3 ms·

I mean... it's not a question of "I declared it, so you will do it". It's a question of "You broke the rules once; you can stay in timeout for a week or we can

I mean... it's not a question of "I declared it, so you will do it". It's a question of "You broke the rules once; you can stay in timeout for a week or we can ban you entirely". Would you be bothered if they'd skipped the first part and just banned them from their gruop for making trouble?

FeepingCreature 4y ago
I am fine with any judgment Mozilla make on infrastructure that they run and that belongs directly to the project, such as mailing lists, official chatrooms, etc. It's the addition of "unofficial" social platforms that irks me; it seems totalitarizing. Interaction of contributors outside the project ecosystem is none of their business. I prefer for society to be sliced "horizontally", rather than "vertically". I am not aware of good terms for that. I want the arrangement to be that people can spend some of their time contributing to some group effort, with no impact on other efforts; rather than that people belong to groups, totally: "I contribute to Thunderbird" vs. "I am a Thunderbird developer." The resigning of Brendan Eich violated that same rule as well. You work for Mozilla, then you go home and Mozilla drops out of your life. You are not a Mozilla employee unless you're on the clock. Only, what happened was that it turns out you can't be a Mozilla employee and a certain kind of Republican in the same person; the vertical isolation was violated. I think this is because people saw Brendan as "he is a Mozilla employee" rather than "he works at Mozilla." I am against that way of looking at people. I think it is important for the functioning of society that people can horizontally intermix rather than segregate. A core part of the horizontal arrangement of society is that when you leave the boundary of a project, you leave its mores behind you; you are allowed to codeswitch as you context switch. Any rule that penalizes you for behavior elsewhere that violates the local rules directly threatens this.
- danielheath 4y ago
  I think I understand you, and I think I broadly agree, but in this case the restriction was specifically on contacting other thunderbird members; that seems like it's clearly still a vertical slice to me.
  - FeepingCreature 4y ago
    I think what makes it horizontal for me is that you can't "go home and stop being a Thunderbird member". A "Thunderbird member" is something you are, rather than something you do. So this effectively asserts project ownership over the person. This is why I don't care what they do on project media like ML. That's a social space that's reserved for the project itself, so fair's fair. It's part of their slice, but "Twitter, Facebook and Telegram" is not. It's like a school deciding that a child is a bad influence and isn't allowed to have a sleepover with another child in the same class. You have authority over them as long as they're in your care, and not one second longer.
    - tomrod 4y ago
      > "go home and stop being a Thunderbird member" That's what being banned by an organization is. If it feels similar to a cult, it's because cults are organizations too (I say this as a former cult member from birth who was shunned for leaving). Regardless of the merits of the organization, there aren't other effective ways to guide acceptable behavior by its acolytes -- even criminal punishment by governments (organizations) is a related act.
      - 867-5309 4y ago
        >former cult member attention acquired. please proceed
        tomrod 4y ago
        LOL! Apologies, my intent is not to threadjack, just to show a different perspective. Another time, over beers perhaps.
- alexiaa 4y ago
  It very much depends on the situation. Sure, some harmless things you do outside work shouldn't have any effect on your work. But if we're talking about someone literally not believing that certain people (e.g. LGBT) should exist or have rights then I very much believe they can and should be shunned from everywhere regardless of whether they bring that bigotry to work or not. People have a right to not want to interact with others who make them uncomfortable. Imagine being forced to work with someone who doesn't want you to exist and being told to suck it up just because they don't explicitly express those views at work, only outside.
  - generalizations 4y ago
    > It very much depends on the situation. Sure, some harmless things you do outside work shouldn't have any effect on your work. But... Pragmatically speaking, you shouldn't expect that the only exceptions to these general rules of civilized interaction are ones you like or agree with. > People have a right to not want to interact with others who make them uncomfortable. Imagine being forced to work... a) No one is being forced to work with anyone else. b) If a specific someone might not want to interact with someone else, don't make that decision for them.
  - FeepingCreature 4y ago
    > being forced to work with someone who doesn't want you to exist Yes. That is what I endorse. Modulo "being forced to work"; I don't think anyone should be forced to work anyway, but that's not what this is about, it's about what's reasonable to expect. I think this is a reasonable thing to expect. Nobody was going to chain people to the keyboard while Brendan Eich was loitering in the room, aggressively existing at them while they worked. The question is, if one person cannot work with another, who is being unreasonable? Who should be forced to yield? In other words, is there a right to not be made uncomfortable by somebody's mere belief, no matter how vile, that supersedes the expectation of workplace civility? I do not believe in such a right - conversely, I believe that there is a duty of tolerance in the workplace; tolerance as a behavior, not as a state of mind. (Though, that said, I think Mozilla is far more symptom than cause.)
  - buscoquadnary 4y ago
- yellowapple 4y ago
  > Only, what happened was that it turns out you can't be a Mozilla employee and a certain kind of Republican in the same person It was worse than that. Folks called for his blood over a past endorsement of / financial support for California's Prop 8 and a Republican congressman (one who, at the time, was one of the few congresspersons at all - let alone among the Republicans - who even so much as paid lip service to the idea of electronic freedom and privacy). It didn't seem like any attempt was made to even so much as ask if he still supported that Proposition and that congressman - and that's a pretty reasonable question to ask when a large number of Democrat (and more modest number of Republican) voters and politicians alike have indeed shifted from opposing to supporting gay marriage and broader GSRM rights. Maybe he does indeed still oppose gay marriage, and that's why he decided to step down instead of trying to defend himself. Who knows? On the other hand, there's a pretty stark difference between "Mozilla employee" v. "CEO of Mozilla". It wasn't until he was appointed as CEO that his political leanings attracted criticism - and it's pretty reasonable to be critical of whether someone can objectively and fairly manage an entire organization and its employees while having contributed money toward the passage of a law that actively discriminated against at least some subset of said employees. Eich's situation seems much more understandable than attempting to excommunicate an ordinary contributor.

FeepingCreature 4y ago

I am fine with any judgment Mozilla make on infrastructure that they run and that belongs directly to the project, such as mailing lists, official chatrooms, etc. It's the addition of "unofficial" social platforms that irks me; it seems totalitarizing. Interaction of contributors outside the project ecosystem is none of their business. I prefer for society to be sliced "horizontally", rather than "vertically". I am not aware of good terms for that. I want the arrangement to be that people can spend some of their time contributing to some group effort, with no impact on other efforts; rather than that people belong to groups, totally: "I contribute to Thunderbird" vs. "I am a Thunderbird developer." The resigning of Brendan Eich violated that same rule as well. You work for Mozilla, then you go home and Mozilla drops out of your life. You are not a Mozilla employee unless you're on the clock. Only, what happened was that it turns out you can't be a Mozilla employee and a certain kind of Republican in the same person; the vertical isolation was violated. I think this is because people saw Brendan as "he is a Mozilla employee" rather than "he works at Mozilla." I am against that way of looking at people. I think it is important for the functioning of society that people can horizontally intermix rather than segregate. A core part of the horizontal arrangement of society is that when you leave the boundary of a project, you leave its mores behind you; you are allowed to codeswitch as you context switch. Any rule that penalizes you for behavior elsewhere that violates the local rules directly threatens this.

danielheath 4y ago
I think I understand you, and I think I broadly agree, but in this case the restriction was specifically on contacting other thunderbird members; that seems like it's clearly still a vertical slice to me.
- FeepingCreature 4y ago
  I think what makes it horizontal for me is that you can't "go home and stop being a Thunderbird member". A "Thunderbird member" is something you are, rather than something you do. So this effectively asserts project ownership over the person. This is why I don't care what they do on project media like ML. That's a social space that's reserved for the project itself, so fair's fair. It's part of their slice, but "Twitter, Facebook and Telegram" is not. It's like a school deciding that a child is a bad influence and isn't allowed to have a sleepover with another child in the same class. You have authority over them as long as they're in your care, and not one second longer.
  - tomrod 4y ago
    > "go home and stop being a Thunderbird member" That's what being banned by an organization is. If it feels similar to a cult, it's because cults are organizations too (I say this as a former cult member from birth who was shunned for leaving). Regardless of the merits of the organization, there aren't other effective ways to guide acceptable behavior by its acolytes -- even criminal punishment by governments (organizations) is a related act.
    - 867-5309 4y ago
      >former cult member attention acquired. please proceed
      - tomrod 4y ago
        LOL! Apologies, my intent is not to threadjack, just to show a different perspective. Another time, over beers perhaps.
alexiaa 4y ago
It very much depends on the situation. Sure, some harmless things you do outside work shouldn't have any effect on your work. But if we're talking about someone literally not believing that certain people (e.g. LGBT) should exist or have rights then I very much believe they can and should be shunned from everywhere regardless of whether they bring that bigotry to work or not. People have a right to not want to interact with others who make them uncomfortable. Imagine being forced to work with someone who doesn't want you to exist and being told to suck it up just because they don't explicitly express those views at work, only outside.
- generalizations 4y ago
  > It very much depends on the situation. Sure, some harmless things you do outside work shouldn't have any effect on your work. But... Pragmatically speaking, you shouldn't expect that the only exceptions to these general rules of civilized interaction are ones you like or agree with. > People have a right to not want to interact with others who make them uncomfortable. Imagine being forced to work... a) No one is being forced to work with anyone else. b) If a specific someone might not want to interact with someone else, don't make that decision for them.
- FeepingCreature 4y ago
  > being forced to work with someone who doesn't want you to exist Yes. That is what I endorse. Modulo "being forced to work"; I don't think anyone should be forced to work anyway, but that's not what this is about, it's about what's reasonable to expect. I think this is a reasonable thing to expect. Nobody was going to chain people to the keyboard while Brendan Eich was loitering in the room, aggressively existing at them while they worked. The question is, if one person cannot work with another, who is being unreasonable? Who should be forced to yield? In other words, is there a right to not be made uncomfortable by somebody's mere belief, no matter how vile, that supersedes the expectation of workplace civility? I do not believe in such a right - conversely, I believe that there is a duty of tolerance in the workplace; tolerance as a behavior, not as a state of mind. (Though, that said, I think Mozilla is far more symptom than cause.)
- buscoquadnary 4y ago
yellowapple 4y ago
> Only, what happened was that it turns out you can't be a Mozilla employee and a certain kind of Republican in the same person It was worse than that. Folks called for his blood over a past endorsement of / financial support for California's Prop 8 and a Republican congressman (one who, at the time, was one of the few congresspersons at all - let alone among the Republicans - who even so much as paid lip service to the idea of electronic freedom and privacy). It didn't seem like any attempt was made to even so much as ask if he still supported that Proposition and that congressman - and that's a pretty reasonable question to ask when a large number of Democrat (and more modest number of Republican) voters and politicians alike have indeed shifted from opposing to supporting gay marriage and broader GSRM rights. Maybe he does indeed still oppose gay marriage, and that's why he decided to step down instead of trying to defend himself. Who knows? On the other hand, there's a pretty stark difference between "Mozilla employee" v. "CEO of Mozilla". It wasn't until he was appointed as CEO that his political leanings attracted criticism - and it's pretty reasonable to be critical of whether someone can objectively and fairly manage an entire organization and its employees while having contributed money toward the passage of a law that actively discriminated against at least some subset of said employees. Eich's situation seems much more understandable than attempting to excommunicate an ordinary contributor.