[Fwd: An Appeal for Help and a Fair Hearing]

[Jeff Pickersgill]

Rene
I personally feel you have been maligned. Having said that I wonder if
the OP's know what maligned means! From what I read of your log there
was far more offensive jargon used by the individual(s) at whom you
directed your 
said offensive comment and they should have been the one(s) removed from
the channel. 
Needless to say though that the OP's all must have been infected with
the same virus that bestowed supreme powers of judgment and justice on
them. One of the side effects tends to be a relentless swelling of the
head and puffing of the chest.
Rene, you can take solace in knowing that what goes around comes around
and the OP's will get their due.
Kind regards.
J



-----Original Message-----
From: ubuntu-ca-bounces at lists.ubuntu.com
[mailto:ubuntu-ca-bounces at lists.ubuntu.com] On Behalf Of Evan Leibovitch
Sent: November 6, 2006 6:10 PM
To: The Canadian Ubuntu Users Community; rbil at shaw.ca
Subject: Re: [Fwd: An Appeal for Help and a Fair Hearing]

Cody Somerville wrote:
> Wow. That is some pretty disturbing stuff... I hope you can get it 
> resolved. I would add yourself to the agenda for the next community 
> council meeting and make your appeal there. The whole situation really

> wasn't handled very well - maybe we need to get some firm policy in 
> place for IRC moderation to keep OPs accountable to their actions?
Good idea. I would just add a few comments, since policies are good but 
being civil in the first place is even better. As someone who has had to

lead diverse groups in other contexts, I would rise to the defence of 
the admits (whom I have never met).

René, I have yet to see an apology from you for your choice of language.

A little contrition goes a long way, especially when you're not sure who

you've offended or how. The moment you were notified that he'd been 
offensive in a zero-tolerance area, the best response would have been to

apologize and move on. Instead, the insulting (and genuinely offensive 
to me) way you've described the admins on the web page indicates to me 
that he still doesn't understand the problem and is likely to repeat.

To some, retaliation-in-kind is not admired regardless of context. 
Responding to someone else's crudeness with crudeness of your own does 
is not seen as helpful, and indeed could serve to intensify (or at least

prolong) an unwelcome distraction. In fact, the admin that banned you 
flat-out said "how can you use offensive words without being offensive?"

-- instead of understanding and apologizing, you responded by calling 
them crazy. You were given a chance to make good, and destroyed it.

Putting asterisks in words doesn't reduce their meaning or crudeness, 
using "n*zi" or "a**hole" isn't fooling anyone. Putting in the asterisks

indicates you already know some people are offended, which compounds the

offence. The best answer to that is simply to choose other language that

conveys the meaning you intend. You may not like those limits on your 
speech, but those are the conventions of that IRC area; nobody is 
obligated to respect your right to be there, if you won't respect their 
limits.

I still know people alive who have numbers tattooed on their inner 
forearms. I've also spent time at the world's most depressing tourist 
attraction, in the Munich suburb of Dachau. Such things tend to make one

aware of stupidly gratuitous use of the term "nazi"; while it doesn't 
anger me as much as it obviously did others, consider that there are 
people out these that can be hurt. In fact, you were explicitly told 
this by the admins. And yet you seemed determined to defend and assert 
your right to use the term despite the explanation.

Ubuntu admins, from the start, know that they're dealing with a very 
diverse bunch given the nature of its birth and organization. Leaders 
have the difficult tasks of nurturing an environment in which people 
(who might otherwise be in severe verbal confrontation or worse) elevate

above political and personal bias in the advancement of the craft. It 
does not surprise me, then, when admins are super-sensitive to 
deliberately volatile language. I would not discourage a tendency to err

on the side of greatest possible civility and inclusivity.

René , I hope that you can eventually get over your name-calling and 
patronizing, apologize on the IRC area, be forgiven, and move on. The 
only sin on the part of the admins that I've seen is that they're 
extremely intolerant of intolerance.

It's important to know your environment when you join a group, and to 
either honour the group's conventions or leave. While the Ubuntu admins 
you encountered seem to have a very aggressive zero-tolerance attitude, 
your reaction had certainly worsened the situation during the 
opportunities you were given to appeal your situation. Indeed, if your 
attitude towards "geeks" is as contemptuous as indicated on your web 
page, perhaps IRC is not your optimal means of communications -- it's 
all just "geeky techno-crap", as you called it, after all.

At very least, stop playing victim. And stop insulting the people you're

trying to appeal to. It's not helping.

- Evan


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