Diversity Policy

Documentation Community
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The Ubuntu project welcomes and encourages participation by everyone. We are committed to being a community that everyone feels good about joining. Although we may not be able to satisfy everyone, we will always work to treat everyone well.

Standards for behaviour in the Ubuntu community are detailed in the Code of Conduct and Leadership Code of Conduct. We expect participants in our community to meet these standards in all their interactions and to help others to do so as well.

Whenever any participant has made a mistake, we expect them to take responsibility for it. If someone has been harmed or offended, it is our responsibility to listen carefully and respectfully, and do our best to right the wrong.

Although this list cannot be exhaustive, 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.

Some of the ideas and wording for this statement were based on diversity statements from the Python community and Dreamwidth Studios (CC-BY-SA 3.0).

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Hey aaron,

what do you want to tell the people by the following?

And why are you using the word ‘race’?

Regards
SH

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Hello SH, welcome to the community!
The policy is simply a recognition that our community is broad, diverse and cross cultural. We as a community believe that it’s a great strength and it begins with treating each other with respect and dignity.
If you believe there is something missing from the policy or something that we should consider adjusting, please let us know.

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Thank you for the warm welcome.

How do you know that your/our community is broad, diverse, and cross-cultural?
The access here is anonymous. One only needs an email address, which means no one really knows anything about each other. Which isn’t a problem. The only obvious thing that connects us is Ubuntu.

Has anyone here ever doubted that?

If someone is able to sign up here and contribute to this community, and has not yet learned to treat others with respect and dignity up until this point, they will not learn it through this diversity policy either.

This diversity policy is so illogical and obsolete in so many ways that I don’t even know where to start. Please don’t take this the wrong way, but it reminds me more of subtle political agitation from darker times. I don’t want to accuse you of doing this knowingly, and that’s exactly the subtlety of it: people just adopt phrases without thinking much about them.
For example, you still owe me an answer to my second question from the first post.
Why do you use the word ‘race’? In this context, it makes no sense at all, because I’m sure you don’t believe people can be divided into races, do you?
Humanity is diverse by definition, and this community is for humans, so why would we need a diversity policy?
I don’t want to go into this further, I think my point is clear: please delete this diversity policy, it’s unnecessary, it feels more like political agitation, and reading it causes physical pain for some people (for example, for me).

Thank you!
SH

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I think it’s valuable to clarify that this isn’t a platform-specific artifact, but as I mentioned previously, a more detailed breakdown of what is articulated within the Ubuntu Code of Conduct. Its intention is to help elucidate what is meant by ‘diversity’ in that document. As you mentioned, ‘humanity is diverse by definition’, and therefore it’s helpful to provide some examples of the characteristics that indeed make humans unique.

As the policy states, ‘we explicitly honour…’ to show discrimination based on any of the stated characteristics inherently goes against the community’s values and therefore violates the Code of Conduct that we all follow.

To your specific question with regard to the term ‘race’ being used in that list of characteristics, I believe there is value in reviewing it. I will gladly pass the policy to our Community Council and allow them to deliberate if and how the policy should be updated to ensure it’s using the correct terminology, is accurate and properly reflects the community’s values.

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Hey Aaron,

thank you for your feedback.

I would like to clarify my point a bit further, and I hope that nothing gets lost in translation.

The term ‘diversity’ is increasingly used in political discussions and is interpreted in different ways. Therefore, it is important that the Code of Conduct remains as neutral as possible to ensure that it is understandable and inclusive for everyone.

I see a fundamental issue with enumerations of characteristics, as they are often incomplete and may lead some people to feel excluded. Even if a disclaimer states that the list is not exhaustive, it can still be perceived as a judgment on what is considered important. Ultimately, leaving out a characteristic in a list can be just as exclusionary as explicitly including certain ones.

For this reason, I strongly recommend avoiding such enumerations and instead opting for a more general, inclusive phrasing that applies to everyone. If you do choose to include a statement on this, I would suggest keeping it concise, politically neutral, and logically sound.

To put it simply: Be kind to each other, be considerate, live Ubuntu.
Or in philosophical terms: Act according to the categorical imperative.

I understand that it might be difficult to see why the term ‘diversity’ is not necessarily politically neutral. However, we should always be mindful when certain terms gain particular emphasis and when not using them starts to be viewed critically. Language shapes our thinking and can, consciously or unconsciously, be used to steer opinions. For this reason, we should be careful that terms are not framed in a way that unintentionally fosters division or exclusion.

Best regards,
SH

P.S.: Yes, I noticed the mention of ‘political beliefs’. However, in this context, I find it irrelevant because the core issue lies elsewhere.

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Hi SH

These kinds of statements are always up for interpretation and our goal is not to craft a perfect policy, but just to give readers a starting point for understanding our community’s stance towards diversity. In general, we try not to modify statements like these too much, because each change will have proponents and opponents. What matters most in the end is our behavior and the culture we create in our community, which should stand on its own as our commitment to these values.

Your questions are valid, though, and our answers can help you and others better understand and interpret this text.

To answer your specific question of our use of the word race. For clarification, Ubuntu’s documentation generally uses UK English, so we use race as defined in the Oxford English Dictionary:

Each of the major groupings into which humankind is considered (in various theories or contexts) to be divided on the basis of physical characteristics or shared ancestry.

This is indeed highly dependent on culture and context, and might even be completely meaningless in some contexts. Our use of this term is thus not meant as an endorsement, simply as an affirmation that we value diversity in any context.

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