secretlondon: Leaving Ubuntu-UK (via Mowser)

secretlondon (

secretlondon) wrote,
@ 2007-03-28 22:27:00

Entry tags: ubuntu

Leaving Ubuntu-UK
I've been asked to remove my journal from the Ubuntu-UK planet because of the language in the last post.

The anonymous comment made reference to "my recent reaction to an email on the ubuntu-uk's mailing list." - when I objected to a sexist joke. I am the only woman who posts on the mailing list (surprise) and no-one took it seriously. I consider Nik Butler to be the worst, Alan Pope seems fine FWIW.

Most people didn't even see that it was a breach of the code of conduct.

ANYWAY - I see no point in helping Ubuntu-UK look more diverse than it is. If GLLUG has many more women maybe you should ask yourselves why?

Congratulations boys - now you are all nice and safe in your male only environment. No-one will object any more!

UPDATE: Left the mailing list too! I dread to think what their irc channel is like..

This sort of thing makes me wonder if I'm right in retraining in IT. Maybe I'll be better off returning to local government. *ANGRY*

(Post a new comment)

fluffymormegil
2007-03-28 09:33 pm UTC (link)

*scratches head* Computer geeks objecting to someone saying "who the fuck"? I'm confused.

(Reply to this) (Thread)

secretlondon
2007-03-28 09:42 pm UTC (link)

The response gave it away by referring to my complaint on the mailing list. It's nothing to do with my language as it everything to do with not being one of the boys.

Someone posted as sexist joke. No-one said anything. I posted a one line comment that I thought it breached the code of conduct. The list then said it couldn't see why. No-one has apologised. Some of the leadership made "political" noises, but then jokingly said "Are we allowed to say point!" in a later response to someone. Obviously these humourless, politically correct feminazis want to to curtail your speech..

(Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)

This saddens me
(Anonymous)
2007-03-28 11:07 pm UTC (link)

Personally I didn't reply to the crap joke on the list because I find that's the best way to not encourage them. Maybe if there was a trend (2 or more) then I would probably have expressed an opinion.

I don't feel that as a result of my non-committal I was in any way agreeing with the posting of a crap (and sexist) joke or not. Maybe that's my naÃ¯vety on matters of sexism in public.

I have removed you from the planet as you requested but will be sad to see you go, it was more colourful (character not language) with you there.

Cheers,
Al.
(popey)

(Reply to this) (Parent)

One person
(Anonymous)
2007-03-29 01:31 am UTC (link)

- One persons comment on your blog does not constitute ubuntu-uk or represent the views of ubuntu-uk in any way.

- The joke on the mailing list may have been in bad taste for some people but there was was no malicious intent behind it.

- Some may say you were "humourless" "Politically correct.." when considering the joke on the list.

- To say "No one responded" is inaccurate because you did respond - this is how mailing lists work.

If you put your self in the public domain via your Blog and Emails you will get picked up on your views being inconsistent, as you do by default allow everything you write to be scrutanised. If you don't like what someone has said you can't lash out at the public (or in this case ubuntu-uk) that you write for.

Unfortunately you've put your self into a position where you have already alienated your self from the ubuntu-uk community, I am sad of this, as and many others will miss your blog posts and your contribution to the mailing list. If you wish to rejoin the community at any time, please feel free to sign back up.

Regards,

Michael Wood

(Reply to this) (Parent)

Take a break and reconsider
(Anonymous)
2007-03-29 03:30 pm UTC (link)

Managing human romantic relationships is hard. It is fraught with miscommunication and misunderstandings (whether male/female or same sex). The joke makes a humourous point taken from a male point-of-view. There are many variations on this theme (including from the female perspective). Life is difficult and frustrating at times and one way people deal with that is by using humour.

In this particular context, I think the poster was trying to make a similar point about new users with expectations carried from their previous OS (or desktop environment). He was just too lazy to s/woman/newb/g. If he had, would it have still been a breach of the code of conduct ? Would you still require an apology ?

Anyway, we would love to have you back. Not because you are a woman but because you were a contributor. Whatever your choice, good luck.

(Reply to this) (Parent)

elfbiter
2007-03-29 07:34 am UTC (link)

Seems to be the problem of whether answer or not. Others think that "not dignifying them with a response" is the best way, others have a good reason to object. If the majority of the list follows the first course, those who object feel they are being ignored as well and therefore those who said nothing are actually supporting a troll.

In my opinion, banning the jokester could have been the best way.

(Reply to this) (Thread)

Banning would be bad in itself
(Anonymous)
2007-03-29 12:24 pm UTC (link)

Quick note: I am replying as Anonymous as I don't have a LiveJournal account or OpenID. And LJ want a DOB, which I find suspicious so they get no personal Identifying info about me.

First of all I am not sure "banning" someone is even possible.
Secondly, who takes that decision, the community? I think the mailing list didn't appear to side with this kind of action. Many posters said nothing was done wrong.

You could of course drop the senders email that would have a similar effect.

Would not banning be a violation of the code of conduct. or even a violation of UK and European human rights? Free Speech is protected for a reason.

I missed the responses first time round, so I reread them all in the archive, useful that archive.

The moment we start excluding people for mistakes would be a bad day, I would much rather lose one person (no matter who) than resort to banning people form the community. The community would become dull with people to scared to post anything but the mundane. After all Ubuntu-uk isn't meant to be a technical support list (that's ubuntu-users) so one would expect we divert to more general discussion. (of course ubuntu-uk is likely to help with support if you ask there).

Oh and about IRC:
I don't see much "sexism" or anything on that channel so don't be rude about it's members till you have actually been there, (you may have been there I don't know).

Andy

(Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)

Re: Banning would be bad in itself

cjwatson
2007-03-29 10:04 pm UTC (link)

Even in the US where free speech actually is protected, it's only protected against suppression by the government. Protection of free speech does not mean that mailing list providers are obliged to publish everything they receive. There is no code of conduct violation and no human rights violation in banning somebody from a mailing list, and it's often the right thing to do.

(Reply to this) (Parent)

What the fuck

hughsient
2007-03-29 11:22 am UTC (link)

For what it's worth, I swear quite a bit on planet GNOME, but this is nothing compared to mjg59 :-)
I've never had any comments about my swearing, only my sometimes broken English. As a developer I don't care about the sex of my contributors. If you can code or write documentation, welcome aboard...

Seriously, if you want to work with gnome power manager or GNOME in general just drop me an email.

(Reply to this)

(Anonymous)
2007-03-29 11:27 am UTC (link)

I was always taught, don't respond to bullies. And you have just done exactly what he told you to do...

I'm sorry that you felt that the recent list discussion was sexist... TBH, personally, I just kept quiet, my opinion isn't worth much. My first reaction would be, its a joke. They generally are sexist/offensive to someone. In that particular instance, a Christian could be offended that someone is portraying their God badly. A woman can be offended that they are being labelled as "incomprehensible" and a man, because they are being told that they can never understand women.

Please don't take all this the wrong way... that anonymous commenter was a wombat, and our society is male-orientated, especially in the tech crowd.
I don't know why you objected to the joke, you said you thought it broke the code of conduct, but you didn't say how.
Discussion is needed, but won't happen without people to instigate it, it will never happen.

Kirrus

(Reply to this) (Thread)

Look!
(Anonymous)
2007-03-29 01:04 pm UTC (link)

Look at me! I'm an attention whore!

Sympathise with me!

WAH.

(Reply to this) (Parent)

tm
(Anonymous)
2007-03-29 01:52 pm UTC (link)

I don't really think anybody on net cares about your gender, especially IT people.

(Reply to this) (Thread)

Re: tm
(Anonymous)
2007-03-29 02:03 pm UTC (link)

Ofcourse people do:

Google for Kathy Sierra.

(Reply to this) (Parent)

(Anonymous)
2007-03-29 08:38 pm UTC (link)

What a tantrum! Time of the month?

(Reply to this)

Re: tm

nou
2007-03-29 09:17 pm UTC (link)

(Found out about this via

mjg59, if you're wondering where I came from.)

You may be interested in this post and comments. It's friends-only, but I'm about to add you so you can see it.

(For anyone else who's interested, since I know how much it sucks to see links to posts you can't read; it's a male programmer privilege checklist and I'm happy to email it to you if you drop me a line at kake@earth.li. But note that I'm unlikely to want to get into a discussion with you about it unless it's clear from your email that you have at least some grounding in gender and privilege issues, 'cos I'm quite busy at the moment and don't have the time to get total newbies up to speed. Also, my feeling about privilege checklists is that they're a catalyst for discussion rather than a definitive list of woes, so I'm not interested in nitpicking the details, either.)

(Reply to this)

princessleia2
2007-03-31 11:32 am UTC (link)

I notice that a couple comments here talk about "not responding" when people act inappropriately. I don't agree with this at all.

With the whole Kathy Sierra thing breaking this week there are no shortage of opinions and articles out there about how women are treated in Tech and everything that is not being done about it. Two of my favorites are:

Carla Schroder at the O'Reilly DevCenter Linux Blog: Open Season on Women - it's obviously written when she was angry, but that leaves it with a kind of emotion that's priceless. Carla really hits home with me on this one.

What some folks can do, if they choose - An impressive blog entry by a woman who details some steps MEN can take in "geekdom" to begin to put a stop to the sexism. It points out the "small" things like jokes as part of a culture of misogyny in "geek" communities, including that of most IT communities. Hint: She doesn't say "ignore the trolls" - she says get yourself burnt by making it known that sort of language is not appropriate.

This has not been a good week for women in Tech.

(Reply to this)

ffajeli
2007-04-01 02:41 pm UTC (link)

Wow. The whole debacle has seriously put me off getting involved with Ubuntu. Ironic, because it could so easily have been turned into quite the opposite...

I'd been quite looking forward to getting more involved with some open source project this summer, now that the compsci degree will be done and I'll finally have evenings again. Ubuntu *had* been at the top of my mental list, now I'd feel rather cautious...

(here via the ubuntu-women mailing list)

(Reply to this) (Thread)

Getting Involved
(Anonymous)
2007-04-02 02:04 pm UTC (link)

Don't let what happened here put you off, not all the ubuntu lot, including the [#ubuntu-uk] are complete idiots, whoever told Caroline to leave the ubuntu-uk planet was bang out of order. Please get involved :)

(Reply to this) (Parent)

(Anonymous)
2007-04-02 02:08 pm UTC (link)

whoever to you to leave, in my opinion was bang out of order. If you object to a sexist joke, fine, it should have been removed, just asking you to remove yourself because of a swear word in a blog post.....*sigh* sometimes the Ubuntu community sucks. Most of the time however it's a good place to be. Sorry to be anonymous, don't have a login. [VooDoo on #ubuntu-uk]

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