How to escalate a case to the OSMF board?

[Adamant1]

@Mateusz_Konieczny

As I understand, this was triggered by claims that some mappers are obligated to map something/must map something. This kind of language in notes is not welcome not all

(This is more a general comment about the word “must” and not specifically in relation to Mateusz Konieczny’s comment. It was just the one I happen quote)

I’m an English speaker from the United States. I’ve had a few people from Europe over the years accuse me of being combative because I say “dude”, “whatever”, “sure”, and like in messages sometimes. Although I can understand why someone from Europe might think those words (dude, like and whatever in particular) are combative, they happen to be part of an accent that’s unique to the area where I live in the United States.

So I often find myself going back and forth on if I should censor how I normally talk on here because people from might it aggressive when that’s not how I mean it. On the other hand, I think we should all be able to speak how would “natively” without having to worry about being discriminated against by people who might come from different countries or be more affluent then us.

I actually had a user call me inarticulate once, which of course I think is completely wrong. But more importantly such comments are extremely intolerant. The person knew I spoke English and was from the United States. I highly doubt they would have said the same thing to someone from Africa or Asia who was speaking in “broken” English. At the end of the day we don’t all have the same education levels, and how people speak can very even within the same geographical boundaries. At least from what I’ve seen we could all do a better job of keeping that in mind when we talk to each other. It’s pretty likely that one person’s unacceptable, unwelcome language is just how another person talks in their daily life.

(P.S. Incase anyone tries to say I am combative sometimes, guilty as charged. Everyone here is. That’s not what I’m talking about though. I’m talking about specific messages I’ve received from people in relation to specific things I’ve said in the past, which has nothing do with me being combative once in awhile. I assume everyone gets the difference).

[Discostu36 (Michael Brandtner)]

@Adamant1

I think we should all be able to speak how would “natively” without having to worry about being discriminated against by people who might come from different countries or be more affluent then us.

I don‘t think I agree. In my opinion, one should always try to reflect if the chosen words might be attacking, hurting or otherwise misunderstood and change one’s style of writing accordingly. But that is quite a controversial topic, as can be seen in the heated discussions in Germany about gender-neutral language.

[Adamant1]

@Discostu36

In my opinion, one should always try to reflect if the chosen words might be attacking, hurting or otherwise misunderstood and change one’s style of writing accordingly.

Of course. No one should go around calling people racial slurs or whatever just because that’s how they normally talk. I assume people doing so would be blocked on site anyway. I purely mean non-native speakers assuming certain words are combative or wrong when it’s probably just language differences that they aren’t aware of. Like with the examples I talked about where people thought I was being combative because I said “dude” and “sure”, both of which aren’t aggressive whatsoever. I don’t really get how you could interpret what I said to mean people should just be able to say whatever attacking, hurtful things they want. That’s obviously not what I was saying I’m not going to change my style of writing to exclude words that are perfectly acceptable to say in most or all English speaking places in the world just because someone who doesn’t understand the language thinks their being attacked by me saying them though.

[markkerrigan]

Not to throw any more fuel on the fire but these sorts of hostilities towards fellow contributors (even if not perceived as such by one party in the exchange) are discouraging for people who are new to the project. I would treat anything written in a public note as being public speech. If what you write is or could be perceived as being unnecessarily hostile then it probably shouldn’t be posted.