One concern I have is the phrase "explicitly honour" in "we explicitly honour diversity in: age, culture, ...".  Honour is a curious word choice.  honour is defined as, among other things, "to worship", "high public esteem; fame; glory", and "a source of credit or distinction". 

I think that last one is, in fact, the point.

So I'll use the last one, honour = "a source of credit or distinction".  The simplest definition of diversity is a range of different things.  What is the range?  If it just minimum, i.e. more than one, the honouring diversity loses its power.  If its up to each individual to decide, then its just a trivial statement that each person can honour what they want to honour.  Hypothetically if someone defined gender identification diversity as only a traditional male and female as decided at birth, that is "a range of things", but that would be blatantly against the point of the CoC.  An arbiter to decide the range has another large set of problems.  Its clear to me at least that it must be a maximal range.  Political diversity now has obvious issues.  Some political views are abhorrent to me, and a range of political views that includes them is not at all a source of credit or distinction to me.  And this problem is broader than just politics.  Back to gender identification, hypothetically if someone identified as a female on odd days of the month and male on even days of the month, I would probably think they are just making a mockery of an important issue and therefore not believe it to be a source of credit or distinction.  My point is that no matter what I would welcome them, be respectful, and be friendly.  That is why i suggested replacing honour with welcome.  Finally I strongly believe that for CoC's to result in positive change they must be carefully read and reflected upon.  That was my goal here.  I hope it has been worth the time.  But if not take comfort that this is my last email on this topic.

On Tue, Aug 7, 2018 at 12:31 PM, Chris Barker <chris.barker@noaa.gov> wrote:
On Mon, Aug 6, 2018 at 5:30 PM, Matthew Harrigan <harrigan.matthew@gmail.com> wrote:
It's also key to note the specific phrasing -- it is *diversity* that is honored, whereas we would (and do) welcome diverse individuals.

I'm afraid I miss your point.  I understand that diversity is what is being honoured in the current CoC, and that is my central issue.  My issue is not so much diversity, but more that honour is not the right word.  We all agree (I think/hope) that we should and do welcome diverse individuals.  That actually paraphrases my suggested edit:

Though no list can hope to be comprehensive, we explicitly welcome diversity in: age, culture, ethnicity, genotype, gender identity or expression, language, national origin, neurotype, phenotype, political beliefs, profession, race, religion, sexual orientation, socioeconomic status, subculture and technical ability.

I think the authors were explicitly using a stronger word: diversity is not jstu welcome, it is more than welcome -- it is honored -- that is, it's a good thing that we explicitly want to support.
 
Practically speaking I don't think my edit means much.  I can't think of a situation where someone is friendly, welcoming, and respectful to everyone yet should be referred referred to CoC committee for failing to honour diversity.  One goal of the CoC should be to make sure that diverse people from potentially marginalized or targeted groups feel welcome and my edit addresses that more directly than the original.  But in principle the difference, to me at least, is stark.  Thank you for considering my view.


On Mon, Aug 6, 2018 at 1:58 PM, Chris Barker <chris.barker@noaa.gov> wrote:

On August 4, 2018 00:23:44 Matthew Harrigan <harrigan.matthew@gmail.com> wrote:

One concern I have is the phrase "explicitly honour" in "we explicitly honour diversity in: age, culture, ...".  Honour is a curious word choice.  honour is defined as, among other things, "to worship", "high public esteem; fame; glory", and "a source of credit or distinction". 

I think that last one is, in fact, the point.

Anyway, I for one think it's fine either way, but would suggest that any minor changes like this be made to the SciPy CoC (of at all), and that numpy uses the same one.

-CHB


--

Christopher Barker, Ph.D.
Oceanographer

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