In reply to David Arnold (blaggacao)
The changes with regard to this channel's status with respect to nixos hosting have been occasioned by the (heated) discussion in https://github.com/NixOS/rfcs/pull/111

I might be misunderstanding the issue here, but if I may indulge and give my opinion;

As far as I've understood, the primary objection to the private chat room is an ideological one; transparancy and openness is more important than a safe space for a minority community. Though I don't think I value the former any less than anyone else, I think transparency and openness are only valuable if everyone that wants to participate can participate. I hope we don't have to discuss the obvious problems of misogyny and queerhate that the tech community faces. I think having a space in which people can talk freely about these kinds of issues and how they relate to the nix community is an important one, and one that is needed to make sure we don't close ourselves off from decent chunks of the population. Transparency and openness start at the human level.

I agree that the RFC is too vague, but in a different way:

Alternatives

Allow private channels under certain well defined circumstances
Allow private channels with no restrictions
Keep the current ambiguous state of affairs

If I've understood correctly, the "current ambiguous state of affairs" is the existence of one private chatroom as a minority safe space. I might be too far removed from the project, but I don't see how this is a problem, as long as all technical decision making is done in the open and with plenty of room for discussion, which so far has seem to be the case.

b12f: thank you for the well reasoned response. If only we could have had more of this in the RFC thread and less assumption, things would have been a lot more productive. With that said, I'd like to dive in a bit if you don't mind:

I hope we don't have to discuss the obvious problems of misogyny and queerhate that the tech community faces.

I get the sentiment here, but this is also partially an issue for me. Why shouldn't we discuss it? Isn't that a requirement for actual understand, organizing and acting? Also, I'm not saying it doesn't exist, and I've seen plenty of examples of it in my own personal life and the wider internet, but I've yet to really see any major examples of this in any of the tech communities I have interacted with.

only valuable if everyone that wants to participate can participate.

Fully agree, but I think there is an important distinction to make here. Who is it exactly that made someone feel as though they couldn't participate? I think it matters if it's something external, vs an internal assumption without evidence. Not that I don't understand the latter, as I am totally familiar with feelings of shyness, and irrational fear of new people.

I just think, from my own experience at least, that this internal assumption is best addressed at a personal level, and a private chat with friends can surely be helpful with that as well, but what difference does it make if it is official or not? Either way, at some point I'd love for those individuals to just join us in the main chat, they may be surprised to find that myself and others would be more than happy to have them there.

Obviously, in the external case, things are different and moderation and understanding from the community and the leadership come in to play.

I think having a space in which people can talk freely about these kinds of issues and how they relate to the nix community is an important one

Absolutely! But in order to avoid that space from becoming an echo chamber which endlessly cycles through the problem without ever arrising at a solution, I personally think that space should eventually become the public rooms. A private chat is great to work up some courage, but at some point, if we really want to address something in the community, then it has to be addressed in the community yes?

b12f: thank you for the well reasoned response. If only we could have had more of this in the RFC thread and less assumption, things would have been a lot more productive. With that said, I'd like to dive in a bit if you don't mind:

I hope we don't have to discuss the obvious problems of misogyny and queerhate that the tech community faces.

I get the sentiment here, but this is also partially an issue for me. Why shouldn't we discuss it? Isn't that a requirement for actual understanding, organizing and acting? Also, I'm not saying it doesn't exist, and I've seen plenty of examples of it in my own personal life and the wider internet, but I've yet to really see any major examples of this in any of the tech communities I have interacted with. And that is a good thing!

only valuable if everyone that wants to participate can participate.

Fully agree, but I think there is an important distinction to make here. Who is it exactly that made someone feel as though they couldn't participate? I think it matters if it's something external, vs an internal assumption without evidence. Not that I don't understand the latter, as I am totally familiar with feelings of shyness, and irrational fear of new people.

I just think, from my own experience at least, that this internal assumption is best addressed at a personal level, and a private chat with friends can surely be helpful with that as well, but what difference does it make if it is official or not? Either way, at some point I'd love for those individuals to just join us in the main chat, they may be surprised to find that myself and others would be more than happy to have them there.

Obviously, in the external case, things are different and moderation and understanding from the community and the leadership come in to play.

I think having a space in which people can talk freely about these kinds of issues and how they relate to the nix community is an important one

Absolutely! But in order to avoid that space from becoming an echo chamber which endlessly cycles through the problem without ever arrising at a solution, I personally think that space should eventually become the public rooms. A private chat is great to work up some courage, but at some point, if we really want to address something in the community, then it has to be addressed in the community yes?

That's is a very important point. Cultivating a culture where the default public chat is assumed to be unsafe is equivalent to a culture of bad faith in my mind

Though the ideal would be that every chat is a safe-space by default, I think we have to acknowledge that this just is not the case. I personally haven't seen anything bad in the Nix community, but tech in general just can be very hostile[1][2].

In any case, I'd recommend letting the discussion rest for now. If at some point there is a decision made that was somehow discussed in private groups and never brought forward to discuss in public, then that'd be a point of concern in my opinion. Until that, I see no problems at all with private chats.

To expand a bit on your thoughts:

Either way, at some point I'd love for those individuals to just join us in the main chat, they may be surprised to find that myself and others would be more than happy to have them there.

I understand this, and to be honest I think the first impulse actually is to do this. I see the concept of safe space perhaps a bit differently; if we allow and support it, it is also us as a community saying "yes, we acknowledge there are issues in IT, yes we do want you here, no we will not stand in the way of anyone who needs to have private conversations about certain topics".

Absolutely! But in order to avoid that space from becoming an echo chamber which endlessly cycles through the problem without ever arrising at a solution, I personally think that space should eventually become the public rooms.

As said, unless this becomes an issue at the technical or project management level, I'd bury the hatchets and let whatever private spacer there are be.

[1] Random case in point: https://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/mburmc/free_software_advocates_seek_removal_of_richard/gs0z0oh/
[2] Another case in point, same thread: https://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/mburmc/free_software_advocates_seek_removal_of_richard/gs0ph35/

also,

Absolutely! But in order to avoid that space from becoming an echo chamber which endlessly cycles through the problem without ever arrising at a solution, I personally think that space should eventually become the public rooms.

For all you know teutat3s and myself might be running endless circles in the echo chamber that is our private chat, but as long as that doesn't affect devos/nix, then who cares :P

• presumably malicious or at least very careless reframing (agenda / defence driven)
• abandonment of good faith as the default mode of discussion. Not even an effort is perceivable.