[UbuntuWomen] Making Ubuntu-for-all _work_

[Jacinta Richardson]

G'day everyone,

In the April 26th meeting ( http://wiki.ubuntu-women.org/Meetings/20070426 ) 
Jono said:

< jono> and I was also thinking of wider problems of discrimination - race, 
culture, location, knowledge, gender
< jono> each of these discriminated groups need catering for and the wider 
community needs a single message - equality for all
< jono> so, I was thinking of a project called Ubuntu For All
< jono> an equality project that has a number of subgroups, of which u-w would 
be one

Unfortunately he didn't really go into how he was going to make this work, and 
searching for '"Ubunto for all" Jono' suggests that Google can't find further 
mention of it either.  To be honest I'm not 100% taken with the idea.  Svaksha 
said (after Jono left):

< svaksha> Probably, but I dont want the problems women in particular face to be 
swept under the "feel-good-about-creating-foo-group" carpet which is magically 
supposed to solve everything..

and I agree.  Suggesting a grand project to solve a massive social problem 
without any further efforts of engaging the affected people seems unwise to me. 
  However, let's pretend that it'll go ahead with buy-in from the Ubuntu 
Community Council.  It seems to be that we need a few extra resources:

Be respectful
-------------
The CoC has this as a requirement, however I think there is a general 
unawareness of what might be meant by "respectful".  This isn't very surprising 
as the concept changes rapidly based on age group even in the same society. 
(Consider high school boys "joshing around", through to old people "expressing 
an interest" in what's going on in the neighbourhood).  It might be a good idea 
to attach a guide to what being respectful means to spell this out for those who 
aren't certain.  Vid's Etiquette Guidelines ( 
http://mosshead.com/wikichix/index.php?title=EtiquetteGuidelines ) might be a 
good place to start.

Consequences
------------
There should be some concept of consequences when someone steps outside of 
acceptable boundaries.  Relying on peers to shame people into doing the right 
thing doesn't work in the case where many of the participants fail to see the 
issue with the offensive behaviour.  If most of your peers think (or seem to 
think) that your behaviour is okay, then there's no shame in continuing it - 
even if it crosses all the acceptable lines.  Consider the following:

Jono's original response to the complaints a bit back regarding a sexist joke:
	http://www.jonobacon.org/?p=932
constrast with Matthew Garrett's response:
	http://mjg59.livejournal.com/73035.html
Chris Clarke's "How not to be an asshole"
	http://pandagon.net/2007/04/13/how-to-not-be-an-asshole-a-guide-for-men/

Chris's blog demonstrates clearly what was wrong with Jono's, although Chris's 
impetuous was another issue entirely.

Having consequences means you're serious, and thus legitimises the issues.  It 
means it's okay for those who are offended to say so even if everyone else is 
implying that the behaviour is okay.  Just like the real world, if breaking the 
rules has no, or very rare consequences then there's no incentive to change 
behaviour.  Why not jaywalk across the road if there's no police cars about? 
Why not drop the cigarette butt (littering!) if noone will comment?  They're 
little offences.  But it's a little offence when someone I don't know private 
messages me "a/s/l" too.  It would be nice to have a procedure for reporting 
disrespectful behaviour when it gets worse.

Having consequences encourages individuals to change and if that can happen, the 
community will change.


Going forward
-------------
I'think we need two conversations on this.  The first is on the elaboration on 
respect.
	Are you happy to start with Vid's document?
	How can this document be improved?  (Feel free to make changes)
	How can this be written to be acceptable to the Ubuntu community?
	How might we go about attaching this to the CoC, or is there
	a better place for it?

The second is with respect to consequences.
	Are there clear consequences detailed from the Ubuntu Community Council
	for various offences?

	Beyond banning persistent offenders from various parts (or the whole) of
	the project are there other consequences that can be invoked?  For
	example, is there a way we can make examples of those who misbehave
	(hall of shame?) without making it a competition to get listed?

All the best,

	Jacinta