Re: Reminder: Unsuitable language & Code of Ethics & Professional Conduct

Thank you Tzviya.
Our responses crossed, and you have boiled things down much better than I
ever could have.

Mike Prorock
CTO, Founder
https://mesur.io/



On Mon, Jan 31, 2022 at 9:05 AM Siegman, Tzviya <tsiegman@wiley.com> wrote:

> Hi All,
>
>
>
> I am going to step in for a second as one of the authors of the W3C’s Code
> of Ethics and Professional Conduct. Thanks, Heather for sending the
> reminder. I have not read through the entire email list, and I am not
> searching code violations.
>
>
>
> One of the roles of the chair is setting the tone of the group. When
> things on a mailing list or repo seem to be getting heated, even if there
> is not one item that can be singled out, it is a good idea to send a
> reminder that we operate under a code that sets a tone of respect. Newer
> members might not be familiar with it. People who have been around for a
> while might want to review it.
>
>
>
> A few points to consider:
>
>    - W3C is international. Use of a political term in the US might have a
>    very different meaning to someone in another country.
>    - Jokes are not funny if they mock something personal. Please consider
>    how you would feel if someone made a joke about your blue eyes, your
>    height, your gender, your nationality, etc.
>    - Lastly, CEPC has a section called “Safety versus Comfort
>    <https://www.w3.org/Consortium/cepc/#safety-versus-comfort>”. If
>    someone feels discriminated against, their safety is prioritized over the
>    comfort of the person who is alleged to have discriminated against them.
>    This might seem mild in the case of off-putting terms, but we take it very
>    seriously. Please understand that there are people who deal with “slightly
>    offensive” terminology daily, and it gets old fast. Heather does not owe
>    the group any explanations. Please take it upon yourself to review your own
>    words and consider what may have offended someone.
>
>
>
> Tzviya
>
>
>
> *Tzviya Siegman*
>
> Information Standards Principal
>
> Wiley
>
> 201-748-6884
>
> tsiegman@wiley.com
>
>
>
> *From:* Joe Andrieu <joe@legreq.com>
> *Sent:* Monday, January 31, 2022 7:35 AM
> *To:* Credentials Community Group <public-credentials@w3.org>
> *Subject:* Re: Reminder: Unsuitable language & Code of Ethics &
> Professional Conduct
>
>
>
> ⛔
>
> This is an external email.
>
> On Sat, Jan 29, 2022, at 10:11 AM, Heather Vescent wrote:
>
> CCG Community,
>
>
>
> There have been two recent instances of language in list messages that was
> unsuitable. I believe those using the inappropriate language meant well and
> did not fully think how their words would be perceived. Nonetheless, the
> language choice was unfortunate and disrespectful to some in our community.
>
>
>
> All members of the CCG agree to abide by the Code of Ethics and
> Professional Conduct: https://www.w3.org/Consortium/cepc/
> <https://urldefense.com/v3/__https:/www.w3.org/Consortium/cepc/__;!!N11eV2iwtfs!scJRSNuIbs8lcbLlUZPPdqtMu3Bt2KRYMKxkxHt5m1ZfLL0T26l9TqLUfZh-I3L0iqX5ep8Jww$>
> .
>
>
>
> CCG members come from all over the world and many different backgrounds.
> We all need to take that extra moment to think about how someone from a
> different background is going to interpret what we say.
>
>
>
> Thank you,
>
>
>
> -Heather Vescent
>
> CCG Co-Chair
>
>
>
> Heather, I couldn't agree more with your call to be respectful in this
> Community Group, however, if you were referring to my email, I disagree
> that my email was anything of the sort.
>
>
>
> To that end, I'd appreciate it if either you and your co-chair, Mike
> Prorock, could cite the "offensive language" you reference and explain how
> that violates the CEPC. Whoever it is that you are calling out deserves an
> opportunity to clarify and defend whatever it was that caused the slight,
> and the community deserves an opportunity to see that debate to understand
> and make clear their own position on the matter should they care to. If
> *my* language was offensive enough to be called out, I deserve the respect
> of being informed what specific language is alleged to be so offensive.
> Often such notices are first done privately, but as you raised this as a
> public point, I request that you respond publicly so that whoever has
> caused offense may clear their name.
>
>
>
> The passive-aggressive shaming without naming in your email, and the
> chiming in by your co-chair, is exactly the kind of abuse of power that *I*
> find both disrespectful and inappropriate by leadership in an open public
> forum. Please state the offense so that it can be discussed in a forthright
> and civil manner.
>
>
>
> Reading between the lines, I can't help but interpret your message as in
> regards to my own email, to which two members of this community responded
> negatively (and three favorably). Since I feel personally targeted by your
> attack, I am responding directly. My apologies if you were referring to
> someone else's comments. Hopefully my comments are constructive in any case.
>
>
>
> I don't know exactly which language you are referring to nor why, so I'll
> respond to the messages from individuals who were courteous enough to show
> me the respect of explaining exactly what in my message they disagreed with.
>
>
>
> On Fri, Jan 28, 2022, at 2:21 AM, Nikos Fotiou wrote:
>
> Stating that the conclusion of a blog post of a person, who leads the
> efforts for privacy in the internet, are equally dangerous to the opinions
> of a dictator that killed thousands in Europe, is offending, to say the
> least.
>
>
>
> I'm sorry that the way I attempted to raise a serious issue offended you.
> If you or your parents or grandparents were affected by fascism in Europe,
> I can appreciate your reaction. However, as an American, I share with
> you my own frustration that my concerns were dismissed because of a
> reference to an historical situation that should, in fact, be seen as
> exceptionally relevant to our conversation and deserves to be brought into
> the discussion.
>
>
>
> My own country is in the midst of an ongoing, violent insurrection that
> attempted to overthrow our government by force, whose leaders remain at
> large and many likely still hold office, potentially in multiple branches
> of our government, and whose leaders, foot soldiers, and lieutenants
> continue their campaigns of violence, disinformation, and propaganda. In
> the open. I'm not the first to point out that the dynamics occurring today
> in the United States bear a disturbing similarity to the rise of fascism in
> Europe in the 1920s and 30s. The arguments made during that rise are
> vitally relevant to what is happening today.
>
>
>
> In case the numbers of deaths is relevant to your comment, I'll say this.
> I have little doubt that the actions of American fascists have already
> killed thousands of Americans, and we reach that threshold just from their
> continuing disinformation campaigns about Covid-19. The pandemic has
> claimed at least 882,000 lives in the United States alone and over 5.65
> million worldwide. I don't blame the American fascist movement for all of
> these deaths--I don't buy into any conspiracy theories on that front--but
> they are certainly culpable for undermining a coherent collective response
> to the pandemic in pursuit of purely political advantage.
>
>
>
> So, yes, I think the continued dismissal of the moral right to enable
> individuals to run their own servers, and therefore arguing that we should
> all just accept the power imbalance and let big tech run everything is at
> least as dangerous as Mussolini's advocacy of fascism based on an argument
> which reduces the individual to a morally irrelevant construct of the
> state. Perhaps I should have said "at least as erroneous". That would have
> been easier for many to hear, but personally, I do feel it is also as
> dangerous.
>
>
>
> Is it as dangerous as actually killing people in concentration camps and
> on the battlefield? No. But I didn't say that. I was especially careful
> with my words to align the arguments of today with the arguments of
> yesterday. Moxie's arguments are, in my opinion, at least as dangerous as
> Mussolini's. The propaganda machines of the modern day depend heavily on
> centralized messaging infrastructure like Facebook and I see a direct link
> between an individual's effective inability to run their own social
> networking server and the exploitive and ultimately fatal impact of that
> propaganda. A Web3 approach to social networking may, in fact, be able to
> break that link.
>
>
>
> You may or may not agree with my assessment of the situation or of the
> arguments, but for my concerns to be dismissed because you are offended by
> reference to arguments that justified violence done eighty+ years ago is
> inappropriate when we are seeing political violence and propaganda
> campaigns killing people today based on disturbingly similar arguments. And
> the unchecked centralization of the medium of those campaigns deserves to
> be called out.
>
>
>
> Moreover, not everybody can run a full ethereum node. You need a good
> internet connection and an SSD disk just to keep up with the new
> transactions. It is nothing like running your own web server. So being part
> of web2 with your own server is much easier and affordable than
> participating in web3, which is kind of ironic.
>
>
>
> Not everyone can run their own web server, either. Nor could they in 1995
> when the Web broke through into mainstream consciousness. The fact is that,
> for billions of people, "running your own server" is completely impractical
> whether Web1, Web2, or Web3. Nor is ethereum the best proxy for what it
> means to run your own W3 server. IMO, there is far more interesting work
> going on with chains other than Ethereum, and for some platforms, like
> Cosmos, it is nearly as easy to set up your own chain and run your own node
> as it is to set up a webserver. And the tooling will only get better.
>
>
>
> I was part of a team in 1994 that hacked server state onto a customized
> NCSA mosaic server to enable cookie-like features in support of a shopping
> cart for online sales of hot sauces. Before CGI. Before cookies. Before
> SSL. That wasn't easy. And most people didn't have the capability to do it.
> But it was possible. And we didn't need permission from AOL or CompuServe
> or anyone else to do so.
>
>
>
> *That* is what I'm arguing for. That people *CAN* run their own servers
> and participate as equals in the next generation information architecture.
> That people AREN'T beholden to massive centralized players like Facebook
> and Twitter. That's the freedom we all deserve. The problem with Web3 isn't
> that some players have found ways to establish themselves at perceived
> centers of the revolution--that's inevitable. It's that respected thought
> leaders like Moxie don't realize how fundamentally important a structural
> shift Web3 is, whatever that term really means. To me it means systems that
> use cryptography to allow anyone to participate in new forms of social
> institutions and commerce without dependence on trusted third parties.
>
>
>
> On Fri, Jan 28, 2022, at 3:58 AM, Philipp Schmidt wrote:
>
> On Fri, Jan 28, 2022 at 5:24 AM Nikos Fotiou <fotiou@aueb.gr> wrote:
>
> Hi,
>
>
>
> Stating that the conclusion of a blog post of a person, who leads the
> efforts for privacy in the internet, are equally dangerous to the opinions
> of a dictator that killed thousands in Europe, is offending, to say the
> least.
>
>
>
> I agree with this statement and hope the W3C remains a space for open,
> constructive, and civil engagement with technical standards.
>
>
>
> I agree with your hope. Which is why I'm saddened by your reaction and
> disappointed by the chairs' attempt to shut down this thread on the grounds
> of it being disrespectful. I, in fact, went out of my way to clarify that I
> give Moxie the benefit of a doubt and to focus my post on their *argument*
> and not on their person.
>
>
>
> I believe this community group is precisely where we need to have open,
> constructive, and civil engagements on technical standards, ESPECIALLY on
> how some ideas and architectures fundamentally support unfortunate power
> dynamics. Just as we must be aware of how our work affects those with
> disabilities or those in vulnerable groups. My exceptionally public
> position on many of these issues has always been for the protection of
> those with less privilege, especially those who can't navigate the complex
> risks of information services that can literally put them in harms way by
> divulging too much information to the wrong parties.
>
>
>
> Ableism. Sexism. Racism. Capitalism. Fascism. If we can't talk about these
> issues here, where can we talk about their impact on the standards we are
> co-creating?
>
>
>
> In my experience, labeling technical statements you disagree with
> “fascist”, makes it not possible to continue a constructive dialogue.
>
>
>
> Yes, unfortunately, that's often true. However, I don't believe we can
> have a constructive dialog about the innate fascism in certain ideas
> without actually labelling those statements as such. How can we talk about
> the impact of ideology without first being able to distinguish between
> different kinds of ideas? Some ideas are capitalistic. Some are communist
> or socialist ideas. And some are fascist.
>
>
>
> It is unfortunate that in the United States, and likely most of the
> Western world, fascism is so reviled that the term "fascist" has become a
> derogatory slur, which for decades could not be heard as a legitimate point
> of argument. When actual real fascism returned to political discourse, many
> took (and still take) the adjective as the equivalent of a personal attack
> and ignored (and continue to ignore) the actual statement about fascism
> re-emerging into public discourse without critical debate. "That's
> fascist!" was (and still is) interpreted purely as an attack, because we no
> longer had (and have) the ability to understand and discuss what fascism
> actually is. Perhaps you also hold this misinterpretation of my statements,
> that I was simply attacking Moxie because I disagree. Or perhaps you're
> just being pragmatic and pointing out the essence of the paragraph: people
> often can't handle discussions about fascist ideas. I'll give you the
> benefit of a doubt. I agree. It's a challenge to discuss these issues. That
> doesn't mean they aren't important to discuss.
>
>
>
> This effect is referred to as the Overton window and although it is real,
> as technical architects of the next generation of the World Wide Web, we
> need to be able to discuss technology beyond the bounds of normal
> discourse. We must be able to move outside the Overton window, else we risk
> propagating those very ideas so many are uncomfortable discussing. The
> safety of real individuals outweighs the comfort of those of us in this
> conversation.
>
>
>
> To clarify where I'm coming from, allow me to cite Benito Mussolini
> himself, from "The Doctrine of Fascism" (1932). Quotes are in order from
> the Doctrine, to reflect the dialectic of his argument.
>
>
>
> "...man is man only
>
> by virtue of the spiritual process to which he
>
> contributes as a member of the family, the social
>
> group, the nation, and in function of history to which
>
> all nations bring their contribution."
>
>
>
> "Fascism is therefore opposed to all
>
> individualistic abstractions based on eighteenth
>
> century materialism;"
>
>
>
> "Anti-individualistic, the Fascist conception of life
>
> stresses the importance of the State and accepts the
>
> individual only in so far as his interests coincide
>
> with those of the State,"
>
>
>
> "Liberalism denied the State in the name
>
> of the individual; Fascism reasserts
>
> The rights of the State as expressing the real essence
>
> of the individual."
>
>
>
> "Fascism is definitely and absolutely opposed
>
> to the doctrines of liberalism,"
>
>
>
> "If the 19th century was the century
>
> of the individual (liberalism implies individualism)
>
> we are free to believe that this is the
>
> “collective” century, and therefore the century
>
> of the State."
>
>
>
> "The keystone of the Fascist doctrine is its conception
>
> of the State, of its essence, its functions, and its aims.
>
> For Fascism the State is absolute, individuals
>
> and groups relative. Individuals and groups are
>
> admissible in so far as they come within the
>
> State."
>
>
>
> "The Fascist State organizes the nation,
>
> but it leaves the individual adequate elbow
>
> room. It has curtailed useless or
>
> harmful liberties while preserving those which are
>
> essential. In such matters the individual
>
> cannot be the judge, but the State only."
>
>
>
> When Moxie claims that the difficulty of running your own server as
> justification for dismissing the motivations of people who want to ensure
> that people CAN run their own servers, they are explicitly denying the
> moral authority of the individual in this digital world. He is arguing that
> we should curtail these "useless or harmful liberties" because in effect
> "the individual cannot be the judge, but the [group] only." However, if we,
> as individuals, can't run our own servers, we are forced to be subordinate
> to those organizations that can. Moxie argues that's the right way to
> approach digital infrastructure.
>
>
>
> Thanks to the business models of Internet Service Providers, it is already
> untenable for most people to run their own servers in their homes. You have
> to pay extra if you want the privilege of incoming traffic, often much more
> if you want static IP addresses. With the advent of IPv6, this is no longer
> a technical problem. It is a purely capitalistic one. We have already ceded
> far too much to this denial of the right of individuals to present
> themselves on their own terms in the digital world. The W3C isn't the place
> to correct the capitalistic excesses of ISPs, but it is a place where we
> build specifications that become standards. As such, we should take into
> account the fundamental value in enabling individuals to chart their own
> course, to be masters of their own domain, and to run their own servers.
>
>
>
> Moxie said "We should accept the premise that people will not run their
> own servers by designing systems that can distribute trust without having
> to distribute infrastructure."
>
>
>
> I reject this premise.
>
>
>
> What we should do is acknowledge the challenges facing people who want to
> run their own servers and make it easier to do so.
>
>
>
> It is also hard for the underprivileged to participate as equals in a free
> society. Should we take that as justification for ignoring the needs for
> the underprivileged to participate in a free society? No. We should take
> that as motivation for making society more open and more accessible to
> those without privilege. Can we truly flatten social hierarchy? No. Can we
> strive to make it flatter and more egalitarian? Yes. Do we do that by
> denying the fundamental value of individual participation? No.
>
>
>
> When we deny the moral authority of the individual at the architectural
> level, we engender runaway corruption by those parties who have the
> resources and wherewithal to host their own infrastructure and stand as
> digital sovereigns, for whom individuals are merely a means to an end.
>
>
>
> THAT is what I mean when I say that Moxie's arguments are, in fact,
> fascist.
>
>
>
> -j
>
>
>
> --
>
> Joe Andrieu, PMP
>                    joe@legreq.com
>
> LEGENDARY REQUIREMENTS
>    +1(805)705-8651
>
> Do what matters.
>                  http://legreq.com
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>
>
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>