7:46 p.m.
Ludovic Courtès <ludo(a)gnu.org> writes:
Hi Carlos,
"Carlos O'Donell" <carlos(a)systemhalted.org> skribis:
>> Do we want to tolerate or even invite the dissent of those who disagree
>> with the Social Contract? (Can we afford to?)
>
> We can and we should. You can be on the assembly mailing list and
> discuss exactly this point.
>
> However, radical deviation from consensus is going to be hard because
> you have to convince existing members to vote to change the Social
> Contract.
Here I agree with Mark Galassi, who wrote¹:
> I think we should *all* question the social contract and revise it as needed! We
don't give up on critical thinking. We just behave reasonably when we bring up our
thoughts.
>
> But we should all endorse the social contract as we try to improve the parts that
might need it.
The Social Contract gives the general framework of our cooperation as a
group. Perhaps we’ll make it change over time, but there needs to be
spelled out common ground. Without this, we may lack the conditions for
consensus², which in turn would prevent progress altogether.
So at this point, I lean towards including on the mailing list only SC
endorsers. After all, if someone does not even agree on the basic
premises listed in the SC, we’re probably going to have a hard time
working together.
Thoughts?
It seems reasonable to me to require endorsement of the SC by all
mailing list participants.
But: can we enforce this?
I’m sorry for involving you in my paranoia, but experience has shown
that GNU has its share of people who do not shy away from bullying, so I
don’t think it’s hard to imagine bad faith actors who agree to whatever
conditions there are to participate just to be able to subvert the
process.
Sure, we can kick trolls and bullies off the mailing list. Is this
enough?
In my opinion, the Social Contract is limited enough to be
non-controversial for those who argue in good faith. However, the fact
that we revised it in the past after discussion means that we cannot
just freeze it and isolate it from requests to change it. How can we
protect the essence of the Social Contract in the presence of those who
join the assembly / the mailing list in an attempt to exercise voting
rights to gut the Social Contract or otherwise sabotage our efforts?
(I loathe thinking so defensively.)
--
Ricardo