Ubuntu mod team takes anti-queer "Don't say gay" stance.

So: "a few months ago, the Ubuntu Forums community merged with our Discourse community after being apart for quite a long time. During the merger, we simply adopted the Forums posting guidelines without a thorough review by the Community Council. We didn’t spot that the Forum had a stricter policy on politics and explicitly disallowed flags. Adding to that issue was a generational difference in the meaning of “queer”, and whether or not it’s still considered a slur."

Okay.

As a queer trans woman, I'm glad I switched to Fedora.

Debian is basically Ubuntu without Snap.

You can switch. Just sayin.

Good to know. I hate snap anyway
last time i reformatted was in the pandemic. dunno when next time is gonna be, but it's definetly gonna debian or fedora instead of ubuntu.

The original content was restored and a comment made by a mod underneath the profile page of the guy says this :

The original text of this topic has been restored. The moderator action was a mistake and not reflective of the Ubuntu Diversity Policy 6.

As stated within the policy “…we explicitly honour diversity in age, culture, ethnicity, genotype, gender identity or expression, language, national origin, neurotype, phenotype, political beliefs, profession, race, religion, sexual orientation, socio-economic status, subculture and technical ability.” The Ubuntu community is for everyone.

reads like a stereotypically canned HR message.
- What wording would you have them use?
- Chat, please write an apology that clarifies Diversity Policy 15 and assures the reader that as a company we are not homophobic. Please use a professional, courteous tone and limit the response to 500 characters or less.
- Good

'Politics: This topic has caused serious problems in the past and as such is subject to tight control. Discussion of the politics of open source it permissible in the lounge.

Ah yes, the 2 sexualities: Straight and political

This is the thing that makes me as angry as I am right now. This is exactly what they are doing.
Thanks! I'm going to reuse this.

Official response of the Discourse moderators: https://discourse.ubuntu.com/t/on-discourse-rules-about-politics/66986

The mods say that the mistake was in the misinterpretation of "queer" as a slur (because it used to be a slur), but they also mention that they privately discussed with the new user to convince them to remove a trans flag from the profile... and the mods didn't really explain in the response why this happened...?

As always, read the response to make your own judgement.

At least they are admitting it was wrong instead of doubling down

It seems for the last 5 years or so, Ubuntu has done a good job of making everyone hate them.

I think historically Canonical has always been a bit or a weird company. I ended up ditching Ubuntu because they seem to have this weird penchant for picking some new shiny feature (Unity, the convergent Desktop/Phone OS thing, Mir, currently Snaps) and just going all-in on it whether people want it or not, working on it until it's almost good, then ditching it for the next shiny thing.
Also their hiring process is apparently bonkers.
- Upstart was the one that made me ditch it back in the day. I came back when they embraced the more sensible systemd
shit all you have to do is try to update/upgrade the thing and it's like rolling the dice if it'll bork your system or not so they've done an excellent job in people hating them for that one reason.
without fail whenever they roll out an update you'll see threads on mastodon or bluesky with people saying "welp, my Ubuntu is fucked" after an update.
- tbf ive been using it for years and never had it break on update.
That is the correct move for them. Once you have built a lot of capital, whether that be monetary, political, or social, then you spend the capital.

Ironic

Ubuntu is a South African ethical ideology focusing on people's allegiances and relations with each other. The word comes from the Zulu and Xhosa languages. Ubuntu is seen as a traditional African concept, is regarded as one of the founding principles of the new republic of South Africa and is connected to the idea of an African Renaissance.
A rough translation of the principle of Ubuntu is "humanity towards others". Another translation could be: "the belief in a universal bond of sharing that connects all humanity".
"A person with ubuntu is open and available to others, affirming of others, does not feel threatened that others are able and good, for he or she has a proper self-assurance that comes from knowing that he or she belongs in a greater whole and is diminished when others are humiliated or diminished, when others are tortured or oppressed."
 
        --Archbishop Desmond Tutu

  
As a platform based on Free software, the Ubuntu operating system brings the spirit of ubuntu to the software world.

If you come from South Africa, you'll know that Ubuntu is bullshit, in SA it's just "fuck you, I got mine".

At least link to the correct thing: https://bark.lgbt/@gimmechocolate/115164408860865811

Holy Hell! The twists! (spoilers) I couldn't believe when an Ubuntu mod said "if we let you say you're queer, we would also have to let people say they hate you and want you dead." I was even more shocked when they were acting appropriately- Nazis are a protected class at Ubuntu (this is only a little hyperbolic and also that's all the spoilers)

I don't see where the mods made them change it. (Edit: I see it now. If you check the edit history on the post, it shows who made the edits, in this case it was DIscourse mod wild_man.)

Also, why is this a link to reddit?

The post on Mastodon has a screenshot of the post edit history:
And a copy-pasted response from a moderator (the most relevant bit):
So in my opinion, if your intention was to show political support for diversity, you should avoid using this flag. This will allow us to refuse the use of a flag for instance saying 'non-queer', If we allow your flag, then we have to admit also other similar political flags, both supporting and opposing diversity.
- "If we allow your flag, then we have to admit also other similar political flags, both supporting and opposing diversity."
  Consider the following: no, they don't.
- But why must they also allow bigotry if they allow people to express who they are? That is the biggest load of shit. So if I say "I have a husband of X years," they must also allow someone to say a bunch of bigotry as a counter view?
  Or if I say I like open source software they must allow the trolls that want to call me a dirty hippie and tell me to get a job so I can pay for software? And I agree everything is political, and ignoring it doesn't make it any less so.
- But there aren't any political flags on there...
- The flag wasn't removed?
- That response does not appear on the Ubuntu site. There is no source on the mastodon paste.

Reddit flagged this as inaccurate and the mod added this:

The issue was never with the poster's self identification. The Ubuntu Community Council have been contacted and have been discussing the issue since Friday it happened.

The Ubuntu Community Council rarely comments publicly when complaints are dealt with, but the moderation team is welcome to do so.

Because I am on the Ubuntu Community Council and have been working on this issue, I am unable to comment further at this time.

That doesn't make sense. The only change to the comment was to remove part of their statement of identity.
So "we're not taking an anti-queer 'Don't say gay' stance"
It's inaccurate mis-information, our official policy "We don't comment publicly about policies and complaints our official stance is 'no comments' "
I'm calling this a "big ouf" moment

I thought they just went with "if you upgrade you will break it".

When can we stop inserting politics into every little thing? I know it's a big deal at the moment, what with the fascist takeover of our government, but are Linux devs and their moderators really the people we expect to represent all of us in that fight? They don't have the power to help in that capacity.

We should be able to accept people's help in whatever realm they are offering it without trying to force them to help with everything else at the same time. These guys signed up to support open source software. That's an important and helpful thing but it isn't gay rights activism. That is not their area of expertise. They're not supposed to be representing LGBTQ interests in anything except the right to privacy. Quit making them the arbiter of morality in battles they didn't sign up to fight to begin with. It doesn't help anybody. It only redirects anger away from the people that we really should be mad at, namely our absolute disaster of a federal government.

Saying something about yourself as an introduction is custom. Mentioning that you are queer is not weird or political. It someone sharing a fact about themselves. Me saying that I like girls is also not a political statement. It's a fact/trivia about me.
The fact that LGBTQ+ people get shit for just existing in society is fucked up and that's the problem.
- First of all, if you don't think it's weird to start off an introduction with "I'm queer and I'm a furry" then I'm not sure what to tell you. The vast majority of people in the world are going to be put off by you introducing yourself that way. That's personal shit you talk about once you get to know somebody not an ice breaker. You can make the argument that people should be more accepting of that kind of thing but the fact is this sort of introduction breaks just about every social norm there is and when you do that willingly you should expect people to get uncomfortable.
  Second of all, quit forcing your kinks on everyone else. I don't care what weird kinky shit you do in your free time but I don't want to talk to you about it, especially not at work. It doesn't matter if your thing is women's feet, dudes buttholes, or guys dressed as a cartoon wolf, the answer is the same, ew stop. It isn't bigotry to not want to be forced to deal with your sexuality as a prerequisite for interacting with you. I probably don't want to be interacting with you at all, much less talking about what you like to do with your genitals, so stop oversharing and keep that shit to yourself.
Translation: “everything the right dislikes is to be declared “political” and taboo to discuss. Only things they approve of are acceptable conversation.”
This is the problem with “don’t talk politics” policies. It makes discussion anything those in power dislike taboo. It’s a way to telling people they are not allowed to discuss things inconvenient to those in power. Never trust this.
When can we stop inserting politics into every little thing?
When I see comments like this, it makes 2 things plainly obvious:
The commentor is naive and doesn't understand that fundamentally 'politics' is the power dynamic in every relationship, be that between people, groups or with structures or things such as food.
It is in everything and connects everything. It defines your relationship and how you interact with the world and it's relationship to, and interaction with you.
The commentor has enough privilege that they don't have to worry about politics/power structures on a daily basis.
Some people can't see the wood for the trees
- A fish doesn't know its wet
- And some people can't pull their head out of their own ass long enough to see that their problems aren't the same as everyone else's problems. You're right though, it's naive to expect others not to view themselves and their pet issues as the only thing worth discussing in the world. Your response being a great case study in how you can do exactly that while also implying that no one else even has problems to begin with.
The political part is the mod intervention, not someone saying "I'm queer"
- No, the political part is you forcing your sexuality to be discussed in a non-sexual context. I don't care what you do in your bedroom but I don't want to be forced to talk to you about it. It's not relevant to our work therefore we don't need to discuss it at work. Unless you're trying to fuck me I don't need to hear about it at all and that's probably not something you should be doing at work either, certainly not in this context.
  Nothing I have said is exclusive to queer people. They are universal rules that everyone should follow.
How is it political to talk about yourself in vague terms when introducing yourself to a group!? Would it be political if he said his hair is brown? How about if he mentions the color of his skin, is that political?
You make the statement political when you try to ban certain people from talking about who they are, if only white people talk about the color of their skin it's not political to say you're black, it's political to try to block people from saying it. Saying you're queer is on the same level of mentioning you have a wife/husband, in fact it's even more vague, it's in the same level of saying "since I was a boy/girl", because queer does not necessarily mean non-heterosexual it can also mean non-cisgender so it's an umbrella term to mean member of the LGBTQ+ community, if being queer is political then being heterosexual or cisgender also has to be, and I doubt people would be okay with having to step on eggshells not to mention anything that could make someone deduce their sexuality or gender. Hell, the same people who claim Queer is political are the ones who have the most problem with gender neutral language.
I don't think the problematic political part is a person basically saying "Oh, I'm queer btw", but the mod team redacting it.
I also think that trying to supress political discussion in the forums of an OS literally called Ubuntu is beyond ironic: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ubuntu_philosophy
Human rights issues are not political. The attempt by the right to cast them as political serves to suppress discussion and progress by making the very act of discussing these things at all be seen as taboo. We can't let that happen.
That point aside, libre software is pretty much inherently political.
Unless you openly state your identity online most people will presume youre a cis het white male, if you say you're not they ask for proof and then ban you
Only an idiot would think this is political.
Next you'll be telling us that declaring your religion is political.

The source for this is ultimately a social media post by someone @bark.lgbt.

Not exactly impartial.

Regardless of how impartial the source might be, there are facts there:
Fact 1: Someone made an introductory post in which, among other things, they mentioned "I am queer".
Fact 2: A moderator working for Canonical deleted that part, and only that part, of that post.
Fact 3: Another moderator re-added that and claimed the first one acted erroneously.
While Fact 3 is a bit of a relief, they still haven't communicated what they intend to do to prevent this from happening again.
- If the post was about themselves, saying "I am queer" is fine IMHO (as would've been to say "I am straight" or imply it for example by saying "I'm a man" and "I have a wife") as that's about that person so sharing what they feel defines them as person is the whole point and restricting mentions of one's sexual orientation there is at best idiotic.
  Had it been on a post about something Canonical or Ubuntu, in my view mentioning one's sexual orientation would probably not have been appropriate, mainly because it would be raising an irrelevant and (sadly, in the present day) ideologically charged subject, same as it would be inappropriate to mentioning one's political allegiance in the same context.
  All in all I hope the moderator who made that mistaken moderation action has been taught the difference and been alerted to how their own internal biases are leaking into the professional sphere, which they shouldn't.
Why does it matter if it's impartial or not? Just go read the thread on Ubuntu discourse if you want to verify the information? It's all there. The mod fucked up. Simple as that. It's good that someone brought this to light.
- Why does it matter if it’s impartial or not?
  Lol.

:^)

I think this might be getting overblown a bit. I think if this is a communication to an internal community, like in any job, you'd not want people sharing deeply personal information about their sexual orientation and whatnot.

If I started a new corporate job and started just spouting "Hey, I'm [sexual orientation]" around the office or in chat rooms, I'd probably expect to be notified that it's not going to be acceptable in a professional environment. I think the Furry thing would also probably be advised against because, regardless of the actual nature, it may make people uncomfortable.

This person has every right to be announcing this as part of their identity in social settings, but it's not shocking if it's not allowed in a professional setting. The uncomfortable meter goes both ways, same as if someone else walks around the office spouting their cis-straight identity or religious bullshit. If it's making people uncomfortable, they should also have to curb that speech to stop upsetting people in the larger group. I don't think anyone has come up with a golden solution to solve for this that I'm aware of.

There doesn't seem to be any clarifying information on the nature of the list this was part of or anything, so it's really hard to get the context. If this was a corporate and public communication, it's not shocking if it was going against some corporate speak no-no bullshit. 🤷

Edit: Christ, I'm not even saying controversial and I'm being brigaded ffs 🤣

You'd be pretty surprised what conversational topics would reveal one's implied sexuality that no one would probably push back against, because it's "normal." For instance, I recall straight people announcing at my work that they'd been trying for a kid or their partner was pregnant. :|
- Inferring something from a conversation is way different than someone advertising it. It's also way different in a social setting with co-workers versus the office, which in this context, it seems like it was an office communication.
The amount of corporate bios I've read that talk about wives, husbands and family is astounding.
But I'm not totally sure what this is. It looks like someone joining the community to work for free? I might be wrong. If that's the case they should be allowed to write whatever the hell they want as long as it's not hurtful.
And super weird they'd take out "queer" but leave the furry thing. Not that there's anything wrong with either.
First of all, this is not a professional setting, he's not an employee there, and that forum is open for everyone.
Secondly, and way more important, people do that daily and no one cares especially when introducing oneself it's common to mention stuff like your wife/husband and your preferred pronouns, hell, my corporate slack profile has my pronouns and those of everyone else. I've worked with trans people who introduced themselves as trans on the first day, and no one cared. So no, it's perfectly okay for people to talk about themselves during an introduction even in professional settings.
Last but not least, people being uncomfortable is not a good reason to ban something, members of the KKK might be uncomfortable about working next to a black person, so what? Should the black person hide that he's black to not make the others uncomfortable? That's bullshit. If a person is uncomfortable by another one saying they're queer, then that first person needs to deal with it, being queer is part of who the other person is and he shouldn't have to hide who he is because someone might be uncomfortable about it. You mentioned religion, which I don't think falls into the same category because religion is a set of beliefs that many people change through their lives, but still, people wear crosses daily in professional settings and no one cares.
Every corporate tech job I've had has dozens, if not hundreds, of openly queer people openly identifying as such. And that's how it should be.
Whether it's as simple as a rainbow or trans flag emoji in slack, as individual as speaking up internally about problematic anti-queer messaging, or as deep as an affinity group who coordinates pride events and such, it is and should remain acceptable and protected.
And honestly same with furry. I don't care if who I am as a person may make someone uncomfortable. That's solidly not my problem, and shouldn't be an HR issue either.
- Sweet Jeebus, do people here not ever take the time to read and comprehend a damn thing before they bandwagon and react?? You're saying things that apply to zero of what I've said, and what the original topic is about. What in the world are you even on about? Who is saying anything about people identifying however they want? Did you even read the linked thread ffs? 🤦
Edit: Christ, I'm not even saying controversial and I'm being brigaded ffs 🤣
Don't worry about it. It's Reddit refugees who haven't yet figure out up/downvotes mean noþing in þe FediVerse. Þey're still karma-farming þinking þey're going to get gold some day.