Yet another male perspective on women in free software

Yet another male perspective on women in free software

Posted Oct 12, 2007 14:59 UTC (Fri) by obi (guest, #5784)
In reply to: Yet another male perspective on women in free software by mmarkov
Parent article: Yet another male perspective on women in free software

By judging someone purely on their technical merits, and not at all on their (lack of) social skills, you risk losing way more people (and their technical expertise) than you gain by tolerating this person.

It's a trade-off, but a lot of people don't see it that way.

The problem isn't that everyone should be treated equally (that should be a given, but it's true that some can't even manage that). The problem is that everyone should not be mistreated equally. Allowing abusive behaviour and telling people not to be thin-skinned, will only leave people that have an affinity or high tolerance for abuse.

I don't believe there's a need for censorship or banning or anything like that. I simply think the problem would be a lot better if people were to just speak up whenever someone uses unnecessarily abusive language.

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