On 7/11/23 18:28, Natasha Ament wrote:
Hi Simon,
I think there is a misconception about the rainbow flag.
The rainbow flag is all about inclusivity is apolitical.
However the people who don't like diversity try to politicize it. Common decency and being able to be who you are without bias, harassment and bullying is not so much political but something every human being may expect.
From my personal experience as being transgendered has been an experience I don't want anyone to endure.
Suffice to say bullying has followed my entire life and sometimes still raises it's ugly head. However over time I've grown stronger and defiant out of necessity.
The mere fact of labeling the flag as something political is the same as trying to be 'neutral'. It basically offers those who want to bully a carte blanche. What's next? The pronouns a person 'chose' are political and I choose to ignore them?
So the flag raises awareness, nothing more nothing less. It shows to future contributors like myself (just starting) that openSUSE is place that welcomes you as you are. The flag is very much appropriate to achieve this. I'm not singling you out. My ramblings address the people who don't see a problem with abolishing the flag.
To be clear I agree with you, although some do see it as a "political" symbol. I was mostly using that wording in lieu of not being able to think of any better wording, if you could recommend some that would make my life easier. Also as I see it the discussion this time unlike last time is not around whether we get rid of the use of the flag / artwork entirely but about whether we use it all year round or use our regular branding outside Pride Month. Cheers Simon
On Tue, 11 Jul 2023, 08:31 Simon Lees, <sflees@suse.de <mailto:sflees@suse.de>> wrote:
On 7/11/23 14:08, Maurizio Galli wrote: > Simon Lees wrote: >> On 7/10/23 18:25, Maurizio Galli wrote: >>> How can we improve our community by listening to what the community actually wants? Can we create a voting system? >>> As Simon already pointed out we have one but it's usually for things that would affect the whole project, not for grievances that are only specific to a communication platforms not everyone uses (in this case Reddit). > >> I have also had people from different diverse backgrounds who have in >> private thanked me for not just shutting down this discussion because >> they also don't feel that we as a community have got the balance >> completely right and feel that it is something we should still discuss. > > Speaking of balance, please, let's remember every time this started it's because we have a banner on Reddit (I know shocking), with a subtle artwork with little color supporting a minority group and someone wanted it taken down, multiple times now. Many of our developers and contributors are LGTBQ+ and if you asked me the current path is the correct one. Taking down the rainbow symbol actually means more to those represented by it than those who insist on taking it down. This is not being militant nor activism, it's showing solidarity. Stopping this would send a far worse message to those who feel welcome because of it than it would to those who feel bothered or offended by it.
I think the root cause here is more the question of "How political should openSUSE as a project / organization be?" If we have a good understanding of this then all these questions can just go away. For example on this list there seems to be a conciseness that having Pride Flags for Pride month while obviously being a statement (why would we do it otherwise), is a statement that's acceptable to the broader community.
On the other hand people have expressed that they are less comfortable with a statement year round as they believe it may alienate others which is a fair position to have as has been pointed out many organisations share this opinion. While we know that atleast several people share this opinion we currently have no idea how many do. Maybe having more concrete data on this would allow us to put together a clear statement and then we wouldn't have to have the question come up every few months etc.
>> Given how sensitive this subject is and how much fear there is from some >> people about speaking there own opinions probably the only way we as a >> project can know where the members actually sit is an anonymous poll. > > I think it's clear by now the admins on Reddit and other communication platforms want to continue show solidarity for now and have no intention to comply with the demands. Having a poll is not going to change their determination as we have already seen.
Yes but at the end of the day the Reddit and other admins (along with any group using the openSUSE Trademark) are accountable to the board and so if the board were to decide that the conflict here should be resolved differently the reddit admins would be bound to that.
I am in no way suggesting that it's likely the board would do that in the current instance, they are equally in there right to decide we don't need more data on this question and to take no further action. If people disagree with that position then i'd strongly encourage them to run for the board at the end of the year on a platform of a less political openSUSE. If someone gets elected on that platform then we will maybe know that as a community we have gone too far one way or the other and there's community interest in making some level of change without having a poll on the issue directly.
Cheers.
-- Simon Lees (Simotek) http://simotek.net <http://simotek.net>
Emergency Update Team keybase.io/simotek <http://keybase.io/simotek> SUSE Linux Adelaide Australia, UTC+10:30 GPG Fingerprint: 5B87 DB9D 88DC F606 E489 CEC5 0922 C246 02F0 014B
-- Simon Lees (Simotek) http://simotek.net Emergency Update Team keybase.io/simotek SUSE Linux Adelaide Australia, UTC+10:30 GPG Fingerprint: 5B87 DB9D 88DC F606 E489 CEC5 0922 C246 02F0 014B