[tor-project] Localized mailing lists

[Paul Syverson]

On Fri, Apr 06, 2018 at 03:19:00PM +0000, Vasilis wrote:
> Alison Macrina:
> > On 04/06/2018 07:10 AM, Vasilis wrote:
> >> Since the global-south name is horrible and we have never gone into
> >> the process of changing I guess it will make sense to rename the
> >> list (and the IRC channe) and then announce it to the world as the
> >> LATAM Tor mailing list?
> > I agree that the name "global-south" is suboptimal, but we've had
> > multiple conversations about this (I think you've been there for at
> > least a couple of them), most recently discussions in Rome, where the
> > rough consensus was that the name is problematic but less problematic
> > than other choices and there isn't a better option that's widely
> > recognized. 
> 
> Many people from LATAM don't usually like this term and
> unfortunately these people are not with us during the Tor
> meetings. Personally I have been questioned about the name
> 'global-south' in Chile, Argentina and various regions in
> Brazil. For anyone interest in the topic, some basic info on why
> this term is not ideal to many people:
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_South#Debates_over_the_term
> 
> > So it's not exactly true that no one has gone into the
> > process of changing it...it's been discussed in every meeting I've
> > been in related to global south initiatives.
> 
> Doesn't the term 'global south' being discussed in every meeting
> justifies the significant importance of this issue, otherwise would
> it be a thing to discuss?
> 

Aside: This is a comment only about the terminology and how that may
be masking deeper issues with the concepts behind it. I support the
initiative of the specific suggestions in this thread that sparked
these questions. I am also happy to leave working out specifics of how
to pursue those initiatives to those who are trying to best make
this work for themselves and those they know.

Tor has grown a lot since it was just me, Roger, and Nick and a
handful of relays at MIT. But that growth has clearly been culturally
and geographically unevenly distributed, across users, developers,
operators, outreach focus, etc. The cultural, linguistic, geographic,
geo-political underrepresented populations are themselves diverse and
unique.  From Tor's perspective what they have in common is that they
are broadly underrepresented. If Tor attempts to address this as a
general area of concern, then whatever term it uses will be lumping a
lot of distinct groups together. As long as we attempt _at all_ to
address this area generally, then that will be so even if most of the
discussion and action gets appropriately focused on individual
groups/languages/geo-political entities/etc.

Perhaps this term itself has so much baggage that it just has to
go. I'm not familiar enough with the context to know. But, limiting
just to Tor and not other related social/economic/technical areas that
face overlapping problems and from some of whom "global south" was
taken, here's the question: Will it help to come up with another
term-du-jour, or will it that term also quickly pass into resentment
and annoyance for those from the third world/underdeveloped
nations/global south/whatever other dubious terminology I don't know
about/ who end up getting grouped under it?  If so what could we do,
short of declining to recognize and address this uneven distribution
of Tor as a general problem and only recognizing individual specific
instances of it?

Perhaps it would be at least a little better if we come up with some
term that doesn't inherit the non-Tor baggage of those other terms?
For example, I notice I used the term 'underrepresented' above in
trying to avoid already laden or used terminology. If Tor people start
using 'underrepresented' as a convenient way to refer to recognizable
significant geographic/linguistic/cultural groups Tor could generally
be much better serving/connected to/ then will that become a
problematic term for the same reasons?  Even if coming up with a
Tor-specific or not-currently-loaded term is better in that sense,
will it not be worth the cost of failing to have recognizable-term
efforts in the eyes of international development entities that might
provide Tor with funding or other support?

I don't have clear answers to the questions I raised. I just wanted to
note that any effort spent simply replacing 'global south' with a
better term may not actually do much to address the issues we are
attributing on the term itself. (And mea culpa, this message is lousy
with idiomatic US-specific and even maybe Paul-specific phraseology,
but don't have time to improve it now, gotta run. ;>)

HTH,
Paul