sgp_: that's a good idea, let me chat to the guys about it

sgp_: ok they're going to do a write-up

hopefully have something next week

Nice

Nice

fluffypony: nice!

We need to have a talk

Some people are going to think it's relatively political, but I think it's not at its core. And the Monero Community Workgroup is here to try and improve the Monero community however it can

as some of you know, the Monero Community Workgroup has a Code of Conduct. Those participating in our discussions must essentially respect others and stay cool. this makes our meetings and activities more productive and better for all

sadly, Monero is sometimes associated with people and used by people who make significant attempts to spread hate. White supremacist groups sadly started accepting Monero a few years ago along with Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies

These associations mean we sometimes need to take extra effort to explain why Monero is accepting. It's not necessarily good enough to stand by and say that "Monero is a neutral tool." The tool is neutral, but the community can still call people out, as we are quick to do with scammers and others

I bring this up because xmrhaelan recently posted a piece about black lives matter on the subreddit, which so far has only attracted downvotes and negative comments: reddit.com/r/Monero/comments/h09vpc…ves_matter_and_the_monero_community

now, I think the wording and approach of this post is doomed to fail in this community sadly. it will only attract people who disagree, and they will be very vocal about it

however, that doesn't mean that these efforts are unnecessary in general, or that there isn't a more productive way to approach these

I think most people here think that the Monero community is accepting of them, but that's pretty irrelevant. We have a huge gender imbalance, worse than tech overall. I think it's likely we have a very small number of minorities, which tools like Monero are supposed to protect. Something should be improved

One has to ask though whether the reason of the imbalance is that Monero is unwelcoming to them or that they are simply not interested

It's not about filling quotas or whatever. It's about making sure the community is actually attractive to people different than us. It's about showing that we care.

And I am fairly certain it is the latter

well, WHY are they uninterested

we all think Monero is interesting obviously

how can the community and its messaging be more attractive to a more diverse audience?

be useful and ridiculously easy to use

I think there are two categories. 1) the wallets and use of the actual coin, and 2) the community and its workgroups

as long as it's not actually used for much of anything, and just potentially_useful_tech... you'll get a gang of nerds and speculators only

true, and I don't really see people actually using a volatile asset for purchases

back when i was interested in such things, lots of women used darknet markets as buyers and sellers. i dont think there's a tech/community barrier as such

sgp_: but... are you implying our community is currently not attractive to minorities?

What does that even mean? :P

And what would a solution be?

to some extent yes

if we have people on one extreme side posting racist content in r/MoneroMining and little else to balance it out, it's probably seen as unattractive

plus, it's not really up to us to decide whether the community we are in is attractive to outsiders or not. if they aren't joining, then it isn't

How can you tell they are not joining? Monero has a large subreddit, #moneor has 500 nicks (pretty high for freenode standards) - you don't know where those people are from, what age they are, etc

I don't really know very well, but based on the information I have (like YouTube views, Twitter account stats), it's not diverse

what are they going to do once in the community?

ideally enthusiastically join workgroups or start their own

ccs for demographics surveying

install trackers on the getmonero website that require DNA samples /s

as an aside, you can infer some demographics and interest from google trends

there are workgroups?

within the US it is certainly more googled in whiter states trends.google.com/trends/explore?q=monero&geo=US

but if you look worldwide venezuela is near top over the past year

in the past month jamaica and laos are in top 5

neat

GUI workgroup probably houses contributors from over 10 different countries

if not more ;)

such is often the case in open-source development

"I don't really see people actually using a volatile asset for purchases"

i hope thats not true, i see an opening for crypto here. the fees for doing business in dollars are often quite high

EVERYTHING is volatile these days. skeptics ask what value backs bitcoin. But these days, what value backs the S&P...

true but people don't transact in S&P either Inge-

didnt we already do the distance from moneromining thing already?

nah that never really happened

i guess i dont really know what was supposed to happen other than remove links?

were there even links?

wait, there was another sub started, correct?

the main mod is still there unfortunately and seems to use it occasionally for a pro-free-speech zone or whatever

nobody wanted to mod it?

there is some holdup on the transition I don't really understand

transition to r/MoneroMiner you mean?

yeah, since Reddit doesn't really allow for the removal of mods even for racist things

looks like needmoney and m5m are the mods of that atm

so the plan is to commandeer the old reddit or make our own? or both. is confused.

I reached out to my Reddit contact just now to see if there's another way, but it's not likely

Hmmm...so I'm going to give one reasoning as to why I think Monero isn't more palatable to minorities (particularly in race). Speaking as a minority. I also don't think it's something that can be changed on a Monero level.

Minorities are often else wealthy. Not all white people are wealthy but they are more likely to be so (speaking USA). Like it or not, Monero is a highly speculative asset.

When we do see minorities involved in Monero, they're usually of similar affluence to their white counterparts. I.e. more wealthy.

Monero, as it currently is existing as a highly speculative asset, is mostly a luxury for people. Luxury items are bought in larger quantities by those with disposabal income.

This can't be solved within Monero. We can't give them more disposable money. If it is to be solved, it must be solved via society.

We can make our wallets as easy as possible to use, and have the most welcoming community, but we are different than other FOSS projects, and just having a welcoming community won't bring people to us. We are different because we are money.

And money requires money.

The only exception is out of extreme need or desperation (like Venezuelans). This drives them to cryptocurrencies, but even this fits with my proposed model. In this case, cryptocurrencies are actually less speculative than their fiat.

re moneromining: part of the problem is that we didn't manage to seriously take distance form that subreddit. Removing it from getmonero has very limited effect if people from this community keep posting there. If you use it, you legitimate it and that's what's happening

i think there is just no interest in using a different subreddit.. and that's disappointing, but seems to be the case

rehrar: I agree on there being many factors that lead to it being adopted more by non-minorities

my overall point is that we often need to make concerted pushes to help get around those issues

and at the bare minimum acknowledge that those exist so that we can always be mindful of ways to improve

the ones that can be gotten around can be identified and worked on. One of my points is that there are some that we can't do anything about. That's not to say we do nothing on the ones we can, though.

I agree the community should take a bigger effort in being more welcoming and less neutral. I would like to be optimist, but i remember how people tried to delegitimate my point of keeping distance from moneromining after the racist phrase. The discussion was longer than it should have been

I disagree with rerhar's points. "We are different because we are money" it's not a point IMO. Because we are not, we are a community building money

When Monero was being adopted by criminals for mining, we put together mrw.getmonero.org

When a white supremacist starts accepting it, most of us just kinda hide

That's not good enough

That's why I think Monero's association with Bail Bloc is super cool

yeah, people in general (not only in monero) don't give a shit and that's where you have white supremacists, sexists and other scams coming

I would start with making clear that racists are not welcome in the monero community. If that's controversial for somebody, we have a problem

true, that's a basic CoC thing. Here are some examples of behavior that won't be tolerated here

I haven't had the time to read the post about bail bloc tho, i'll do it today after dinner

this cannot be implemented ecosystem-wide

it must be done per workgroup

they've been doing this for a while, and it's a small contribution overall

and if some workgroups want to disavow other workgroups for not adding a CoC they are free to do so

rehrar: sure, each platform needs to implement. but it's our job to be annoying and make sure it happens :P

it's not specifically about the CoC, but the general terms of common CoCs need to be enforced

there will be staunch opposition, especially by those pro-freedom

what will be your game plan against those? remove them all from the website?

they can make a group about pro-freedom somewhere else

what about the r/monero sub is pro-freedom first?

perhaps their group already exists. They don't need to make a new one. You're coming in to try to change their thing.

This is the current case with -pools for example

rehrar: Yes. if you don't take distance from racism with the excuse of "pro-freedom", you are just a disguised racist

pools is already covered by the Monero Core Team (by IRC registration). They're responsible for it imo

I think they technically have hidden super-admin or whatever over this channel too

As of yet, Core has not implemented a CoC type policy for things under their control.

That would be where to start if you wanted to see this change actually happen.

that's just one area. we also have Reddit and Telegram

and all the outreach potential, which I really want to help pursue with Bail Bloc

Sure. The point is convincing the leadership of the workgroups.

Why should that be a problem?

if you don't know much about the bail system here in the US, learn about it. It's a huge issue for lower-SES individuals

this is actually a huge opportunity to show how Monero is being used by disadvantaged groups

ErCiccione[m]: it has been shown to be a problem already (i.e. pools and moneromining). There will be some workgroup leaders that disagree.

If there is some "leader" disagree writing that they don't accept racists, i will have a big problem with them and i hope that people will just "fork away" from them

<xmrhaelan> I am glad to see this discussion happening. It is important.

sorry about the grammar of that last message

xmrhaelan ugh

<xmrhaelan> ?

I'll be blunt, and I know you two will disagree with me, but I don't think the Monero community is the battleground for this. As an actual minority, I don't care to see our already scant resources overly-focused on solving problems that are scarcely present.

I don't see it as using up resources we already have or whatever. It's about being mindful of doing things different ways

When a problem arises, we deal with it with sensible moderation. But going on preemptive witch hunts isn't the way forward imo.

+1

I don't see "don't post racist content" as a "preemptive witch hunt"

<xmrhaelan> Who is going on witch hunts?

I do disagree 🙂 It's not about being a battleground, the world is the battleground, you only have to choose a side and something as simple as taking a stand over racism makes the difference. If you don't you are making life easier for racists and other sum

*scum

which hunt? seriously? man that's disappointing

the point is to work with the mods of the channels first. we shouldn't show up with "gotcha." the point is to get ahead of issues before they happen though, since people often aren't thinking of broader potential issues that come from certain types of moderation

<xmrhaelan> The conversation around racism in our society is not going to disappear over night. The Monero shouldn’t be on the wrong side of history just because their community leaders chose to ignore racism

What's happening here is people with fundamental worldview differences are talking to each other. Under your guys' worldview, the only reason somebody would ever defend this or that is if they were this or that. But they aren't operating on the same worldview as you.

rehrar: I don't see it that way at all, and it's hard for me to agree

<xmrhaelan> Why is racism a political or worldview issue?

rehrar: Why are you making such assumptions?

I get life is complicated. I'm gay and I've definitely done homophobic things before

xmrhaelan, 'wrong side of history' yeesh

ErCiccione: equating people to racists because they dont actively denounce racism is pretty terrible logic. and equally terrible for any cooperation from assumed racists.

I understand the idea that 'complacency is equal to status quo and status quo is racist so complacency is racist'

but I think things are more nuanced than that

kinghat: when did i say that? I'm saying that if you welcome racists to your channel, you are part of the problem. You are not racist maybe, but you are empowering racisms. I don't think that's better

and the issue comes when trying to view things with nuance gets denounced vehemently

rehrar: it is more nuanced than that, but it's expected that people do more than nothing if they can

basically it's all about actively looking for and mitigating cases where racism can occur, not in a rude way

<xmrhaelan> In the field of anti-racist organizational change, one of the largest contributing factors to positive change is whether the organization’s leadership is on board and serving as an example for that change.

this organization

has no

the problem isn't about trying to be nuanced

leadership

our core team is not our leaders

they manage the CCS and the general fund

and do merges on code

the problem is seeing obvious oppression or whatever and then trying to mitigate it with "nuance"

I work for the guys

and they barely even do THAT

<xmrhaelan> You can create policies (CoC) all you want, but unless leaders within a group support them with their actions nothing will happen.

<xmrhaelan> This is a decentralized community full of leaders.

<xmrhaelan> Rehrar you are a leader whether or not you choose to admit it

xmrhaelan: to rehrar's point, I think some of the points you are making aren't considerate of the decentralized nature of the community. We are personalities that need to speak up, but the way you're talking about it is annoying rehrar

I'll be frank with you guys. What happened to George Floyd was so gut rending to me that I cut people out of my life because of their hideous comments about it. I not only support the protests, I support the rioting. I support the looting.

most of the people here are faceless and nameless. nobody is talking about race.

tear down the system, abolish the police, and all that. I'm all for it.

But Monero is trying to accomplish similar goals via a different means.

It's trying to give a system for opting out of the current system

not changing the current system, but opting out of it

you'll find many in Monero are meritocracy people. Yes there are flaws, but in short, we don't know color of skin or gender or sexual preference when code or work is submitted, and we don't care to know

<xmrhaelan> Rehrar that was the exact sentiment of the article I wrote monerooutreach.org/stories/the-tool-for-renewal.html

xmrhaelan, of course I'm a leader. I'm not a leader of an organization though.

this discussion needs to be more practical. We all have different point of view, but i think (i HOPE) that nobody want to have racists around. LEt's just write that down somewhere, i think it's a good start, no?

rehrar: those principles are fine, I don't think anyone is arguing with them. but to get there, we need to make sure everyone *is* represented

<xmrhaelan> ErCiccione yes

aight, well I'm just making my opinion known. You guys are free to institute whatever you want in the channels in which you control, and also free to try to convince others to do the same.

<xmrhaelan> Monero the coin should be agnostic. Monero the community should stand against racism. Sure that’s just an opinion, but why someone would argue that racism shouldn’t be called out is beyond me. A discussion is a start, and hopefully the discussion will lead to subtle changes in how forums are moderated. Hopefully those changes will make the community more diverse as time goes on.

Knowing people, you will meet resistance. Not necessarily because people are against saying 'no racism', but because people are against codification.

rehrar: would you be against publicly stating that we don't accept racists in the channels?

If you're angry about this, then so be it.

I am against racism in channels that I control.

good, let's write it down then

it already is here :)

'racism' not 'racists'

who are you to label someone?

and what have you done to not be given such a label

eeehm. what?

<ErCiccione[m] "rehrar: would you be against pub"> should we also list all of the other things we dont think monero represents?

let's just focus on "racist content" then

ok i rephrase. rehrar: are you ok with writing down that racists are not welcome?

sure, but this becomes unenforceable to me.

why?

as sgp_ said, he is gay, but sometimes does homophobic things out of habit of what we've been taught in our culture

I'm a PoC, according to current wokeness, it's nigh impossible for me to be racist cuz I don't have a position of power in our society

but I sometimes to racist things

point is to call out those things and to prevent them from happening when possible

*do

stopping words or action is possible

we can stop participation based on actions or words

and the answer should be to let them be? I don't care if you are black, white, green or blue. If you are racists, you are not welcome

but when we label someone 'racist' and say they can't join at all because 'that's who they are' then I have a problem

that's mostly what it's about, I think ErCiccione[m]'s point is that we need to understand too that actions by people in other channels may "spill over" a bit by association

I would posit to say that you are racist to some degree

as am I

as are all of us

we are humans

we are tribalistic by nature

and no matter how much we like to think so, we have not 'transcended our evolution'

so if we were to codify 'no racists'

then that means I could not participate

sure, but that's an identification that's not really actionable

come on man, that's just ridiculous

not because I'm actively racist against people

ErCiccione[m]: I mean this seriously, but no u

I think your position is ridiculous and unactionable

rehrar: focus on what's actionable please. everything taken to an extreme isn't very useful in practice

we are just playing on definitions and words here, it's super annoying

'no racist content' is actionable

if there is racist content, we delete it and warn, mute, or ban the person

'no racists' is not actionable

but also if someone is known to post racist/offensive content elsewhere, they may be banned here too if it creates an unsafe/unattractive environment

the last thing to discuss is by what metric we constitute 'racism'

not everyone subscribes to current woke definitions

I agree with ErCiccione[m] that we need to focus on the main goals rather than get caught up in definitions. We aren't robots

-pools, for example, didn't see what they were doing as racist, and many of us did. How do you bridge this gap?

there's no full definition of "racism" that's all-encompassing because people come up with new ways of being racist all the time

this discussion is sterile, i'm not going to playing with words and play around definitions

ErCiccione[m]: kthanksbai

assuming everyone has to be on your definitions is ludicrous

rehrar: you may disagree with ErCiccione[m], but I don't find your comments helpful or actionable either

that's the point of these discussions, isn't it sgp_?

not how you're doing it

if we're going to go down the route of enforcing 'no racism' then we need to define racism otherwise it becomes nebulous.

dont we already list how people should act in these areas that are moderated?

you're dismissing (perhaps unintentionally) an important conversation by making it all about a specific thing where you two probably agree anyways

some people will complain if something is enforced, and some people will complain if something isn't enforced. You need to point to a definitive definition of how enforcement is handled.

do you define every single thing you do?

do you adjust your understanding of what's offensive over time?

do you learn more perspectives and change your mind?

let's make an essay about what racism actually is from the dawn of time, that's the best way to create a welcoming policy

sgp_: it's actually hilarious how the white people in the room are talking over literally the only PoC in this conversation

😂

you were also against a CoC here iirc

I was. Because I don't give words power. But I said that I'd support you if you did it, and you did, and I have.

Gone to bat multiple times for you in this regard from naysayers.

would you agree that it's helped the channel to remove bad actors more quickly?

and it's not just that 'sgp can do what he wants in his channels', it's that 'sgp is doing what he thinks is wise to make a welcoming community for everyone in a channel he controls. This is an admirable goal and I support it.'

sgp_: I think every action taken so far could have been done without a CoC (albeit there would probably be more aftermath complaining from free speech scrubs)

right, it's not about the CoC specifically. It's just a signal to show what types of content aren't tolerated. The CoC itself doesn't ban people

the CoC is implemented for justification purposes so you don't have to do ad nauseum explaining

but people whine and complain anyways, so you end up having to do some of it regardless :P

yes indeed

but the CoC doesn't define terms either

wait, so we already have a functioning CoC?

they're open for interpretation

kinghat[m]: for the #monero-community channel and workgroup, yes

docx... oof :P

look, Justin, let me explain to you one of my big fears

is that coc posted somewhere?

I think on r/MoneroCommunity, but if not I'll post it

we can also add it to communityworkgroup.org

whats the problem then? its not working?

no, just that I'm always interested in trying to do more for the Monero community to make it approachable and fair

my big fear is that similar to -community wanting to distance itself from -pools, and then going a step further and saying the whole ecosystem should distance themselves from -pools, I'm afraid that if/when -community, spearheading this project of inclusiveness, meets the INEVITABLE resistance from other workgroups, especially those more freedom-oriented, that it will similarly denounce those groups and want

them taken off as well

yeah, should be somewhere. I ididn't even know existed

ErCiccione[m]: sure, let me add it to the website

the end result will be two factions of the Monero community. The 'Wokes' and the 'Frees'.

that's somewhat happened with r/bitcoin and r/btc, but that was for more than just racism

yep

and we will be the same thing

as far as I can tell, they didn't split because of censorship of hateful content though

if you guys really can't fathom the idea of working with anyone who has an inkling of racism in them, then I don't want to convince you to do so. But I, for one, can work with people that disagree with me. Even if they maliciously call me beaner, wetback, 'go back to Mexico' blah blah blah. I don't care.

FWIW I think since the last time we talked about -pools it has improved a lot.

The r/bitcoin and r/btc fraction has nothing to do with racism

lubs rehrar 🤗

some people don't want to volunteer in an environment that has casual racism/sexistm/etc

some = many

r/btc was initially created as a place to discuss the block size issue without any censorship

whats casual racism?

It later kind of devolved into a sub for BCH

read this

I will quote the article directly.

kinghat[m]: is that a serious question?

This deals with the pseudo org Anonymous, but much of -pools (and Monero at large) is birthed from this culture.

The context is speaking about the rough edges of /b/ from 4chan, the Anonymous birthplace

"In this, it has a kind of innocence and purity. Terms like 'nigger' and 'faggot' are common, but not there because of racism and bigotry - though racism and bigotry are easily found there. Their use is there to keep you out. These words are heads on pikes warning you that further in it gets much worse, and it does."

🤷‍♂️ i thought so.

Like it or not, much of cryptocurrency culture was, is, and will be steeped in this as well. It's one of the birthing places of cypherpunk ideals, and one of its chief flag carriers today.

This may be unacceptable to you. The fact that they use these words, in what they deem an unracist way, but you deem racist shows that there is a fundamental difference in worldview and what constitutes racism.

So yes, definitions are important. Because enforcement will be done from one point of view of racism.

Anyone upset about quibbles of definitions becomes dictatorial. "Shouldn't it be obvious? It's what me and my friends consider racism. If you disagree that that's what constitutes racism, then you're a terrible person and/or a racist."

isn't this all the more reason why we need to be aware that certain groups may be put off by or hesitant to participate? Why elect to adopt a financial system made by people with often hateful comments towards you?

The dollar is made by people hostile and hateful to me.

we shouldn't make the barrier to entry having tough skin

I use it because it's money.

I know Monero is different. We don't have mandatory adoption.

Whatever, I think I'm done with this discussion. As I said earlier, I'm just afraid this will fracture the community.

Some will say "Good. It's about time we called this stuff out, even if there are sacrifices in doing so."

If that's you, more power to you. You're doing what you think is right.

if we are talking about banning people for shit they do you have to be specific. you cant just vaguely ban people because the banhammer woke up on the wrong side of the bed that day.

I only ask that you accept some ambiguity in adopting some of these policies, that not literally everything needs to be defined in advance

But I am also doing what I think is right by voicing my concerns and objections. And if doing so makes me a 'bad person' in your eyes, so be it. Your moral high ground is not automatically higher than mine just because you think it is. ;)

sgp_: I'm not talking so much about you, man.

I disagree with you somewhat often, but I support what you do and the reasons for which you do it.

And I truly hope that me voicing my concerns just makes you think of another side that isn't evil, but also isn't approving of some steps you might take. I'm just making you aware of these viewpoints.

have you been a part of a community that fractured like this?

im around here a lot and i dont really see anything of the sort happening in the areas where the current CoC is applied.

over some people trying to remove racism of whatever

*or

sgp_: the sad thing is I'm going through it right now

I have seen a lot of open source projects split because of this CoC discussion.

as I alluded to earlier in this conversation, the George Floyd protests really made me cut off a lot of people from my life. Their comments in support of what happened or the police was to disgusting, and I cut off many old friends.

There is a small amount of mourning, but I have my own life these days. :) So I'm fine.

*too disgusting

Those that were willing to at least talk or reason with me, I was willing to engage and not cut from my life.

I don't care about anybody's opinions on my personal decisions btw :D

but I was willing to let my irl community fracture, because I have the irl resources to manage it

Monero does not have these resources

a fracture would greatly hamper movement

I see it more as calling out some personalities that should have been called out earlier, and they are now gone from the Monero community. We've moved on

<xmrhaelan> I don’t think CoCs need to be changed and I don’t think mods need to pull out hammers. I think people who are active in forums should just police their own and not remain silent when they see comments that are hateful or inappropriate

and in such a time when so many exiciting things are on the horizon (like Arcturus), I think it's silly that we're taking this conversation to the extent that we are when we haven't even dealt with this very much at all

<xmrhaelan> At the very least, a conversation is happening and if it ends here, I’m fine with that.

xmrhaelan, once again, people operate under differing definitions of hateful or inappropriate. If we're going to optimize for the weakest skin people, then that needs to be made clear.

If someone called me a wetback, and someone else jumped in saying not to do that, I wouldn't be grateful. I'm a grown man. I don't give a shit what this guy says or what he thinks.

I could appreciate the sentiment, but I'm not a child.

"but what about the other Mexicans in the room that aren't as strong as you?"

however if someone posted homophobic content and it was upvoted, and those calling it out were downvoted, I would be very disappointed in the community personally. maybe this means I have "weaker skin"

such is life. people are different.

none of this is even happening..

If we want to be completely inclusive, we need to optimize for the most theoretical weakest skin there is

<xmrhaelan> I agree with Rehrar this shouldn’t distract from big Monero developments. I also don’t think it has and I don’t think it will:

+1 to pretty much everything rehrar has taken the time to explain above

kinghat[m]: that's the clincher isn't it?

<xmrhaelan> One Reddit post with zero upvotes and a handful of people discussing on IRC is hardly a distraction...

we can make a million hypotheticals: "What if someone comes in here and insults gays, blacks, and says they're going to dox us all and kill us because of our differences????"

xmrhaelan, certainly taking my time

several people message me saying they'd rather not get involved, but disagree. They won't get involved cuz they'll get angry or distracted.

If only the 'wokes' speak, then only their voices are heard. So I speak on behalf of those that aren't (and myself).

And no, I'm not afraid of being 'cancelled' for it. :)

"If we want to be completely inclusive, we need to optimize for the most theoretical weakest skin there is" this is important, but I don't think it's as crazy as you think. It's about calling out behaviors as they happen, not literally stopping all discussion. In practice people don't actually get insulted by everything

<xmrhaelan> Well I suspect this conversation will fade within 24-48 hours. I am glad it happened.

I see that as a sort of slippery slope fallacy

<xmrhaelan> If the leaders in here just made an informal agreement that racism is bad and if we see it we should speak up, that’s a win in my book

xmrhaelan under your definition of racism?

you keep dodging that point

as if we all agreed as to what it means

and it being unthinkable that someone else has a different viewpoint or definition

rehrar: I don't understand what types of comments you are looking for. Surely you don't have a magical understanding of every possible scope of racist comment

no, I don't and that's the point. None of us do.

<xmrhaelan> From the dictionary: a belief or doctrine that inherent differences among the various human racial groups determine cultural or individual achievement, usually involving the idea that one's own race is superior and has the right to dominate others or that a particular racial group is inferior to the others.

I hang out in pools and it sometimes does become an echo chamber so I will make a comment not so much at a person but instead stating a view in a way to illuminate things. Undoing one's own incorrect worldview is not a simple process.

<xmrhaelan> Anti-racist practitioners take the definition a step further and say that racism = prejudice + power. So, we can just agree to shun all prejudice when we see it, or go with the dictionary definition.

in practice mods will use judgement to enforce, and if you disagree, then talk about it

^

this simple

this happens without a CoC also btw

<xmrhaelan> Dictionary definition of prejudice: unreasonable feelings, opinions, or attitudes, especially of a hostile nature, regarding an ethnic, racial, social, or religious group.

right, which is why I don't understand the importance of these definitions lol

<xmrhaelan> Niocbrrrrrr good strategy

the word 'unreasonable' doing a lot of heavy lifting there

<xmrhaelan> Sure is

our understanding shifts all the time

<xmrhaelan> My opinion is small here, but I’ll just leave it with saying I don’t think CoC changes or enforcement are necessary. I think we just need to be awesome to each other and call out assholes who aren’t.

it's about making sure the Monero community fits/exceeds a changing reasonable definition. "reasonable" is an undefined word, but it's the best we got, and it's used in legal agreements all the time

has anything changed, though? is something not working with the current setup? i dont get it 🤷‍♂️

well, do as you do. I will continue supporting your leadership of the Community workgroup and the code of conduct you've implemented for it

are you saying we need to make a post for everyone to come check out are CoC?

it's a good experiment for all of the other workgroups that don't have one, and I think the experiment has shown that it's no the end of the world, mostly by way of it doesn't matter too much

I appreciate the work you do in wanting everyone to feel welcome here, Justin.

* are you saying we need to make a post for everyone to come check out our CoC?

There is no need to ask each other "what racism actually is?" the same way we don't do it for all the other bannable offences. That's up to the mod, i don't understand why this discussion is happening for this specific case. Just say we don't want racist comment as we don't want insults. That's it. I think nobody would say "yes, but what insult actually means?". same thing.

I see your heart in this. What you're really trying to accomplish. And I commend your work.

<xmrhaelan> I appreciate all of you.

i dont do anything here other than offer push back where i see its needed and bitch from time to time so i guess my job is done. time for a workout. ✌︎ all!

interesting discussion

for the record, I thought the outreach document was in bad taste

not because the issue isn't important (it is), but because the issue was being used as a platform for communicating some overt message regarding what Monero is/does/could be.

I stressed that on Reddit as it was posted too. It's a difficult line to walk, and I don't claim to have the answers

it's not really that difficult. Monero keeps doing what it does, while the community try and ensure we remain welcoming and receptive to all (which i think we do anyway). There is no marketing message needed. If we want to make overt efforts to make the community more "representative", we should do that at a local level, rather than through some defined "minority" protocol or "marketing message". I do wonder

sometimes why there are very few women in the community, for example. There was that issue with the article I remember, making a big deal out of a woman working with/on Monero

<xmrhaelan> Midipoet that article was written by a woman, about a woman. We were just a platform to share it because they were both interested in Monero.

<xmrhaelan> Part of outreach involves responding to social and cultural cues outside of our niche group. You guys don’t have to agree with all of our methods but I hope you can appreciate the hard work we do for Monero

I won't go so far to say additional media is REQUIRED, but it is appreciated and should be sought out whenever possible imo

of course I respect the work put in, that isn't what this is about. It's about what sort of "marketing" the community wants. outbound comms is something I think should be very light touch, mainly due to the decentralisation we talk of. Having a "Monero voice" seems antithetical to what Monero is actually about. That's my own personal view, however. Having said that, the race issue is extremely complex and

nuanced, and I didn't think was the place to discuss the merits of Monero over Bitcoin, or about what Chainanalysis said, or even about what Satoshi said. If someone wanted to write about racism and societal issues, then just write about those issues. Using the issue as a platform for a "Monero message" just looked like opportunism to me. For example, insert ZCash instead of Monero into that article, what

would "we" have thought then?

it's bigger than just what "Monero" wants. Monero Talk, the Monero Coffee Chats, etc. are important outward-facing tools, even if it's not their only purpose

sure. but if I saw a Monero Talk episode that discussed how Monero could help those suffering from racism and structural bias, I would also think it was a bit off the mark.

brow.sh *

thats something

ikr

this is how you view the www?

yeah gonna try it out for a while

i wish you luck

thank you!