Re: Thanks to the culture of the Code of Conduct, I'm leaving

[unman]

I wanted to comment on this thread, but it has been closed.

[unman]

Apparently most of my comment was removed - what I then said was:

I would prefer users to work via the moderation team rather
than reach out via PM if they see an issue for moderation.
Could we have the sum total of the interactions with @rideordie? (Not
screenshots.)
I see no issue with the use of charged metaphors - I would be against
any attempt to police such language.

[renehoj]

We shouldn’t use the “my grandmother” anecdote because it’s sexist, but it’s perfectly fine to use rape as a metaphor?

[unman]

That’s right.

I never presume to speak for the Qubes team.
When I comment in the Forum I speak for myself.

[anon40932131]

the user referred to android as sexual predator and compared graphene os as a “smile of a” said predator.

personally i never experienced sexual violence. but i believe normalizing these terms is harmful around the debate of actual sexualized violence.
victims have a hard time to processing trauma, steping up, make them selfs heard, often people dont believe their statements and protect the predator.
casually dropping terms like this encapsulates sexual violence as a normal thing into our language. thus society… (see master/slave terms on device controlling)
mind you that almost any person identifying as female experienced some sort of sexualized violence.

going forward i will just report these things instead of messaging the person asking to reflect on their style of communication.

[Plexus]

The forum has a flag feature for notifying moderators. That should be used instead of reaching out to other community members directly.

[FranklyFlawless]

What do you mean by sum total?

[unman]

@anon40932131 I do not want you to speak for me. You should reflect on this.

I would like to be able to read the full exchange that led to a user feeling unwelcome on this Forum.

I never presume to speak for the Qubes team.
When I comment in the Forum I speak for myself.

[FranklyFlawless]

Sure, chronological order starting at the very beginning:

@rideordie

I’m less than expert on the topic of smartphones. However, I sense that having a secure OS running on a device designed to steal your information is counterintuitive. Both Apple and Google have been caught red handed “accidentally” gathering location data. That’s just the tip of the iceberg.

My sense is that there is no way to secure a smartphone. Not because the OS is insecure, but because the very platform is insecure. There is no way to secure a device designed to track all of your movements while bringing cameras and microphones everywhere you go, while dumping everything by default to the cloud scanned under government duress.

When I think of a smart phone, I see a rapist. GrapheneOS is the smile of a rapist.

@anon40932131 then responds to this exact quote via private message to @rideordie:

@anon40932131

When I think of a smart phone, I see a rapist. GrapheneOS is the smile of a rapist.

–

did you experience rape and think its appropriate to make such a statement?
if not, how to think people who experience the trauma of rape will handle such a statement? …
if so, do you think your experience reflects on other people who might have not fully processed their trauma?

please refrain from making such statements to keep this community a safer place.

Then the aforementioned topic was created:

@rideordie

https://forum.qubes-os.org/u/ymy

If I get more unsolicited harassment from @anon40932131 in my inbox, I’m going to leave the community.

The official purpose of the Code of Conduct is to enable people who feel uncomfortable to participate in a wider community. A well-known side effect of the Code of Conduct is to permit busy bodies to police people’s language.

According to @anon40932131 I’m not allowed to use the word ‘rapist’ unless I’ve actually been raped. He (his pronouns are in his bio) implies that I’m making the forum less safe by using that word. This is a ridiculous accusation.

Am I banned from using the word “American” unless I am an American? Of course not. What this language and tone policing reflects is covert power plays that privilege certain groups of people over others. It’s about sussing out whether you’re part of the ingroup or the outgroup. As someone put it, it’s about inEXclusivity.

This is why I’m against Codes of Conduct. As anybody knows, forums have always had rules. Codes of Conduct are political in ways that the rules never were, authorizing the application of covert power and influence.

Actually, you know what? I’m leaving. I’m not interested in being dragged into a Code of Conduct debate. My time is too valuable.

Anyone who wants to read my posts can read them at the Whonix forum. They are very clear about banned topics: nothing about Kali Linux or penetration testing. That’s a sensible “code of conduct”. Whatever is going on here, I don’t want to be a part of. If Qubes wants to authorize these kinds of people to police ordinary words, there’s no point in contributing.

I can ride or die alone, build my own tools and platforms.

There were further responses to this topic, but the damage had already been done at this point.

[anon40932131]

@anon40932131

going forward i will just report these things instead of messaging the person asking to reflect on their style of communication.

@unman i thought i made progress here, but i’m telling you again, such incident will not occur from my side again. i am deeply sorry that the person felt they could not express freely their culture of sexualized violence in writing. i think it is best if i delete my account instead of further disturbing anybody. people should feel safe here and not tone policed. all i feel is sorry and sorry is what i am.

[carlene]

Summing it up is pretty damn easy, if you ask me, even though you don’t.

@rideordie should’ve ignored the PM, but went full tard mode by leaving. But it’s probably from naivety.
@anon40932131 shouldn’t have tried to do the mod/admin job, but it seems like he’s continuing to make mistakes, same one rideordie did and is going full tard mode. Just say sorry, learn from your mistakes and move on.
The topic shouldn’t have been closed.
Wording, like it or not, are not an issue in these contexts(you can dive deep into philology and linguistics and lose), despite me personally not really liking it. If you don’t understand something, or understand it in your own way - it’s your problem. We’re not in the US and don’t try to apply your idiotic rules into here.
One more thing. Graphene OS is managed by highly unstable person. This is known for years now. Promoting it without being warned is doing evil. Same as with naive users trusting Tor, even these days.

The problem doesn’t lie in them though, sadly, otherwise I wouldn’t even think to step in.

I’m not sure when this whole charade began. Was it when all of the public topics slightly not related to Qubes started to close, or since gonzalo-bulnes became a mod, or since the ‘Preferred gender pronouns’ popped up all of a sudden, or maybe it’s just a natural degradation of people, even here, and/or a lack of effort from higher management, or everything at once, or maybe it’s just me?
Doesn’t matter much.
What matter is that Qubes doesn’t have that big of a community, know it or not, and it’s two steps(I pick my words wisely here) away from being a dead project.

Qubes should be focusing on some real issues it has and it’s users experience and keep the neutrality of whatever is, and allow open discussions on the digital privacy/security related topics.

I rarely write here and almost never write so much, but please, by all means, don’t fuck this up.

[unman]

Sure, chronological order starting at the very beginning:

@FranklyFlawless, thank you.

I never presume to speak for the Qubes team.
When I comment in the Forum I speak for myself.

[unman]

@unman i thought i made progress here, but i’m telling you again, such incident will not occur from my side again. i am deeply sorry that the person felt they could not express freely their culture of sexualized violence in writing. i think it is best if i delete my account instead of further disturbing anybody. people should feel safe here and not tone policed. all i feel is sorry and sorry is what i am.

Fair enough.

I never presume to speak for the Qubes team.
When I comment in the Forum I speak for myself.

[deeplow]

For context, I concerted the original thread into a private message. Accusing others of something is something that should be resolved privately with help from the mod team, rather than as a public spectacle. If one wants to raise forum moderation concerns, they are free to do so, but not accusining anyone else explicitly.

@unman this is why you cannot reply to the conversation. Only those who were already in there.

Timeline of what happened

Now, let’s recap the situation here:

1. user A posted a message using a sexual analogy (rape)
2. User B felt it was against the code of conduct and sent a private message to user A saying the use of sexualized language was not acceptable on the forum (this is right). The preferable alternative would have been to flag and let the moderators take the hate.
3. User A, outraged by getting their speach limited, created a public thread accusing user B for trying to limit their speech and threatening to leave the community
4. @deeplow converts the thread into a private message to limit conversation to those who were affected / had gotten involved. Accusations should not be a spectacle, that why this whole thing got out of proportion
5. (Later) user B apparently regrets sending the private message warning the user and trying to police their speech and asks for their account to be anonymized.

[deeplow]

@deeplow’s Take

(Not to be confused with the final moderatirs assessement)

• the use of sexualized language is against the code of conduct (CoC)
  • moderators enforce the CoC, therefor will remove sexualized language and sens official warnings to users who use it
  • yes, this is against free speech in its most absolutist sense. But that is not the goal here. The goal of the CoC as I see it is to promote professional, respectful conversations such that all feel welcome and not judged
• user B (a quite active user) ended up “deleting” their account, supposet out of shame of having told someone (a recent forum user) not to use sexualized language.
  • it’s regretable that this was the outcome. Feels a bit like the stories where the whistleblower is the only one who goes to prison.
  • flagging instead of MPing would have avoided this.

Conclusions

please, please, do flag. Let the moderators get the hate, if there’s any. But if for some reason any user tells others that something they did was not adequate (and it really was against thr CoC), they should never be the ones suffering any consequences.

[barto]

IMHO… sending private “moderation” messages is a big NO-NO.
But at the same time, replying to - or getting upset about - stupid/“moderation”/“uncalled for” private messages is also a big “NO-NO(-NO)”

Relax… the Universe is not revolving around YOU!

[rishavo]

I was date raped once and it made me more paranoid about everything. My interest in computer security increased after that point, but may have been there anyway. Comparing dark design that exfiltrates sensitive data through an insecure operating system with rape probably wouldn’t impact me unless I’m already having a terrible day. However, censorship and excessive micromanaging of language might be at odds with the decentralized yet secure spirit of Qubes. The rideordie poster’s response was somewhat over-the-top. It felt more like anti-woke “No one will tell me about diversity, equity, and inclusion at work! You’re trying to make me woke and I’m MAGA forever!” rather than a genuine call for discussion. That person could have also experienced rape and doesn’t want to talk about it or lie, just as someone else might be pretending to be edgy.

This forum is really welcoming. I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone banned here. This user wasn’t banned and can return whenever they like; they’ll probably create a new screenname eventually. What’s more important about discussions on sensitivity, policing language, wokism, and anti-woke hysteria – from my perspective – is that the forum caters to people of varying skill levels. Qubes can be challenging to grasp even for those who aren’t experts like me; I’ve learned a lot here despite not knowing how things work. I don’t think someone self-exiling themselves forever over one comment truly reflects anything about this forum. After reading what happened, it was mostly just drama – “Drama on the Qubes forum? Time to grab some Dorritos and soda… what’s going on?” But I don’t speak for all rape victims. I’m also paranoid that someone might have crafted their comment to elicit a response from me, hoping to learn more about my network protocols. The comment could even be a government psy-op.

As someone who has experienced rape, I’m more concerned about the potential risks associated with government surveillance than I am about insensitive language. The idea that my online activities could be monitored by hostile infrastructure is a constant fear of mine. This concern extends beyond language policing; it’s also tied to the use of Graphene OS and its compatibility with other secure systems. I’ve been impressed with Graphene OS as software, but I’m still wary about the potential risks posed by having it on a device in conjunction with less secure hardware. The presence of Graphene OS doesn’t necessarily guarantee security; it’s only one piece of a larger puzzle. Furthermore, I’m aware that cell phones are vulnerable to various attack vectors that I’m not even aware of. I think this fear is compounded by the fact that any phone can be used as a tool for harm, regardless of its operating system or hardware configuration. The threat landscape is complex and constantly evolving, making it difficult to stay one step ahead of potential attackers.

One major concern is having a cell phone without telemetry; even then, there are still potential firmware-level attacks that could allow an attacker to record my keystrokes through the microphone and exfiltrate sensitive data via cellular networks. This type of attack would be particularly insidious because I wouldn’t have visibility into where the stolen data was being transmitted.

I think this risk is a significant one, regardless of whether or not telemetry is present on the phone. The fact that cell phones can be used as vectors for harm makes me wary about relying solely on security measures like encryption and secure operating systems.

On the Graphene forum, developers have acknowledged that these components rely on the operating system; as long as the OS remains intact, such an attack is theoretically impossible. This alleviates some concerns I had about the potential risks associated with having certain hardware in conjunction with a secure OS like Graphene.

The better question at hand is whether an intact mobile operating system can guarantee complete protection against mobile firmware-level attacks and mobile data exfiltration.

There is also concern that electronic attacks could potentially be launched from a nearby phone, exploiting wireless energies to compromise a computer without direct physical access. While I don’t fully grasp the underlying mechanics of such an attack, my understanding falls short of comprehending whether it’s theoretically possible.

This post has been modified by GPT-4ALL to prevent style manipulation attacks. This is an alternate account, used for [optional: “security reasons” or “to protect my identity”].

[capsizebacklog]

I think we all need to show some tolerance. If we are too sensitive then it becomes impossible to discuss anything. And there are many cultures too, what you say could be bad in one culture but not in another. But I also understand the need for these enforced CoC because there are laws to follow and this forum is not anonymous, it would be easy to be taken down.

@rishavo

This post has been modified by GPT-4ALL to prevent style manipulation attacks.

Nice! When you say “to prevent style manipulation attacks” I guess you are talking about what’s called stylemetry or something like that. Where you can identify someone by their grammar and vocabulary and so on. I will have to look into that tool. I have been looking for something like that.

[sync]

I was even temporarily banned for quoting in my reply the post with “sexualized language”.

And I am deeply traumatized by the fact that there are people who can write things they want, and other people can reply to them or even message them directly when they have different opinions.

This is highly inappropriate and I my only hope that mods will prevent such things in the future. Please, do report everything you find inappropriate, so we can have a thriving and open community.

Because the forum is not a place for discussions, where you can express different opinions and disagree with other people.

[kenosen]

@sync

or even message them directly

Direct messaging can be disabled at the user level

Allow users to disable new PMs