I tend to keep out of these types of discussions because they have a tendency to be rather polarizing, and when introduced in an unrelated environment (such as python-ideas or python-dev), tend to do nothing other than set people against each other. But, after the above message, I feel obligated to respond. Also, keep in mind that I'm stating this as someone who fully agreed with the change made (as mentioned earlier in the thread).

Thomas Wouters wrote:
> I'm not sure who 'our' is in this sentence, but I'm certainly not glad Python ever took any of your patches

Regardless of thoughts on the above matter, this is absolutely uncalled for Thomas, especially coming from someone who has served on the PSF board and was elected for the upcoming term. As someone who voted for you in the recent election thinking you would represent the core development team well, the above statement does make me question that to some degree. I hope this situation is an outlier, and not indicative of how problems will be addressed in the future.

I for one greatly appreciate the contributions by Giampaolo. Our CI would be nowhere near where it is today without his help, not to mention the countless refleaks, bug fixes, and expertise provided on a vast number of issues. I could go on, but quite frankly it's not especially relevant, because I'd say the same for any other member of the core team or active contributor.

I really can't imagine in any way how this statement isn't a clear violation of the CoC (https://www.python.org/psf/conduct/).

> Acknowledging time and effort. We're respectful of the volunteer efforts that permeate the Python community. We're thoughtful when addressing the efforts of others, keeping in mind that often times the labor was completed simply for the good of the community.

The statement completely disregards the time and effort put into Giampaolo's contributions to Python.

> Showing empathy towards other community members. We're attentive in our communications, whether in person or online, and we're tactful when approaching differing views.

> Being respectful. We're respectful of others, their positions, their skills, their commitments, and their efforts.

The statement is clearly not tactful or respectful of his differing viewpoint.

> I'm not sure how much more clear python-dev and the PSF could have been that this is true. Your complaints of "racism against whites" here haven't gone unheard, unfortunately. They reflect very badly on you. They are incredibly harmful to many python-dev members and the Python community as a whole, and they reflect very badly on all of us.

I can see how the "racism against whites" argument could come across as being non-inclusive towards others, particularly because these arguments are often put forth by white supremacists for ill-intended purposes. However, telling someone who has devoted countless hours towards contributing to Python that "I'm certainly not glad Python ever took any of your patches" is pretty much the exact opposite of a tactful way to approach this issue. Even assuming that Giampolo's views are in violation of the CoC (which I'm not saying they are or aren't), the way to handle it is most certainly not also by violating the CoC against him.

If those views reflect badly on us, I think it reflects even worse on us that we have to resort to telling people that their contributions are not valued because they have a different point of view, even if that view is offensive to others. Are we not capable of having this discussion in a civil manner? I realize that this is a topic that is dear to many people (including myself, as someone who is politically progressive), but that does not make this sort of exchange acceptable.



On Tue, Jun 30, 2020 at 5:59 AM Thomas Wouters <thomas@python.org> wrote:


On Tue, Jun 30, 2020 at 4:28 AM Giampaolo Rodola' <g.rodola@gmail.com> wrote:
This is not about the commit message. It’s way more than that. It's been going on non-stop and got increasingly worse since at least the preparation of the Python elections ~2 years ago. It is not normal what is going on here. People are scared. And it is pretty much guaranteed that this is not gonna be the last occurrence of it. On the horizon we have other language-related controversies like "whitelist" / "blacklist", renaming "master" to "main" in GIT, and who knows what else (maybe "whitespace"? or @property?).

I don't have words for the irony of complaining about changing words while objecting to the wording in a commit message. Especially considering the commit message isn't nearly as visible as the places that people have actually been fixing things like master/slave.
 
And every time that's gonna happen the motivation is gonna be about white supremacy/privilege/guilt etc. Because it's always about that, and we'll be having this discussion once again. On one hand Python gladly takes our patches and everything is smooth,

I'm not sure who 'our' is in this sentence, but I'm certainly not glad Python ever took any of your patches. No contribution to Python outweighs the harm you're doing by espousing and advocating for these views. This kind of sentiment scares away a lot of valuable contributors -- I know this because *they have told me* -- and that you're doing it while arguing against a change to a different (unintentional but still harmful) gatekeeping mechanism just makes it so much worse.
 
on the other hand it wants us to not only accept "this" and be quiet, but also to take a stand and be an ally in the battle against the vocabulary "or else". So what's the point of contributing if the emotional distress and the risk that comes with it are so high?

This is exactly why we want you to stop, yes. You're causing a lot of emotional distress in people, and putting people at risk. You're even causing it in people *in your purported demographic*, like me, let alone the people you're trying to disadvantage. Stop it.
 
In the previous discussion preceding this one where one PSF member left because it all got so political, somebody posted anonymously (and gently) for fear of repercussions. The same fear has been expressed in this thread. In the other thread it has even been suggested that "being silent re. <the cause>" == "being complicit". I mean, are you serious? I explicitly avoided to comment on that because I didn't even know where to begin to explain how profoundly wrong that is on so many different levels. How irrespectful it is to ask people who just want to contribute some code here to take precise political sides or be damned if they don't. How unfair it is to do that especially towards old-time contributors. And now I even have to hope some moderator will be reasonable enough not to mark my emails as "white suprematism" (LOL) and send them through. This is just ridiculous. I've never been pro-CoC, but even if I were, this is what the enforcement part of the CoC dictates:

> https://www.python.org/psf/conduct/enforcement/
> Reports that are not made in good faith (such as "reverse sexism" or "reverse racism") may receive no response.

...so even the CoC won't help. So this is why this problem is more profound than a simple commit message. It's gonna happen again and again, until everybody gets in line, shuts up or leaves due to exhaustion.

I'm not sure how much more clear python-dev and the PSF could have been that this is true. Your complaints of "racism against whites" here haven't gone unheard, unfortunately. They reflect very badly on you. They are incredibly harmful to many python-dev members and the Python community as a whole, and they reflect very badly on all of us. The option you should take is to learn how wrong you are in this. There are very, very many resources online explaining why reverse racism isn't a thing, *even if* someone was racist against you for being white (rather than judging you on your words or actions, as I'm doing here). Nobody here is being racist against (cis, het, etc) white males, even though we want to be *less* racist (and sexist, ablist, etc.) against others. We want to be more welcoming, not less --  but not to people who make the community less welcoming. If you can't accept this, please leave the community.

 


On Mon, 29 Jun 2020 at 22:28, David Mertz <mertz@gnosis.cx> wrote:
Can we simply revise the commit message to something neutral like "Removed specific reference to Strunk and White in favor of generic urge for language clarity."

That's all the change actually was; there's no need for the other debate or broad political background.

On Mon, Jun 29, 2020 at 3:28 PM Rhodri James <rhodri@kynesim.co.uk> wrote:
On 29/06/2020 17:24, Abdur-Rahmaan Janhangeer wrote:
> Threads like these are meaningless, does not provide any learning
> value and is nowhere near the single vs double quote thread.

I'm afraid I couldn't disagree more.  Since the PSF has seen fit to make
a political statement (re Black Lives Matter, and I don't particularly
disagree with either the statement or the choice of making it), threads
like these are both inevitable and necessary.  When such statements are
made, it is generally a good idea to be reasonably sure that the
community one is representing is broadly OK with that statement.  (I
speak in vague terms because you will never get 100% agreement from
anyone on anything!)

The commit message that sparked this all was, quite unnecessarily, a
political statement.  The threads have demonstrated that it is not even
vaguely universally accepted, so it being in the PEPs repository (not
just a PR, it's there, public, and effectively representing you and me)
is a problem.  That it's still there now is pretty unacceptable in my book.

--
Rhodri James *-* Kynesim Ltd
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