Women and TLUG - a personal rant

[Randy Jonasz]

On 14-01-15 10:38 PM, William Witteman wrote:
> On 15 January 2014 22:12, Randy Jonasz <rjonasz-Re5JQEeQqe8AvxtiuMwx3w at public.gmane.org> wrote:
>
>> I must admit William's comment took me by surprise and shocked me.  But in a
>> free society where free speech is lauded and exported beyond our borders I
>> must disagree with the condemnations.  Are we to censor ourselves so only
>> anodine speech is acceptable?  Free speech involves the freedom to be
>> offended.  If William wishes to represent himself as someone who objectifies
>> women as sexual objects so be it.  Although he has my condolences.  Poor
>> taste and a lack of judgement is no excuse for censorship.
> I think you have confused two things here - freedom of speech, and
> freedom from consequences.  I don't think that anyone is attacking
> William's right to write what he wrote, what they are saying is that
> it is against the social norms and codes of civility to write such
> things, and they would prefer that he exercise his right to speak
> freely in another forum.
>
> In a mailing list, we can easily filter or ignore someone whose speech
> offends us.  In a meeting it is disruptive.  I would advocate much
> more tolerance on the list than I would at a meeting, but if we don't
> want this list which many of us have participated in for years to
> resemble the worst Youtube comment thread, then we must advise what
> types and characteristics of language and tone are acceptable.
>
> We would not censor him, we would ask him to stop, to reflect, to apologize.
I think William's comments will only serve to ostracise him from the 
list.  And that is up to each individual to decide.  No problem there.  
But to ban him from the list?  I disagree with that even if he doesn't 
think he did anything wrong.  And yes heckling at a presentation such as 
TLUG is unacceptable.  Keep your commentary to after the presentation.

Randy
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