Sexism in the Ruby community: how does the Python community manage it?

[Devin Jeanpierre]

On Wed, Oct 16, 2013 at 8:13 PM, Owen Jacobson
<owen.jacobson at grimoire.ca> wrote:
-snip-
> 1. What social biases and problems *do* we unwittingly encourage by way of
> community-tolerated behaviour? Where, if not through the conventions for
> naming, do we encourage sexism, racism, and other mindlessly exclusionary
> behaviour?

If some random dolt names their project "nazi_kill_gays.py" or some
other clearly wrong thing, and I don't notice it, I'm not "tolerating"
it. That standard is clearly absurd. Nor am I encouraging it. The word
"encourage" is not a synonym for "do not punish".

As you can see, there is no "convention" encouraging sexist, racist,
or otherwise exclusionary naming schemes.

> 2. What kind of social pressure can we bring to bear to _keep_ Python's
> package naming conventions as socially neutral as they are, if and when some
> high-profile dirtbag decides this language is the best language? How can we
> apply the same pressures to other parts of the Python community?

The social pressure is that you get called a childish and immature
hooligan, publicly, by the chair of the PSF. Along with an army of
not-so-famous people yelling at you. It's apparently quite persuasive.

http://holdenweb.blogspot.com/2011/07/childish-behavior.html

Sincerely,

-- Devin Jeanpierre