An Open Letter to the Open Source Community

[Jan Claeys]

Op woensdag 23-05-2007 om 18:04 uur [tijdzone -0500], schreef Rich
Johnson:
> Why should anyone have to "deal with it" or "grow a thicker skin". It 
> shouldn't happen in the first place. This "deal with it" or "grow a thicker 
> skin" attitude doesn't fly.

It depends.  Some people actually _should_ grow a thicker skin.  ;)

(Maybe everybody should, as everybody has topics they overreact on--me
included, for sure.)


> Every place I have worked for would have replaced 
> you in a heartbeat for that type of attitude. Imagine if there weren't Sexual 
> Harassment Guidelines, EEO Guidelines, or company policies (in our case the 
> Code of Conduct), that is pretty much what you are trying to rid when you use 
> the "just deal with it".

I don't want to allow guys pm'ing "U wanna B my g/f?" to every
female-looking nick.  I don't want people to talk bad about any category
of other people (be it women, newbies, or whatever).

But i don't want every maybe-possibly-offensive-to-someone thing to be
condemned either.

> We are trying to get a grip, put a curb to it, before it becomes more serious. 
> But if we were to maintain the attitude you spoke of, then it is only going 
> to get more serious. 

In the case of women, I think the most urgent issues are:
      * The stupid unasked for personal (or even public) messages of
        erotic, sexual or wannabe-relational nature (or how should I
        describe these).
      * The cases where men react to women as if they are all newbies
        forever, women complaining about something must be PMS, etc.

Maybe someone can add one or two more points that are equally
disturbing, but let's start with trying to extinguish this worst
behaviour, and then see what that gives...


And of course some guides for communication between different
(sub)cultures would be good ("cultures" used broadly, but males &
females might be 2 subcultures).  But please keep them as guides, and
please everybody be forgiving to those who don't know about them or
forgot about them (if someone makes frequent/repeated errors, pointing
this person to such a guide might be a good idea of course, but doing
that on the first encounter is often pretty impolite and
counterproductive IMHO).


-- 
Jan Claeys