But that's exactly what the actual article this story is based on was about. Someone raised the issue in a very calm and understanding manner. He didn't accuse the entire community of being sexist, but did bring up the issue that there are some implicit points that could be constructed as sexist by many members of the community, yet be seen as innocent jokes by the people who made them. And now we're in a flamewar.

This is actually a very big point for a lot of people working to end the more subtle forces of racism and sexism in our society. We're mostly beyond the point of abject and visible racism, sexism and homophobia. But, it's still a major part of our society. A lot of people who don't face jokes about how women should be in the kitchen making dinner (speaking of which, this'll be my last post in the thread because I have to go and cook a delicious thanksgiving dinner) don't see it as sexism, because it doesn't effect them. It's just a joke that they made. Same thing with saying that something's gay or faggy.

But, when it's done over and over again, it's not really a joke. So, I think a lot of the people talking about sexism in FOSS aren't asking you to change your entire life just to make sure no one in the world is ever offended again. But just to think about how other people might read what you write, and to put in the smallest modicum of effort so that people read what you actually mean instead of being turned off by how you say it.

Okay, let's take you're example of .01%. So, one out of every 1000 posts contains sexiest language. That's a problem in of itself. It doesn't solve the problem to say that other things are worse. Obviously 4Chan will have more sexist and racist comments than the Debian mailing list. Open source development is based on a community model of development. If you want it to succeed, you need to understand that when one part of the group gets attacked because of some intrinsic attribute about them, you're going to have problems. Do you want Linux distributions to be better? That means you need every single talented person who's willing to contribute to contribute. And I guarantee you there are a lot more women developers who would be willing to contribute than there are men who will quite over being "censored" when someone asks them not to make an ass of themselves.

No, I don't think anyone said that. Though, you know, it would be nice if people realized that it is generally a bad thing for people to be able to make death threats against women without being called on it. Because these things escalate.

Here's the thing. We all want open source to succeed and grow bigger. That mean getting more developers and more users. But, if someone with a name like Cindy or Susan tries to contribute to a program and they're met with responses that treat them differently because of their gender, FOSS is going to run into problems.

okay, how about 54 incidents? And that's with about 25 seconds of searching.

And before you respond, tell me if you'll need a tractor to help you with all the goalpost moving you're doing.

Okay, let's try an example from a Debian commentor called MikeeUSA

Ouch.

And also

examples taken from Geek Feminism