or a matter of opinion, but to discuss whether it is so is not in any way introducing politics. 3. I see nothing in his words which makes a value judgement about anybody. I see a censoriousness in your comments which is worrying. Just recently you said, 'Guns have no place in a civilised society', which was certainly a value judgement, specifically about John Pfersich. Please stop. Peter Kenny -----Original Message----- From: Pharo-users <pharo-users-bounces@lists.pharo.org> On Behalf Of Sven Van Caekenberghe Sent: 20 September 2019 10:11 To: Any question about pharo is welcome <pharo-users@lists.pharo.org> Subject: Re: [Pharo-users] Code of Conduct

On 20 Sep 2019, at 06:17, john pfersich <jpfersich@gmail.com> wrote:

I have no interest in supporting a left-wing snowflake “Code of Conduct”.

You are violating the implicit rules of engagement in this mailing list: you are going off topic, you are using this platform to talk about politics and you are giving value judgements about others. Please stop.

That wording is an insult to all people that support a leftist vision of the world.

Or maybe you're too easily offended and the problem lies with you. On Fri, Sep 20, 2019 at 3:56 AM Sven Van Caekenberghe <sven@stfx.eu> wrote:

I carefully worded my reply:

saying "I have no interest in supporting a left-wing snowflake “Code of Conduct”.

- is off topic - is political - implies a value judgement

I tried to not reason against it, I am just saying that it has no place here.

...

On 20 Sep 2019, at 12:30, PBKResearch <peter@pbkresearch.co.uk> wrote:

Sven I think all your complaints against John Pfersich are misconceived: 1. He is talking about the content of the code, which is exactly the topic of the thread. 2. He is claiming that the code as drafted has a political slant. This may be true, false or a matter of opinion, but to discuss whether it is so is not in any way introducing politics. 3. I see nothing in his words which makes a value judgement about anybody. I see a censoriousness in your comments which is worrying. Just recently you said, 'Guns have no place in a civilised society', which was certainly a value judgement, specifically about John Pfersich. Please stop.

Peter Kenny

-----Original Message----- From: Pharo-users <pharo-users-bounces@lists.pharo.org> On Behalf Of Sven Van Caekenberghe Sent: 20 September 2019 10:11 To: Any question about pharo is welcome <pharo-users@lists.pharo.org> Subject: Re: [Pharo-users] Code of Conduct

...

On 20 Sep 2019, at 06:17, john pfersich <jpfersich@gmail.com> wrote:

I have no interest in supporting a left-wing snowflake “Code of Conduct”.

You are violating the implicit rules of engagement in this mailing list: you are going off topic, you are using this platform to talk about politics and you are giving value judgements about others. Please stop.

On Sat, 21 Sep 2019 at 01:35, Ramon Leon <ramon.leon@allresnet.com> wrote:

On 2019-09-20 7:44 a.m., Steve Quezadas wrote:

...

Or maybe you're too easily offended and the problem lies with you.

Its all too easy for threads to drag out tit for tat. I'd be impressed to see who can take the high road to wrap this up. btw, you know why my wife always gets the last word in an argument? Because the next thing I say is the start of a new argument.

It's fairly obvious now, the Pharo leadership is occupied by left wing progressives who are intent on bringing identity politics into the community.

Thats not the impression I get, otherwise the full Contributor Covenant would still be being rammed down your throat. The impression I get is that its easy to think the full CC is a good thing without being aware of its negative perceptions and consequences. The original PR seems to have been accepted on that basis (and maybe even submitted on that basis) The board seems to have now taken account of opposing viewpoints and determined a middle path. That seems far from being a left wing progressive.

While the new CoC is vastly better in its current state, it still insists one the left wing political ideology of respecting people's chosen identities as if that has any bearing at all on anything.

In a broad community like ours there will always be diverse opinions. Often the only way forward is compromise. If you are not compromising, then you are dictating, and there is no place for that on non-technical topics. A good compromise is sometimes said to be when opposing parties are **equally** dissatisfied. So if you are remain dissatisfied with the current simplified Code of Conduct, please balance how dissatisfied your nemesis would be with the result. Any calls to respect someone's identity are thinly veiled attempts to

impose objectionable left wing political language onto the community.

That feels to me like an extreme interpretation.

I don't care how anyone identifies, but I'm under no obligation to play along and

it is not disrespectful to disagree with these political beliefs.

Agreed, except contending the Pharo leadership are left wing progressives and "progressives a ruining everything" is getting close... I'm saying this here because the pull request to remove the word identity

was rejected without explanation, discussion, or comment.

...when I'd guess it was more likely: * they feel what they now have is a sufficiently good compromise * the term "identity" didn't carry the same weight with them so the PR seemed frivolous * want to back to real work quick as possible * felt under no obligation to play along with every extreme viewpoint (your viewpoint is valid for you, but is at the other extreme from progressives) That said, some comment would have helped Overall I believe the board did a good job determining a middle path and want to thank them for their decisive action. I will finish by saying, going forward I hope we don't have a hair trigger sensitivity against the odd slip. That has its own consequence in not being welcoming of diverse people. We're not robots and its hard to be completely mindful all the time. Its more about pattern of behaviour. Also, if you do slip and are called out on something, take a moment to consider that others may have personal experience that makes them sensitivite. So when someone's toes are stepped on, its okay for them to say "Ow" and then both parties leave it at that. Lets get back to work. cheers -ben

I think the "covenant" should be a single line: "keep the subject matter on pharo, anything else is off-topic". This list should be politically neutral. I personally hate politics because neither side ever gets the other side to "see the light". It's a religous argument basically. The problem is is that people tend to believe whatever everyone else believes in their particular culture/time and you get this militant ideology based out of it. And that's fine and dandy, but it has no place here. The reason I come here is of the helpful community full of bright programmers who are using the right paradigms of thought. - Steve On Fri, Sep 20, 2019 at 2:59 PM Ramon Leon <ramon.leon@allresnet.com> wrote:

On 2019-09-20 12:33 p.m., Ben Coman wrote:

A fair response Ben.

...

A good compromise is sometimes said to be when opposing parties are> **equally** dissatisfied.

The new version is much better, I believe I said that. James and Norbert made some final and excellent changes that mostly fixed what was wrong and removed the overreach and the lack of due process.

...

That feels to me like an extreme interpretation.

It's not, identity politics are left wing politics and putting them in the CoC is absolutely imposing them on the community. I guess we'll see how it goes.

-- Ramón León

FYI, Richard Stallman got "cancelled" out of his life's work because some silly side-comment trigged some "woke" individual out there. In the real world, covenants are often used as an excuse to silence someone with an implicit threat because he said something that someone didn't want to hear, whatever that may be. This list was fine without it, we don't have any problems, just replace it with "keep the subject matter on pharo, anything else is off-topic" On Fri, Sep 20, 2019 at 3:11 PM Ramon Leon <ramon.leon@allresnet.com> wrote:

On 2019-09-20 3:03 p.m., Steve Quezadas wrote:

...

I think the "covenant" should be a single line: "keep the subject matter on pharo, anything else is off-topic".

This list should be politically neutral.

I agree. The leadership apparently does not, left wing social justice identity politics is now embedded into the community rules. Guess we'll see what happens when outsiders start trying to use it to cancel people as is happening just about everywhere these CoC's are introduced.

-- Ramón León

Hi, For me is kind of curious how all this discussion on the Code of Conduct has showed some hidden assumptions. For example, it seems that having one and mentioning identity in it shows from a left wing progressive agenda, but not having any or not talking about identity doesn't show a... "right wing regressive agenda", is just normal. Also the hidden agendas when identity is mentioned are for the Pharo Community, no for the ACM or hundreds of technical communities out there that exist decades ago and even have the word "identity" before the times when there is a direct causal relation between such world and hidden agendas. Technology and code exist "ex nihilo", without any context to be considered. I would like that the immigration guards think the same, any time I go to a technical conference and I almost always get the totally random and "lucky" extra line because my Colombian password and the eventual "joke" about Pablo Escobar from some people at immigration. Fortunately my code talks for me because is just a technical community meeting in another country and this extra immigration time and paperwork is just in my imagination in this neutral and apolitical world where technology is developed. Ohh and funding and free time for development, is so not related on where are you located. Ethnicity is just a happy accident that has no relation with identity. After my argumentation by counter example, is good to see that some other people is willing to compromise, and think outside their own (privileged?) position. I don't want my code to be accepted because of my passport, but I don't think neither that code exists ex nihilo, as experience have showed me how context influences the time/resources I can put behind my code and participation in community spaces. I think that a community that recognizes diversity and is willing to compromise is being showed in the CoC construction process: I like the way the original punitive tone was replaced with a specific suggestion giving opportunity for both sides, how this was taken into account by the board and the feedback was constructive in the PR and its acceptance. Cheers, Offray On 20/09/19 12:34 p. m., Ramon Leon wrote:

On 2019-09-20 7:44 a.m., Steve Quezadas wrote:

...

Or maybe you're too easily offended and the problem lies with you.

It's fairly obvious now, the Pharo leadership is occupied by left wing progressives who are intent on bringing identity politics into the community. While the new CoC is vastly better in its current state, it still insists one the left wing political ideology of respecting people's chosen identities as if that has any bearing at all on anything.

* One's identity is not relevant in a technical forum. * One's code is not better because of one's identity. * One's arguments are not more sound because of one's identity. * Ones point of view are not more important because of one's identity.

Any calls to respect someone's identity are thinly veiled attempts to impose objectionable left wing political language onto the community. I don't care how anyone identifies, but I'm under no obligation to play along and it is not disrespectful to disagree with these political beliefs. The maintenance of ones identity and self image is theirs to worry about, I have no obligation to support the maintenance of someone else's ego. You can identify as a pink unicorn for all I care, but no I do not have to respect that or play along.  Nor will I.

I'm saying this here because the pull request to remove the word identity was rejected without explanation, discussion, or comment. Progressives seem intent on ruining everything.

First, my guess is that it was part of the thing they copied and that aspect might not have gotten as much thought as you’ve given it. Second, this is an international organization and maybe the intent (by the original author(s)) was to extend the reach of the NZ/UK/EU-style laws to apply to those in jurisdictions with less strict speech codes or where the legal remedy is impractical. That is, maybe the author(s) don’t feel it is sufficient to tell someone who is harassed, “We can’t do anything about it. Hire a NZ lawyer.” These are speculations on my part and, as a US citizen, I’m partial to our free speech protections. I’d prefer to have private organizations practice ostracization rather than have the government put rude people in jail. I say this, not to start a political discussion, but to point out that some harassment that would be illegal in NZ might not have a legal remedy if the actor was a US citizen. In any case, I found that when I submitted a PR then something happened pretty quickly. So, I’d suggest that you channel your analysis and concerns into a proposed improvement. James

On Sep 19, 2019, at 8:44 PM, Richard O'Keefe <raoknz@gmail.com> wrote:

On the whole, the new code is pretty good.

There was one thing that troubled me, though: "even outside of Pharo's public communication channels." What business is it of the Pharo Board what anyone says in any other community? I've heard too many cases where A says something to B and C complains about it as harassment when B didn't mind. I have personally known people *affectionately* address each other in terms that most would consider a deadly insult.

My behaviour in all digital media is subject to the Harmful Digital Communications Act 2015. See http://www.legislation.govt.nz/act/public/2015/0063/latest/whole.html <http://www.legislation.govt.nz/act/public/2015/0063/latest/whole.html> which extends the Harassment Act 1997. See http://www.legislation.govt.nz/act/public/1997/0092/latest/whole.html <http://www.legislation.govt.nz/act/public/1997/0092/latest/whole.html> for a definition of harassment. If I harass anyone according to these Acts, they have a legal remedy. I understand the the UK and the EU have similar laws.

So I don't understand why the Pharo Board want to extend their reach.

On Fri, 20 Sep 2019 at 07:21, Esteban Lorenzano <estebanlm@gmail.com <mailto:estebanlm@gmail.com>> wrote: Hello,

I’m talking on behalf of the Pharo Board here. As start, we accepted Serge’s proposition without actually discussing it much because we didn’t think it was going to be really a problem. Our community has been self-regulating since the beginning and we were doing it fine until now. Once or twice we (the board) needed to act, but never had a real situation as the ones the CoC tries to cover. So, we can say we opened the umbrella without rain, just in case.

Now, after observe the situation, we have decided to retract the code. But sadly, we cannot just remove it and let things continue as before because as it’s know “it you open a can or worms, you will need a bigger can to put them back in”. Which means now we need a code of conduct.

So we are going to take the simplest one we could find that still can serve our community, you can see it here:

https://github.com/pharo-project/pharo/pull/4660 <https://github.com/pharo-project/pharo/pull/4660>

This PR will be accepted, but as anything in our community, you can still discuss it and propose modifications. Just remember be respectful of people disagreeing with your ideas :)

Cheers, Esteban

PS: As personal note: I blocked a github user that insulted a member of our community, a user who did not had history with us (or any other visible project), who did not had a name or ways to contact him so I assumed it was just another troll. Now, he identifies himself here... I will unblock him, but that does not means the kind of disrespectful messages he sent can be sent :)

...

On 19 Sep 2019, at 19:47, Ben Coman <btc@openinworld.com <mailto:btc@openinworld.com>> wrote:

makes me wonder whether he's such a machiavellian sociopath, or a useful idiot.

On Thu, 19 Sep 2019 at 23:07, Eugen Leitl via Pharo-users <pharo-users@lists.pharo.org <mailto:pharo-users@lists.pharo.org>> wrote: Let's see, I've posted one email to this list describing the dangers of abusing CoCs

I guess you refer to this one...

...

On Tue, 17 Sep 2019 at 19:39, Eugen Leitl via Pharo-users <pharo-users@lists.pharo.org <mailto:pharo-users@lists.pharo.org>> wrote: I agree. Technical people are too easy to exploit by malignant manipulators of people. All too often they don't even realize it after the fact.

Thats fairly benign and doubt it had anything to do with being blocked on github.

and one post to GitHub describing the motivations of people who introduce CoCs, and immediately get banned on GitHub from

Note, the board member who blocked your GIthub account and deleted your post there also voiced their opinion as being... For me a "welcome and be nice" should be enough to just continue as before. I find the introduction of CoC was a noise we didn't need, our community was doing well and self-regulated without problem until now.

So in spite of your implication, I doubt there is anything sinister from the CoC in play here. Comments such as "makes me wonder whether he's such a machiavellian sociopath, or a useful idiot." have been consistently condemned years before thought of a CoC.

I'm getting called a troll and a nobody in public by members of the project,

Its not that you are a "nobody", but actually you were "unknown to us" two days ago. Maybe you don't know Serge, but we've know him for years and his good work including governance of our GSoC participation so please consider why such comments from a newcomer may be dealt with as a troll. Community standards do not maintain themselves: They're maintained by people actively applying them, visibly, in public.

Now personally I'm not going to condemn you on one slip. I've been told to pull my head in before and they were right - I was venting after a bad day at work. But no one held it against me long. These nontechnical and emotion-charge debates are infrequent and I hope get a chance to see how things normally run once we are past it.

cheers -ben

Am 20.09.2019 um 06:45 schrieb James Foster <Smalltalk@JGFoster.net>:

First, my guess is that it was part of the thing they copied and that aspect might not have gotten as much thought as you’ve given it.

That is right. I wondered myself about the last part but did not think about it too much.

Second, this is an international organization and maybe the intent (by the original author(s)) was to extend the reach of the NZ/UK/EU-style laws to apply to those in jurisdictions with less strict speech codes or where the legal remedy is impractical. That is, maybe the author(s) don’t feel it is sufficient to tell someone who is harassed, “We can’t do anything about it. Hire a NZ lawyer.”

It doesn’t matter. We are _not_ an international organization that needs to fit in all participating nations laws. We are a community with plenty of nations participating and we are free to define our own culture. Everyone might have additional restrictions how to interpret „free speech“ but that is duty of the particular individual and the laws in the country he/she lives in.

These are speculations on my part and, as a US citizen, I’m partial to our free speech protections. I’d prefer to have private organizations practice ostracization rather than have the government put rude people in jail. I say this, not to start a political discussion, but to point out that some harassment that would be illegal in NZ might not have a legal remedy if the actor was a US citizen.

This part in the text is vague and you acknowledge just that it welcomes speculation about it. In particular people put a lot of their opinion/believe/… into those speculations and I would like to see that minimized in this community. And I really don’t see a benefit having those.

In any case, I found that when I submitted a PR then something happened pretty quickly. So, I’d suggest that you channel your analysis and concerns into a proposed improvement.

It is always good to go pro-active on topics rather than just writing mails and complain. In your case it was more of coincidence. We were discussing that for a longer time and your PR just met our time frame of getting a decision ready. I will discuss about removing that last part of the text. Norbert

James

...

On Sep 19, 2019, at 8:44 PM, Richard O'Keefe <raoknz@gmail.com <mailto:raoknz@gmail.com>> wrote:

On the whole, the new code is pretty good.

There was one thing that troubled me, though: "even outside of Pharo's public communication channels." What business is it of the Pharo Board what anyone says in any other community? I've heard too many cases where A says something to B and C complains about it as harassment when B didn't mind. I have personally known people *affectionately* address each other in terms that most would consider a deadly insult.

My behaviour in all digital media is subject to the Harmful Digital Communications Act 2015. See http://www.legislation.govt.nz/act/public/2015/0063/latest/whole.html <http://www.legislation.govt.nz/act/public/2015/0063/latest/whole.html> which extends the Harassment Act 1997. See http://www.legislation.govt.nz/act/public/1997/0092/latest/whole.html <http://www.legislation.govt.nz/act/public/1997/0092/latest/whole.html> for a definition of harassment. If I harass anyone according to these Acts, they have a legal remedy. I understand the the UK and the EU have similar laws.

So I don't understand why the Pharo Board want to extend their reach.

On Fri, 20 Sep 2019 at 07:21, Esteban Lorenzano <estebanlm@gmail.com <mailto:estebanlm@gmail.com>> wrote: Hello,

I’m talking on behalf of the Pharo Board here. As start, we accepted Serge’s proposition without actually discussing it much because we didn’t think it was going to be really a problem. Our community has been self-regulating since the beginning and we were doing it fine until now. Once or twice we (the board) needed to act, but never had a real situation as the ones the CoC tries to cover. So, we can say we opened the umbrella without rain, just in case.

Now, after observe the situation, we have decided to retract the code. But sadly, we cannot just remove it and let things continue as before because as it’s know “it you open a can or worms, you will need a bigger can to put them back in”. Which means now we need a code of conduct.

So we are going to take the simplest one we could find that still can serve our community, you can see it here:

https://github.com/pharo-project/pharo/pull/4660 <https://github.com/pharo-project/pharo/pull/4660>

This PR will be accepted, but as anything in our community, you can still discuss it and propose modifications. Just remember be respectful of people disagreeing with your ideas :)

Cheers, Esteban

PS: As personal note: I blocked a github user that insulted a member of our community, a user who did not had history with us (or any other visible project), who did not had a name or ways to contact him so I assumed it was just another troll. Now, he identifies himself here... I will unblock him, but that does not means the kind of disrespectful messages he sent can be sent :)

...

On 19 Sep 2019, at 19:47, Ben Coman <btc@openinworld.com <mailto:btc@openinworld.com>> wrote:

makes me wonder whether he's such a machiavellian sociopath, or a useful idiot.

On Thu, 19 Sep 2019 at 23:07, Eugen Leitl via Pharo-users <pharo-users@lists.pharo.org <mailto:pharo-users@lists.pharo.org>> wrote: Let's see, I've posted one email to this list describing the dangers of abusing CoCs

I guess you refer to this one...

...

On Tue, 17 Sep 2019 at 19:39, Eugen Leitl via Pharo-users <pharo-users@lists.pharo.org <mailto:pharo-users@lists.pharo.org>> wrote: I agree. Technical people are too easy to exploit by malignant manipulators of people. All too often they don't even realize it after the fact.

Thats fairly benign and doubt it had anything to do with being blocked on github.

and one post to GitHub describing the motivations of people who introduce CoCs, and immediately get banned on GitHub from

Note, the board member who blocked your GIthub account and deleted your post there also voiced their opinion as being... For me a "welcome and be nice" should be enough to just continue as before. I find the introduction of CoC was a noise we didn't need, our community was doing well and self-regulated without problem until now.

So in spite of your implication, I doubt there is anything sinister from the CoC in play here. Comments such as "makes me wonder whether he's such a machiavellian sociopath, or a useful idiot." have been consistently condemned years before thought of a CoC.

I'm getting called a troll and a nobody in public by members of the project,

Its not that you are a "nobody", but actually you were "unknown to us" two days ago. Maybe you don't know Serge, but we've know him for years and his good work including governance of our GSoC participation so please consider why such comments from a newcomer may be dealt with as a troll. Community standards do not maintain themselves: They're maintained by people actively applying them, visibly, in public.

Now personally I'm not going to condemn you on one slip. I've been told to pull my head in before and they were right - I was venting after a bad day at work. But no one held it against me long. These nontechnical and emotion-charge debates are infrequent and I hope get a chance to see how things normally run once we are past it.

cheers -ben

On Thu, Sep 19, 2019 at 9:21 PM Esteban Lorenzano <estebanlm@gmail.com> wrote:

Hello,

I’m talking on behalf of the Pharo Board here. As start, we accepted Serge’s proposition without actually discussing it much because we didn’t think it was going to be really a problem. Our community has been self-regulating since the beginning and we were doing it fine until now. Once or twice we (the board) needed to act, but never had a real situation as the ones the CoC tries to cover. So, we can say we opened the umbrella without rain, just in case.

Now, after observe the situation, we have decided to retract the code. But sadly, we cannot just remove it and let things continue as before because as it’s know “it you open a can or worms, you will need a bigger can to put them back in”. Which means now we need a code of conduct.

So we are going to take the simplest one we could find that still can serve our community, you can see it here:

https://github.com/pharo-project/pharo/pull/4660

This PR will be accepted, but as anything in our community, you can still discuss it and propose modifications. Just remember be respectful of people disagreeing with your ideas :)

Cheers, Esteban

PS: As personal note: I blocked a github user that insulted a member of our community, a user who did not had history with us (or any other visible project), who did not had a name or ways to contact him so I assumed it was just another troll. Now, he identifies himself here... I will unblock him, but that does not means the kind of disrespectful messages he sent can be sent :)

Hi, Thank you for taking care of this. I find this CoC better than the previous one but there is one point that I would like to discuss.

«removing issues, comments, and PRs or blocking accounts as deemed appropriate.»

I am not sure that removing completly the content is good. I already saw communities using this as a way of moderating content and it caused two unwanted consequences: - The moderators deleted abusivly contents saying it did not respect the CoC without letting the person explain itself or discuting if if was a real disrespect of the CoC - The people getting their post removed used that to act as a martyr since the proof of their disrespect vanished and since they say they are victim of censure. I am the most worried about the second consequence. I solution adopted by some communities is to remove the messages from the original source to not promote disrespect, but keep a version in a "Moderated content" section. For the Pharo community we could for example have a github repository, or a folder files.pharo.org or any other public solution called "Moderated content" were we could save the screens of the removed comments. This would act as proof of the disespect and prevent the apparition of martyrs. What do you think about this? -- Cyril Ferlicot https://ferlicot.fr

A nice thing about open source and the use of Git is that changes can be proposed and adopted quickly. Any proposal should be judged, not on whether it is perfect, but whether it makes an improvement. As a corollary, don’t assume that the current state is the ideal, but treat it as a platform for continuous improvements. In this case, the phrase you objected to was removed before you made your comment. James

On Sep 20, 2019, at 11:43 PM, Hilaire <hilaire@drgeo.eu> wrote:

Le 19/09/2019 à 21:20, Esteban Lorenzano a écrit :

...

So we are going to take the simplest one we could find that still can serve our community, you can see it here:

https://github.com/pharo-project/pharo/pull/4660

Hello,

Given the heat up on the ml, I took a look on the PR. It looks honest and simple for but...

...I am really surprised -- worried will be more accurate ! -- by the second part of this sentence[1]. I think it is even dangerous! What is happening outside of the Pharo community should not be ruled by the 'WE'. The 'WE' is not the universal moral police or justice. If you think a bit about the Richard Stallman event, he was forced to withdraw of the Free Software Foundation because comments he made in a mailing list not related to FSF. He wrote his email contents were misinterpreted (and we know it happens often) and used against him. Whatever it is true or not, I don't see why you should be socially banned (or socially killed) from one place (or more like all place) because of what happen in another place. This kind of important decision can only be taken by the justice where all matter are taken in consideration. Imagine one of you kicked out of Pharo community because you loose your mind in another channel? It makes me feel a bit like the Aldous Huxley world.

[1] /We will not tolerate harassment from anyone in the Pharo community, even outside of Pharo’s public communication channels./

Hilaire

-- Dr. Geo http://drgeo.eu

Just… WOW. I’ve been fighting the urge to add my two cents to the discussion, but didn’t feel ‘qualified’ - I’ve been just lurking here, both on the mailing list and this topic. I haven’t contributed to Pharo (yet), but any discussion that involves freedom of expression (which this is I believe) naturally piques my interest. I only read the Code of Conduct version as of today, and while on surface it’s not that controversial (any longer), if I had any say in the subject, I would vote against any form or shape of it. Many have expressed their reasons, here are just some of mine: The wording can change at any time (as we have seen over last couple of weeks), without any real accountability of the CoC authors/editors to the community. That alone should be a red flag. I have a somewhat remotely related example of that: In 1948, a single added sentence in the Constitution of my country changed it from a fledgling democracy to a brutal dictatorship that lasted forty years. ‘Foundational documents’ are extremely difficult to get right - whatever ‘right’ means. Almost every CoC I have seen in recent times, in communities online and in the real world, reminds me this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_Code_of_the_Builder_of_Communism <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_Code_of_the_Builder_of_Communism> . Read the twelve rules. Shivers run up my spine when I see the similarities between that and modern Code of Conduct wordings. This was displayed in schools and other public building when I was growing up. Nobody I knew followed it, but it could be used arbitrarily to mark people as ‘enemies’ and discriminate against them - the very antithesis of tolerance and inclusivity. (I repeat what others said) This is a predominantly technical forum, albeit with some creative aspects. I borrow a phrase here: ‘Any good idea withstands scrutiny’. Knowing that should be enough of an incentive to be thoughtful and respectful. That doesn’t mean you can’t fight for your idea (on the contrary), and fighting sometimes requires some strong words. Get over it. Life’s not ‘easy’, ’safe’, or ‘fair’. I don’t see a problem on this list (or even in the wider Pharo/Smalltalk community) that needs solving or gets solved by a CoC. Why waste our energy on something that is not a problem? If everything else got half of attention as this topic, wouldn’t that be awesome? Ultimately this is about human behviour, and as we know, that’s always the hardest thing to change/influence in any field. Speaking of which: How is that security stuff coming along, Pharo community? Two years in the row my ESUG presentations included screenshots of a Pharo-backed web site, pointing out how insecure the site is. Details have been blurred to protect the site, but anyone who does Pharo/Seaside work should be alerted if they paid attention. I know that the maintainers of the site were in the audience, and I am amazed that they have not checked their site to see if they have some work to do to address the vulnerabilities. Note: this is not unique to Pharo. It’s a simple change in behaviour that should have happened, but it has not. The point here is: as a community, Pharo (and other Smalltalk groups) has a lot of work to do. Code of Conduct is an unnecessary and wasteful distraction. In the meantime, I see no discussions here about how are we going to address the world-wide crisis of Privacy Erosion, or how to establish ethical coding best practices. How can we ensure that information collected as a result of our work remains confidential and secure where needed, and is used ethically for the betterment of the planet and the human race? I don't give a rat’s ass about following a community Code of Conduct if it silences what I or others have to say in public, while our most private, personal data is harvested left and right by unscrupulous geeks in Silicon Valley and elsewhere. That’s a problem we should be trying to solve. There. Stepping down from the soap box. Happy Autumnal Equinox, everyone! Jerry Kott This message has been digitally signed. PGP Fingerprint: A9181736DD2F1B6CC7CF9E51AC8514F48C0979A5

On 21-09-2019, at 9:51 AM, Steve Quezadas <steveeq1@gmail.com> wrote:

My issue is that this covenant is selectively applied to some things, but not others. The wording might change, but the cultural attitude will prevail on how it gets "enforced". Again, the best thing to do is simply keep it neutral and anything not related to pharo get thrown out as "off-topic".

Harassment has never been a problem with this list. And any talk about the danger of "nazis" or "thugs" is irrelevent and should be thrown out. I, for one, don't want to see it on this list.

On Sat, Sep 21, 2019 at 9:36 AM James Foster <Smalltalk@jgfoster.net <mailto:Smalltalk@jgfoster.net>> wrote: A nice thing about open source and the use of Git is that changes can be proposed and adopted quickly. Any proposal should be judged, not on whether it is perfect, but whether it makes an improvement. As a corollary, don’t assume that the current state is the ideal, but treat it as a platform for continuous improvements.

In this case, the phrase you objected to was removed before you made your comment.

James

...

On Sep 20, 2019, at 11:43 PM, Hilaire <hilaire@drgeo.eu <mailto:hilaire@drgeo.eu>> wrote:

Le 19/09/2019 à 21:20, Esteban Lorenzano a écrit :

...

So we are going to take the simplest one we could find that still can serve our community, you can see it here:

https://github.com/pharo-project/pharo/pull/4660 <https://github.com/pharo-project/pharo/pull/4660>

Hello,

Given the heat up on the ml, I took a look on the PR. It looks honest and simple for but...

...I am really surprised -- worried will be more accurate ! -- by the second part of this sentence[1]. I think it is even dangerous! What is happening outside of the Pharo community should not be ruled by the 'WE'. The 'WE' is not the universal moral police or justice. If you think a bit about the Richard Stallman event, he was forced to withdraw of the Free Software Foundation because comments he made in a mailing list not related to FSF. He wrote his email contents were misinterpreted (and we know it happens often) and used against him. Whatever it is true or not, I don't see why you should be socially banned (or socially killed) from one place (or more like all place) because of what happen in another place. This kind of important decision can only be taken by the justice where all matter are taken in consideration. Imagine one of you kicked out of Pharo community because you loose your mind in another channel? It makes me feel a bit like the Aldous Huxley world.

[1] /We will not tolerate harassment from anyone in the Pharo community, even outside of Pharo’s public communication channels./

Hilaire

-- Dr. Geo http://drgeo.eu <http://drgeo.eu/>

The discussion so far shows that CoC is not a distraction to many

Actually, the discussion shows that the CoC is "a distraction to many". On Sun, Sep 22, 2019 at 10:12 AM Offray Vladimir Luna Cárdenas < offray.luna@mutabit.com> wrote:

Hi,

On 21/09/19 11:38 p. m., Jerry Kott wrote:

...

The point here is: as a community, Pharo (and other Smalltalk groups) has a lot of work to do. Code of Conduct is an unnecessary and wasteful distraction. In the meantime, I see no discussions here about how are we going to address the world-wide crisis of Privacy Erosion, or how to establish ethical coding best practices. How can we ensure that information collected as a result of our work remains confidential and secure where needed, and is used ethically for the betterment of the planet and the human race?

[...]

Happy Autumnal Equinox, everyone!

The discussion so far shows that CoC is not a distraction to many and the ones who think so, should be leading by not being distracted with long threads and emails, and also showing how to start and continue the discussions and projects on the topics they care about here and in the repositories. I, for example, have a concern about data and privacy and the way it influences our vision and shape of the world. Maybe we can share some interest and projects on that front.

Here, we don't have proper seasons, but I wish everyone interesting and insightful times where ever you are.

Cheers,

Offray

I would say that the majority don't seem to be in favor of it. This should be a democracy. On Sun, Sep 22, 2019 at 1:53 PM Offray Vladimir Luna Cárdenas < offray.luna@mutabit.com> wrote:

On 22/09/19 3:38 p. m., Steve Quezadas wrote:

...

...

The discussion so far shows that CoC is not a distraction to many

Actually, the discussion shows that the CoC is "a distraction to many".

Actually it shows that some people consider it a distraction, others don't. I think that every body here is able to form its own opinion on that and invest time and effort accordingly.

Cheers,

Offray

This isn't science, this is a community. We don't need a CoC, there haven't been any problems on this list regarding nazis or whatever. This is just a group of people trying to enforce their political ideologies on everyone else. Let's just remove the CoC altogether and just replace it with one line: "this maillist is about Pharo, anything else is offtopic". If you want to debate on the merits of Islam vs Christianity/ right vs left / thugs vs racists , you are free to hold your opinion on some other sub, but it's offtopic here. On Sun, Sep 22, 2019 at 4:23 PM Offray Vladimir Luna Cárdenas < offray.luna@mutabit.com> wrote:

There is no data to support such supposed majority. But even so, free, libre, open source communities are not democracies. Imagine the quality of code or argumentation based on perceived majorities? If science would be a democracy, the earth would be "still" flat. On 22/09/19 6:04 p. m., Steve Quezadas wrote:

I would say that the majority don't seem to be in favor of it. This should be a democracy.

On Sun, Sep 22, 2019 at 1:53 PM Offray Vladimir Luna Cárdenas < offray.luna@mutabit.com> wrote:

...

On 22/09/19 3:38 p. m., Steve Quezadas wrote:

...

...

The discussion so far shows that CoC is not a distraction to many

Actually, the discussion shows that the CoC is "a distraction to many".

Actually it shows that some people consider it a distraction, others don't. I think that every body here is able to form its own opinion on that and invest time and effort accordingly.

Cheers,

Offray

This is not a question of left vs right. It's a question of authoritarian vs libertarian. And this is very relevant to the community. It's also not a question of democracy vs central authority. It's a question of vs παρρησία vs goodspeak. And this is very relevant to the community also. Pharo is "owned" by the people who do the bulk of the work on it, and they are kind enough to share it with us. That there is such a thing as a *Pharo* community is the result of their work. That there is such a thing as a Pharo *community* depends on the ability of that community to communicate freely. This cuts BOTH ways. If people are scared off by incivility, that's bad. If people are driven away by incivility, that's bad. But when you stop seeing rudeness as rudeness, which may be amended, and start seeing it as crimethink, you drive people away, and that is bad too. Let's consider a recent thread. I took the position that << and putOn: were confusing, unreliable, and unnecessary. The unreliability issue has been addressed in Pharo 8; had I not been able to speak I would never have learned that. Some people apparently think that it improves readability, where I find that << impairs my ability to understand. The fact that BOTH sides were able to speak freely means that we now know (a) that there is no consensus for removing them from the system and (b) if you want other people to read your code you might want to think twice before using them, and we are all better off. But if criticising someone's opinion were construed as harassment, the thread would have been shut down before I displayed my code with a generalisation that is worth having if << is worth having at all. I probably should have mentioned the Erlang code of conduct http://erlang.org/download/erlang_org_code_of_conduct.txt It is pretty a-political, has graduated response, and potential for forgiveness. A code of conduct for *events* is another matter, which is why I bring Erlang up. http://erlang.org/pipermail/erlang-questions/2015-March/083849.html is eye-opening. (It's mainly about Ruby community issues.) On Mon, 23 Sep 2019 at 11:51, Offray Vladimir Luna Cárdenas <offray.luna@mutabit.com> wrote:

My point was that this community, as a the big majority of FLOSS ones, is not a democracy and *not* having a democracy has shown its benefits in human endeavors like science, technology, hackerspaces and so on.

I'll keep the rest of the conversation with you on the source code repository and the PR. See you there.

On 22/09/19 6:40 p. m., Steve Quezadas wrote:

This isn't science, this is a community. We don't need a CoC, there haven't been any problems on this list regarding nazis or whatever. This is just a group of people trying to enforce their political ideologies on everyone else. Let's just remove the CoC altogether and just replace it with one line: "this maillist is about Pharo, anything else is offtopic".

If you want to debate on the merits of Islam vs Christianity/ right vs left / thugs vs racists , you are free to hold your opinion on some other sub, but it's offtopic here.

On Sun, Sep 22, 2019 at 4:23 PM Offray Vladimir Luna Cárdenas <offray.luna@mutabit.com> wrote:

...

There is no data to support such supposed majority. But even so, free, libre, open source communities are not democracies. Imagine the quality of code or argumentation based on perceived majorities? If science would be a democracy, the earth would be "still" flat.

On 22/09/19 6:04 p. m., Steve Quezadas wrote:

I would say that the majority don't seem to be in favor of it. This should be a democracy.

On Sun, Sep 22, 2019 at 1:53 PM Offray Vladimir Luna Cárdenas <offray.luna@mutabit.com> wrote:

...

On 22/09/19 3:38 p. m., Steve Quezadas wrote:

...

...

The discussion so far shows that CoC is not a distraction to many

Actually, the discussion shows that the CoC is "a distraction to many".

Actually it shows that some people consider it a distraction, others don't. I think that every body here is able to form its own opinion on that and invest time and effort accordingly.

Cheers,

Offray

But the low rate at which marginalized people are recruited, and the high rate at which they leave the industry <https://www.kaporcenter.org/tech-leavers/>, point to a larger cultural and systemic problem.

Your interpreting this information with a SJW lens. Otherwise known as "confirmation bias". Look at the low proportion of blacks and women who apply for CS majors in college. Are you going to say that colleges are using discriminatory practices to keep blacks and women from taking CS classes? Maybe the bulk of the low recruitment statistics is simply due to non-interest within that sub-culture. I believe this CoC is a way to wedge left-wing politics in a non-political maillist. I want it out. On Sun, Sep 22, 2019 at 7:37 PM Offray Vladimir Luna Cárdenas < offray.luna@mutabit.com> wrote:

I agreed that the last decision should be on the ones who made the bulk of the work. But I don't see relationship between a code of conduct and not being able to talk about code or contributions quality. Just looking at the FAQ of the original CoC that originated the whole think, I see a lot of answers about the stuff being said on this thread (minorities, left wing progressive agenda, diminish of code quality because of it, mixing tech with non-tech stuff), so I will refer to it, because as I said, I think that the PR should be the place for the bulk of the discussion:

https://www.contributor-covenant.org/faq

The FAQ name goes pretty well, considering the amount of repeated arguments they deal with. I think that many of the FAQ apply for other CoCs, despite of the possible different nature of CoC for the online community and the CoC for other face to face events. BTW, Thanks for the links, both provide a better context for the emergence of the CoC in the Erlang community.

As said, I will try to see for specific contributions in the correspondent PR in the repo, and made some if I have a one. For the moment I'm trying to make my contributions on this thread, but is taking a lot.

Cheers,

Offray

On 22/09/19 7:40 p. m., Richard O'Keefe wrote:

...

This is not a question of left vs right. It's a question of authoritarian vs libertarian. And this is very relevant to the community. It's also not a question of democracy vs central authority. It's a question of vs παρρησία vs goodspeak. And this is very relevant to the community also.

Pharo is "owned" by the people who do the bulk of the work on it, and they are kind enough to share it with us. That there is such a thing as a *Pharo* community is the result of their work.

That there is such a thing as a Pharo *community* depends on the ability of that community to communicate freely. This cuts BOTH ways. If people are scared off by incivility, that's bad. If people are driven away by incivility, that's bad. But when you stop seeing rudeness as rudeness, which may be amended, and start seeing it as crimethink, you drive people away, and that is bad too.

Let's consider a recent thread. I took the position that << and putOn: were confusing, unreliable, and unnecessary. The unreliability issue has been addressed in Pharo 8; had I not been able to speak I would never have learned that. Some people apparently think that it improves readability, where I find that << impairs my ability to understand. The fact that BOTH sides were able to speak freely means that we now know (a) that there is no consensus for removing them from the system and (b) if you want other people to read your code you might want to think twice before using them, and we are all better off. But if criticising someone's opinion were construed as harassment, the thread would have been shut down before I displayed my code with a generalisation that is worth having if << is worth having at all.

I probably should have mentioned the Erlang code of conduct http://erlang.org/download/erlang_org_code_of_conduct.txt It is pretty a-political, has graduated response, and potential for forgiveness.

A code of conduct for *events* is another matter, which is why I bring Erlang up. http://erlang.org/pipermail/erlang-questions/2015-March/083849.html is eye-opening. (It's mainly about Ruby community issues.)

On Mon, 23 Sep 2019 at 11:51, Offray Vladimir Luna Cárdenas <offray.luna@mutabit.com> wrote:

...

My point was that this community, as a the big majority of FLOSS ones, is not a democracy and *not* having a democracy has shown its benefits in human endeavors like science, technology, hackerspaces and so on.

I'll keep the rest of the conversation with you on the source code repository and the PR. See you there.

On 22/09/19 6:40 p. m., Steve Quezadas wrote:

This isn't science, this is a community. We don't need a CoC, there haven't been any problems on this list regarding nazis or whatever. This is just a group of people trying to enforce their political ideologies on everyone else. Let's just remove the CoC altogether and just replace it with one line: "this maillist is about Pharo, anything else is offtopic".

If you want to debate on the merits of Islam vs Christianity/ right vs left / thugs vs racists , you are free to hold your opinion on some other sub, but it's offtopic here.

On Sun, Sep 22, 2019 at 4:23 PM Offray Vladimir Luna Cárdenas < offray.luna@mutabit.com> wrote:

...

There is no data to support such supposed majority. But even so, free, libre, open source communities are not democracies. Imagine the quality of code or argumentation based on perceived majorities? If science would be a democracy, the earth would be "still" flat.

On 22/09/19 6:04 p. m., Steve Quezadas wrote:

I would say that the majority don't seem to be in favor of it. This should be a democracy.

On Sun, Sep 22, 2019 at 1:53 PM Offray Vladimir Luna Cárdenas < offray.luna@mutabit.com> wrote:

...

On 22/09/19 3:38 p. m., Steve Quezadas wrote:

...

...

The discussion so far shows that CoC is not a distraction to many Actually, the discussion shows that the CoC is "a distraction to

many".

...

Actually it shows that some people consider it a distraction, others don't. I think that every body here is able to form its own opinion on that and invest time and effort accordingly.

Cheers,

Offray

Steve Quezadas <steveeq1@gmail.com> wrote:

Your interpreting this information with a SJW lens.

SJW is a political construct from the extreme right. As a straight white male from Western Europe I have seen enough discriminatory practices applied to less privileged friends to know there is a problem. And as I can afford to speak up, I do.

Look at the low proportion of blacks and women who apply for CS majors in college. Are you going to say that colleges are using discriminatory practices to keep blacks and women from taking CS classes?

Yes, the colleges are set up to make it easier for white males to succeed. There are enough models explaining why that happens

Maybe the bulk of the low recruitment statistics is simply due to non-interest within that sub-culture.

Back to identity politics? Stephan

But your reading of non-interest in CS within the sub-culture of blacks and women is a confirmation bias, reading from numbers in a circular fashion: low inscription numbers in sub-cultures show a non-interest, which is confirmed by those low numbers. I can tell you first hand that my impossibility to assist yearly to ESUG is not because the non-interest in the "Colombian subculture", which I belong to, about live coding or Smalltalk. In fact I learned Pharo by making Grafoscopio[1], despite of poor OOP undergrad classes and thanks to a self/family funded PhD studies that were *not* on computer science. But I know people here that is willing to learn and they don't have proper time/resources to do it. Despite the Colombia visa issues (and stupid jokes about Escobar at immigration and else where, because a Hispanic with a different visa has different issues, or not) and despite of the funding issues or my self learn English, that make my participation difficult in international events, I have privileges that many around have not. Instead of making them invisible, thinking in technology/code as being build "ex nihilo", disregarding context and people involve in such endeavors, I try to deconstruct them and be inclusive. That's why I care about diversity and respect being explicit in the community (for example in the CoC) [1] http://mutabit.com/grafoscopio/en.html But as said, your contributions to the project and the soundness of your arguments on the source code repository via PR, will be the more heavy that the longest mail thread we can have here. Cheers, Offray On 23/09/19 10:07 a. m., Steve Quezadas wrote:

I am a dark-skinned hispanic male from the United States and have not experienced any discriminatary practices whatsoever. Nor have I witnessed anything that I find that "is a problem" in the tech world. As far as "colleges are set up to make it easier for white males to succeed" is patently false. Most colleges, at least in the united states, are very biased to left-wing political views.

So no.

On Mon, Sep 23, 2019 at 7:39 AM Stephan Eggermont <stephan@stack.nl <mailto:stephan@stack.nl>> wrote:

Steve Quezadas <steveeq1@gmail.com <mailto:steveeq1@gmail.com>> wrote: > Your interpreting this information with a SJW lens.

SJW is a political construct from the extreme right. As a straight white male from Western Europe I have seen enough discriminatory practices applied to less privileged friends to know there is a problem. And as I can afford to speak up, I do.

> Look at the low proportion of blacks and women who > apply for CS majors in college. Are you going to say that colleges are > using discriminatory practices to keep blacks and women from taking CS > classes?

Yes, the colleges are set up to make it easier for white males to succeed. There are enough models explaining why that happens

> Maybe the bulk of the low recruitment statistics is simply due to > non-interest within that sub-culture.

Back to identity politics?

Stephan

Thank you for that well-stated argument. I agree, offray's argument is silly. It's like saying that there aren't many male kindergarten teachers and that this is evidence that the school system is "sexist". - Steve PS Can we please just kill the CoC it's making this maillist political. On Mon, Sep 23, 2019 at 8:25 PM Richard O'Keefe <raoknz@gmail.com> wrote:

Let's look at some official numbers.

Looking at https://www.hesa.ac.uk/news/11-01-2018/sfr247-higher-education-student-stati... we see that overall, female graduates outnumbered male graduates about 4 to 3 in each of the three years recorded. The imbalance in science graduates was less, but it was still consistently women significantly outnumbering men. Computer science stood out as consistently about 4 men to 1 woman, and Computer Science departments are tying themselves into knots trying to figure out what to do about it. Meanwhile, nobody worries that "subjects allied to medicine" was about 4 women to 1 man.

If there are models explaining that "colleges" are set up to favour white males, why are women succeeding so much more than men?

In my own country, ten years ago the main newspaper ran an article pointing out that "Two-thirds of bachelor degrees last year went to women, the highest figure on record" and that "Women have outnumbered men in the tertiary sector for more than a decade", blaming "a secondary school system which may discourage or poorly prepare boys for further learning".

Look now at Canada.

https://www.conferenceboard.ca/hcp/Details/education/gender-gap-tertiary.asp... tells us that "Canadian women aged 25 to 64 are 17 per cent more likely than Canadian men to have a tertiary education. The imbalance in educational attainment between Canadian men and women has increased over the past decade, raising questions about whether higher education in Canada is becoming less hospitable to male learners." This is not new. "the overall gender imbalance tipped in women’s favour in Canada in the early 1990s. ... Many are asking whether there is a 'boy crisis' in education and wondering what can be done to address it. In fact, a growing 'boy gap' in education can be seen across OECD countries, with the problem beginning long before students reach post-secondary age. According to a recent report, 'boys, as a group, rank behind girls by nearly every measure of scholastic achievement'—including reading and writing scores—and they are 'also more likely to be picked out for behavioural problems, more likely to repeat a grade and to drop out of school altogether.” "when we examine th more recent cohort of graduates—those aged 25 to 34—nearly every country has a gender imbalance that favours women. In most cases, moreover, women’s advantage has become much more pronounced."

So models that explain why colleges favour white males are rather like models that explain why the sun is dark. If "colleges" are set up to favour white males, they are doing a catastrophically bad job of it. So much so that I have been glad I have daughters, not sons.

If you want to say that Computer Science numbers are due to some sort of discriminatory environment rather than preference, then you have to explain the equally large imbalance the other way in "medicine-related subjects" as discrimination rather than preference.

On Tue, 24 Sep 2019 at 02:39, Stephan Eggermont <stephan@stack.nl> wrote:

...

Steve Quezadas <steveeq1@gmail.com> wrote:

...

Your interpreting this information with a SJW lens.

SJW is a political construct from the extreme right. As a straight white male from Western Europe I have seen enough discriminatory practices applied to less privileged friends to know there is a problem. And as I

can

...

afford to speak up, I do.

...

Look at the low proportion of blacks and women who apply for CS majors in college. Are you going to say that colleges are using discriminatory practices to keep blacks and women from taking CS classes?

Yes, the colleges are set up to make it easier for white males to succeed. There are enough models explaining why that happens

...

Maybe the bulk of the low recruitment statistics is simply due to non-interest within that sub-culture.

Back to identity politics?

Stephan

I'll leave some research links that show a critical approach on how technology can be used for discrimination and to create discriminatory environments, even in places where technology is created: * http://codingplaces.net/ * https://bookbook.pubpub.org/data-feminism * https://data-activism.net/ But of course a proper discussion goes beyond links, providing numbers or short answers. Showing discrimination at airports is not a casual link to show discrimination on this community, but the fact that code is not created "ex nihilo" as the previous links show and recognizing that is important. A CoC accounts for that. But I think that the thread is becoming to long and noisy. So Peter, Richard and Steve and anyone else intereste, let's discuss this elsewhere. I will not answer more on this list, except to provide a place where discussion can happen in a deeper context without polluting the main mailing list. Cheers, Offray On 23/09/19 10:24 p. m., Richard O'Keefe wrote:

Let's look at some official numbers.

Looking at https://www.hesa.ac.uk/news/11-01-2018/sfr247-higher-education-student-stati... we see that overall, female graduates outnumbered male graduates about 4 to 3 in each of the three years recorded. The imbalance in science graduates was less, but it was still consistently women significantly outnumbering men. Computer science stood out as consistently about 4 men to 1 woman, and Computer Science departments are tying themselves into knots trying to figure out what to do about it. Meanwhile, nobody worries that "subjects allied to medicine" was about 4 women to 1 man.

If there are models explaining that "colleges" are set up to favour white males, why are women succeeding so much more than men?

In my own country, ten years ago the main newspaper ran an article pointing out that "Two-thirds of bachelor degrees last year went to women, the highest figure on record" and that "Women have outnumbered men in the tertiary sector for more than a decade", blaming "a secondary school system which may discourage or poorly prepare boys for further learning".

Look now at Canada. https://www.conferenceboard.ca/hcp/Details/education/gender-gap-tertiary.asp... tells us that "Canadian women aged 25 to 64 are 17 per cent more likely than Canadian men to have a tertiary education. The imbalance in educational attainment between Canadian men and women has increased over the past decade, raising questions about whether higher education in Canada is becoming less hospitable to male learners." This is not new. "the overall gender imbalance tipped in women’s favour in Canada in the early 1990s. ... Many are asking whether there is a 'boy crisis' in education and wondering what can be done to address it. In fact, a growing 'boy gap' in education can be seen across OECD countries, with the problem beginning long before students reach post-secondary age. According to a recent report, 'boys, as a group, rank behind girls by nearly every measure of scholastic achievement'—including reading and writing scores—and they are 'also more likely to be picked out for behavioural problems, more likely to repeat a grade and to drop out of school altogether.” "when we examine th more recent cohort of graduates—those aged 25 to 34—nearly every country has a gender imbalance that favours women. In most cases, moreover, women’s advantage has become much more pronounced."

So models that explain why colleges favour white males are rather like models that explain why the sun is dark. If "colleges" are set up to favour white males, they are doing a catastrophically bad job of it. So much so that I have been glad I have daughters, not sons.

If you want to say that Computer Science numbers are due to some sort of discriminatory environment rather than preference, then you have to explain the equally large imbalance the other way in "medicine-related subjects" as discrimination rather than preference.

On Tue, 24 Sep 2019 at 02:39, Stephan Eggermont <stephan@stack.nl> wrote:

...

Steve Quezadas <steveeq1@gmail.com> wrote:

...

Your interpreting this information with a SJW lens. SJW is a political construct from the extreme right. As a straight white male from Western Europe I have seen enough discriminatory practices applied to less privileged friends to know there is a problem. And as I can afford to speak up, I do.

...

Look at the low proportion of blacks and women who apply for CS majors in college. Are you going to say that colleges are using discriminatory practices to keep blacks and women from taking CS classes? Yes, the colleges are set up to make it easier for white males to succeed. There are enough models explaining why that happens

...

Maybe the bulk of the low recruitment statistics is simply due to non-interest within that sub-culture. Back to identity politics?

Stephan