Hi Jonas

Hi everyone,

Going through the CoC again, I notice that it has a few gaps we should 
probably address.

While the current wording explicitly prohibits racist language, there are a 
lot of other *-isms which are unfortunately quite present in various spaces on 
the XMPP network and which sometimes roll into XSF rooms.

I do not think that we want to be perceived as, for instance, an anti-LGBTQIA+ 
community, so we should extend the CoC to:

a) send the clear message to the world that we won't tolerate behaviour that,
   and
b) give our moderators (that includes me in some places) the necessary holding 
   to enforce when necessary

Concretely, I propose that we add to 2.4 Be respectful, the following items on 
the list of things to avoid:

- Use of racist, misogynistic, anti-trans, anti-gay, ableist slurs, or other
  derogatory pejoratives for oppressed identity groups against such groups.

- Blatantly racist, casteist, ableist, sexist, anti-trans, or otherwise 
  offensive and bigoted discourse.

FWIW, I don't think coming up with ever more fine-grained categorization of what constitutes marginalized persons and putting that in the CoC is the right way to go.
One can always come up with more categories of marginalized people, and trying to enumerate all of them in a CoC is IMO impractical, while mentioning only some of them can create the impression that some categories of people are "more equal" than others.

At the end of the day, the tiniest minority is the individual, and requiring that we treat each individual with respect and courtesy is enough, without having to refer to specific (sometimes politically charged) categories.

In addition, before the list of things to avoid, I would like to add:

Respect others requests for space. That includes to disengage from a 
discourse if your partner(s) indicate that they do not want to discuss a 
topic any further. It is not easy to let someone be "wrong" on the internet,
but boundaries are there to be respected.

I'm +0 on this. Part of me thinks this is already handled by disallowing harassment.

To section 2.5 ("Be friendly and supportive"), I would like to add after the 
first paragraph:

This includes being mindful of the abilities of others; nobody is born an 
expert in anything and we all had to learn at some point. Be supportive of 
newcomers and learners. Do not be patronizing or condescending.

I agree and support adding this paragraph.

JC