Mailinglist Archive: opensuse-project (109 mails)

[N B Day <nbday@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Tue, 2010-03-09 at 22:05 +0100, Karsten König wrote:

> Hmm could you provide links?
Threads entitled "Novell for sale," and "Hardware Problem."

>  I found 
> http://lists.opensuse.org/opensuse/2010-03/msg00435.html , but another mail 
> from the same person seems to indicate its a random quote out of a bunch of 
> quotes he attaches.

How does that alter the case?  He could attach random gibberish 99% of
the time and it would not make any difference when he decides to insult
1/4 of humankind in the 1% of the cases where he attaches the
objected-to quotation.

> Have you actually replied to the person yourself that you feel offended?

In the off-topic list, as I said.  I'm not so much offended for myself,
as I'm concerned that we can ill-afford to start picking on people's
religions and cultures if we want this distro to grow.  And of course,
the Guiding Principles expressly say that we will not do this.

> I agree, the quote is distasteful and close minded, but I guess it's a quote 
> he likes and feels like sharing in his mails, it's after the actual mail so 
> just an attachment unspecific to the discussion.
Right! It is just meanness, a provocation and a violation of the Guiding
Principles.
 
> Most come from a christian and jewish heritage here, so most aren't offended 
> by a statement against islam. I don't think many would be offended by 
> attaching quotes against catholics, or against a stupid former president of 
> the USA, as people tend to have grown a thick skin on lists.

Then I weep for humanity.  I'll spare you the quotation from Pastor
Martin Niemöller about how they came for all the others before they
got around to him.


> I agree the quote is offensive towards muslims and should not be used on this 
> open list, but action should be chosen wisely, so cracking down on opinions 
> will not lead to a closed list where people feel they can't express their 
> opinion.
Opensuse-en isn't a general opinion list: it has a specific purpose,
which is to provide community-based help for openSUSE.  Lots of speech
isn't permitted there.  Speech which is destructive of community and
violates the Guiding Principles doesn't belong there.

> I for example love this: "There's probably no God. Now stop worrying and 
> enjoy 
> your life." and think it'd be my right to show that point of view in my mails 
> as well, and no this isn't meant to offend anybody.

That's perfectly fine, and I happen to agree with it.  I don't think
anyone would object to it as a tag line on opensuse-en since it is a
mere (if totally irrelevant) short statement of your own beliefs, not a
paragraph-long attack (borrowed from a long-dead bigot) on anyone else's
religion or culture.  I hope you can see the difference.



-- 
N. B. Day
39° 28.3964' North, 119° 48.6346' West, 1403m up
Aurelius up 3 days 5:10, 2 users, load average: 0.00, 0.00, 0.00
Linux 2.6.31.12-0.1-desktop openSUSE 11.2 (x86_64) Gnome 2.28.2


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