Re: [rain1 at airmail dot cc] Delete abortion joke

[Alexandre Oliva <aoliva at redhat dot com>]

On May  3, 2018, Zack Weinberg <zackw@panix.com> wrote:

> But what's happening here and now is not censorship.  I committed a
> patch which I believed to have consensus of the active maintainers.
> The original author of the text removed by the patch objected to the
> change, and we are now discussing whether the text should be
> reinstated or replaced with something new.  Nobody in the conversation
> has any particular power over anyone else, and no decisions are being
> taken in secret or without recourse.  I still won't back the patch out
> myself, but if you or anyone else does, I can't stop you.

I respectfully disagree.  The group does have that power, and it is
wielding that power against its leader, while the leader attempts to
resist with minimal support.  That's the struggle underway.

Would you agree to name it an attempt at censorship?

> It's fair to ask why I didn't consult RMS.  First off, I honestly did
> not know that he reads and replies to email in batches with a day or
> more of lag.

Thanks for the clarification.  I hereby acknowledge that neither your
general stance nor your description seem to support the notion that you
behaved with an intent to deny RMS a chance to oppose the removal, or
that you deviated from the community procedures.  This is quite a
relief.

> Speaking only for myself, it is not moral discomfort that I am
> concerned with when I say that the manual should avoid the topics of
> abortion and abortion-related censorship.  I am concerned with
> personal trauma.  I know people who have actually had abortions.  I
> also know people who _didn't_ have abortions despite significant
> family pressure to do so.  For all of them, the incident is long in
> the past, but the nerves are still raw enough that it is not something
> casually discussed, certainly not joked about.

Given your accumulated experience at your day job, could you offer
insights on personal trauma of people who suffered censorship, and how
they might react to humor denouncing censorship?  That would probably be
a far more valuable insight for the conversation at hand.

Thanks,

-- 
Alexandre Oliva, freedom fighter    http://FSFLA.org/~lxoliva/
You must be the change you wish to see in the world. -- Gandhi
Be Free! -- http://FSFLA.org/   FSF Latin America board member
Free Software Evangelist|Red Hat Brasil GNU Toolchain Engineer