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

[Chester Gregg <chetgregg at outlook dot com>]

Alexandre Oliva wrote:
> DJ's objection to the joke counts as objection to the proposal restoring the initial conditions because, after the fact, he says it meant it to be despite not having confirmed even reading the proposal.
> Other's claims, also after the fact, that they just refrained from voicing their positions because DJ's had already stated his also count.
> Ondrej's objection to removing the joke, however, doesn't count unless he restates it, because it might have been meant just as a joke, and nobody thought of asking him to confirm *before* going ahead and running over it.
> RMS's objection to removing the joke, written down next to the joke, doesn't count, because, well <insert hand-wavy note> and, yeah, we it should have, but, but, we didn't, and sorry, it's too late now.
> My and anyone else's unstated objection to removing the joke, that was not posted in a hurry because Ondrej's objection already was in effect, no, sorry, that doesn't count, because...  we don't want it to either.
> Are you not even just a little bit ashamed of displaying such a blatant bias?

The initial patch had a consensus. You're the only person I've seen propose
that Ondřej's remark may have actually been serious. It read as a joke to
everyone at the time of the patch, and nearly everyone since. I admit, based on
my life experiences and culture, I don't understand why you would think that it
was a serious objection. I'm trying, but your view of this as a serious comment
and RMS's joke as funny is not shared with the community at large. That's fine,
but does serve to underline the central point being made by many others: humor
is usually not an effective means of communicating seriously. Especially on the
internet, devoid of body language and vocal tone, with people from many diffent
life experiences and cultures.

I don't want to stifle humor in every context; it's generally fine in a small
community such as this mailing list, where people get to know each other, and
where dialogue can commence when there's confusion. It's just not appropriate
in a user-facing technical manual. Not everyone is going to parse it the same
way. Even with the added benefit of knowing it was supposed to be a joke, being
an American, and having heard of the rule being criticized, it still took time
to dissect the joke and understand what it was haphazardly trying to say. As
E.B. White famously observed, this kills the joke.

If Ondřej's remark was serious, I'm sorry for the misunderstanding, and I hope
he corrects the record. It doesn't change the community understanding at the
time of the patch.

RMS's objection, in comment form, predates the Pentium. His last commit to
glibc is nearly as old (1996). His last involvement on this mailing list is
over 2 years old. He's simply not involved in the project's development, as far
as I can see. It would have been a courtesy to seek his opinion, but so was the
perceived courtesy of not wasting his time asking him about it. It's also not a
requirement, wouldn't have changed the consensus, and that's why he's on the
mailing list.

If objections aren't on the record, they don't exist. Given that consensus does
not require unanimity, every objection needs to be stated. Even if it was just
a notice that you were reaching out to RMS for his opinion, and requesting that
the community wait. If objections are raised later, a patch should be submitted
and the consensus process will bear it out if that's actually the consensus.

---

In regards to your previous description of the patch as being "sneaky", that's
uncalled-for. This was the removal of a few lines of a non-technical, outdated
joke comment that hasn't been touched in 26 years. It hasn't even been
discussed in 19 years, as far as I can tell [1]. 2 days passed between when the
patch was submitted and when it was installed, with no serious objections. That
was plenty of time for a change of this narrow magnitude to reach a reasonable
consensus. There was no reason for Zach to believe that this seemingly
innocuous removal would cause such a schism.

On the contrary, when the patch was reverted, that violated the community
principles. You should have understood that it would be controversial, as
lively debate was still ongoing. Every change should follow the same procedure.
According to those community principles:

    Cases likely to need more review and a longer period before pushing a
    commit include: changes that have previously been controversial.

[1] https://sourceware.org/ml/glibc-linux/1999-q3/msg00012.html