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Mozilla Moving Forward

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Re: Mozilla Moving Forward

#241

Post by bzbarsky »

arrrg wrote: post #240
bzbarsky wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So far so completely harmless. For a start, you're ignoring the death threats a number of people received, no? This wasn't just about people organizing boycotts; this was about a media-circus-fueled full on hate mail campaign.

The death threats really, really suck. That’s obvious. Absolutely no one should receive those. If he did receive any that’s awful. All of that is quite obvious. However, you shouldn’t use the reaction of a minority to invalidate the reaction of the majority. (I obviously don’t have number but do you really think any kind of majority sent hate mail?) I think your characterisation of this makes no sense at all. I also…

I think you're confusing two things.

There was the stuff people were writing in public (newspaper articles, hacker news), which was as you say harmless for the most part.

There was the stuff a different group of people were privately (if you count blog comments as private) sending to Brendan and anyone who came out publicly in support of Brendan. It was of quite a different tone.

The comments along those lines to Brendan I was not terribly surprised by, because some people just suck. The death threat responses to things like http://incisive.nu/2014/thinking-about-mozilla/ (and yes, there were a number of those)... I don't know what to tell you. People suck more than I expected, I guess.

Then of course there are the people who would like to pretend like that second group doesn't exist or to excuse their actions. That sort of behavior I just can't condone.

Obviously this second group wasn't a majority of any sort. It doesn't have to be. It just has to be big enough to make the situation completely untenable. And they will keep doing that sort of thing again and again unless someone bothers to tell them that it's not acceptable. Simple thought experiment: how many death threat mails does one have to get before it's worse than "some death threats"? Once you've gotten a few thousand, has that line been crossed? And a few thousand people is obviously a tiny minority of any relevant group in a situation like this one.

Re: Mozilla Moving Forward

#242

Post by mpyne »

wonderzombie wrote: post #220
mpyne wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And in this case, we're talking about a CEO, the public face of a company, not an otherwise private citizen. This is true, and similar to what got people like Adria Richards fired in other scenarios where they've lost the ability to be able to professionally represent their company through their speech alone. > Anyway, you're essentially arguing that free speech means freedom from consequences, and it just doesn't.…

Thank you for your thoughtful comment. I agree that the consequences should be modulated. I've said elsewhere that death threats are unacceptable, but this is an unsolved problem in society at large. It's not unique to Eich's situation. Other than that, the consequences are rather mild for someone with as deep a resume as Eich's. I'm sure we'll hear about it if he's been blackballed from the entire industry, or someo…

> I just don't see this situation as being a dangerous precedent in this context.

The OKCupid action by itself is a dangerous precedent though. People calling for Eich's head is one thing, that would have happened even if he were pure as the driven snow. But a company taking action against the users of a different company? Because that company chose the wrong CEO?

If that doesn't flip the WTF-o-meter I can't figure out what would?

Re: Mozilla Moving Forward

#243

Post by sdegutis »

Crito wrote: post #230
sdegutis wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh look. Another debate about religion and politics on the internet. Because the last one didn't change everyone's minds, but this time will be different. Better join in. You're right and we're wrong!! (Am I doing it right?)

Despite your cynical fatalism, the fact that the public's perception of the issues has been shifting rapidly in recent years suggests that people can change their minds. Just because you have no experience with changing your opinion on something does not mean that nobody else can or does. Consider how absurd you would sound if you were suggesting that the zeitgeist on racial or gender equality was an unchangeable con…

On the contrary, I have changed my mind on virtually every issue that I can think of. Several times.

But it was never because of random debates on the internet.

Re: Mozilla Moving Forward

#244

Post by jwarkentin »

ender7 wrote: post #62
jvehent wrote: post #10

People who are going to comment on this blog post need to realize how disturbing this episode has been for Mozillians. We are talking about a small group of people, a couple thousands at best, that work with limited resources to keep the web open for everybody. When this tidal wave hit Mozillians, the base contributors and employees who spend most of their days in code and features, we lost focus of our work, and ste…

"Accepting each other's beliefs" seems like a simple solution, but it has a very problematic result. To LGBT Mozillians, this becomes "you must respect beliefs that say that you are a second-class citizen." No one should feel like they must respect beliefs that devalue their person.

So if I believe I have the right to drive really fast and I think the laws need to be changed; but you believe I shouldn't have the right to go fast, does that mean that you believe I'm a second class citizen for believing I shouldn't have a right that I believe I should? Seems a bit like a logical fallacy and a strawman. Regardless of where you or anyone stands, let's at least frame the debate right. No one thinks that LGBT people are second-class citizens. To frame the debate like that is an appeal to emotion (also a logical fallacy) and ultimately fruitless, as it avoids the real debate.

Re: Mozilla Moving Forward

#245

Post by sbuk »

Trufa wrote: post #189
jvehent wrote: post #10

People who are going to comment on this blog post need to realize how disturbing this episode has been for Mozillians. We are talking about a small group of people, a couple thousands at best, that work with limited resources to keep the web open for everybody. When this tidal wave hit Mozillians, the base contributors and employees who spend most of their days in code and features, we lost focus of our work, and ste…

> I just wish people can put their differences aside, accept each other's beliefs. This sounds very nice and I agree with the sentiment, but has a big flaw in the argumentation. When you consider those beliefs directly contradict the freedom of other human beings, should you not act upon it? Switch the LGBT issue for race and you'll know what I mean.

> Switch the LGBT issue for race and you'll know what I mean.

Wow.

Re: Mozilla Moving Forward

#246

Post by arrrg »

bzbarsky wrote: post #241
arrrg wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The death threats really, really suck. That’s obvious. Absolutely no one should receive those. If he did receive any that’s awful. All of that is quite obvious. However, you shouldn’t use the reaction of a minority to invalidate the reaction of the majority. (I obviously don’t have number but do you really think any kind of majority sent hate mail?) I think your characterisation of this makes no sense at all. I also…

I think you're confusing two things. There was the stuff people were writing in public (newspaper articles, hacker news), which was as you say harmless for the most part. There was the stuff a different group of people were privately (if you count blog comments as private) sending to Brendan and anyone who came out publicly in support of Brendan. It was of quite a different tone. The comments along those lines to Bre…

Of course that’s not ok, but it also doesn’t define the issue to me. That just makes no sense at all.

Re: Mozilla Moving Forward

#247

Post by sentenza »

Yoric wrote: post #161
hackuser wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sure that can't feel good. Remember that you have over 500 million users and many more who know you. I suspect if you divide the number of supporters of boycotts, petitions, etc. by 500,000,000, you will get a very tiny number.

Thanks for the support :)

Also, Firefox is still number one here in Germany, where this issue was a non-story. Over here and in many other places, person and office are considered independent unless the personal opinions are directly pertinent to the office in question.

After all, if we (average Germans) applied our own present-day human rights views in the same way, we'd be boycotting organizations with CEOs that are homophobes, death penalty proponents, religious extremists, pro-lifers and so forth.

Re: Mozilla Moving Forward

#248

Post by bzbarsky »

arrrg wrote: post #246
bzbarsky wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you're confusing two things. There was the stuff people were writing in public (newspaper articles, hacker news), which was as you say harmless for the most part. There was the stuff a different group of people were privately (if you count blog comments as private) sending to Brendan and anyone who came out publicly in support of Brendan. It was of quite a different tone. The comments along those lines to Bre…

Of course that’s not ok, but it also doesn’t define the issue to me. That just makes no sense at all.

It doesn't _define_ the issue, but it's also inseparable from the issue in this case. If you want to understand why what happened happened, you have to understand this aspect of things.

Re: Mozilla Moving Forward

#249

Post by bunderbunder »

smsm42 wrote: post #237
bunderbunder wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, it depends on what you mean by "commonly understood under civil union umbrella". A lot of people mistakenly believe that civil unions are just a separate-but-equal version of marriage. That version of civil unions is a fairy tale. Speaking as one member of a couple that finally gave up on making a civil union work and went ahead with an actual marriage a few years back, I can say that there's a night-and-day di…

Whatever you understand under "civil union", prop 8 was not about it. It was specifically about "marriage". All the rest was already covered by California law. You can say it looks like "separate but equal" and benefits and other equality measures in domestic partnerships are not enough and only full recognition of same-sex unions as "marriage" is true equality. That's fine. But that doesn't make those who supported…

> in fact, domestic partnerships by that time in California were done deal and had the same status with regard to all law and benefits as marriage.

They couldn't have. The federal government does not recognize civil unions, and many of the benefits of marriage come in through federal law. Even with that corner of DOMA being repealed, a state can still effectively cut people off from the vast majority of marriage benefits simply by offering only "civil unions" and not true marriage.

Your misunderstanding of this point is exactly what I was getting at with the post above - one characteristic that is inextricably linked to things like the Prop 8 debate is that a huge percentage of people taking part in it simply don't understand the basic facts of the situation.

Re: Mozilla Moving Forward

#250

Post by Crito »

sdegutis wrote: post #243
Crito wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Despite your cynical fatalism, the fact that the public's perception of the issues has been shifting rapidly in recent years suggests that people can change their minds. Just because you have no experience with changing your opinion on something does not mean that nobody else can or does. Consider how absurd you would sound if you were suggesting that the zeitgeist on racial or gender equality was an unchangeable con…

On the contrary, I have changed my mind on virtually every issue that I can think of. Several times. But it was never because of random debates on the internet.

It seems incredibly silly to be biased in such a way against one particular medium.
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