3 ms·

Is this anything but a fit of pique on the part of the maintainer of the mirror? It seems that the maintainer is mainly saying "because I have done many good t

by JadeNB 9y ago

Is this anything but a fit of pique on the part of the maintainer of the mirror? It seems that the maintainer is mainly saying "because I have done many good things, no-one is allowed to complain about anything I do." It seemed that the notification was polite and professional, and made very clear that it involved no personal judgement, only a response to user demand. (The free-speech issue seems to be a red herring; no-one is, as far as I can tell, denying his right to name his mirror as he pleases. As the saying goes, "free speech is the right to say whatever you please, but not the right to have anyone listen.")

zimpenfish 9y ago
To be honest, if I was the Arch people, I'd boot him from the project just for the ridiculous self-preening nature of that email. And also for calling himself "Alucard". (This is why I'm not in charge of things, mind.)
- microcolonel 9y ago
  You'd be making a huge mistake, and if I were at a higher station than you when you did that, I would be very close to booting you if could be argued as a net good or neutral to do so.
  - zimpenfish 9y ago
    Why would I be making a huge mistake? They are clearly incapable of behaving professionally and, since the whole thrust of that thread is "Arch wants to behave professionally", booting them would align with that perfectly.
    - microcolonel 9y ago
      Maybe the laid-back, results oriented nature of Arch Linux is what got it here. The IRC and mailing list are openly hostile to people who do not read the manual, and yet it has consistently been the best goddamn Linux distro on the planet earth for the solid five years I've used it. It is on the backs of people like this that Arch Linux was built, and if that laissez faire atmosphere deteriorates, I suspect the productivity will deteriorate with it.
      - jrimbault 9y ago
        (I am a full time arch user and occasionally read some of the mailing lists) I don't see how the RTFM mentality and what you call "laid back" mentality are compatible. Imo, Arch is one of the more severe/strict distros and communities. Guess it's all perception.
        microcolonel 9y ago
        I know what you're getting at, and that's fair from one perspective. To people who are socially sensitive it can be very stressful to work with these folks. When I say laid-back I figure I mean that it is more tolerant/friendly to autistic behaviour. The low standard for social skills brings in a lot of people who do productive work, at the expense of the perception of people who don't work well with autistic types. More men and boys are autistic (or close to it) than women and girls, so you'll see an even bigger split here than usual. Basically, this domain name is typical autistic weeaboo trash (in keeping with the weeaboo handle). It's obviously not a literal endorsement of child trafficking; probably a morsel of dark humour which is more offensive than humorous if you're sensitive; or perhaps it's a tool for his work at NCMEC. Emotional sensitivity is effectively a cancer to these communities, because a large portion of the members are incapable of it. If it takes hold in the Arch Linux community, it could collapse almost entirely. HN has a lot of sensitive/agreeable people, so (understandable) outrage in this thread has cost me ~50 karma. It's a matter of personality, whether you see this as a sign of a healthy community, or possibly the end of an era. Seems like this guy has a history of being a grade too abrasive for different communities. I understand why he sounds so upset in his response here.
        steanne 9y ago
        side note: autism may not be quite so imbalanced by gender. it's diagnosed in males more often, but the diagnostic criteria were established by observing males and autism presents differently in females. there are suspected to be a lot of undiagnosed ones. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/autism-it-s-different-in-girls/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/autism-it-s-diffe...
  - kw71 9y ago
    When your goal is to have a wide audience as possible it is a good practice to avoid bad taste. We could have the same scenario with smart alecks committing code that has "fun" var and function names.
- Foxboron 9y ago
  It's a random person offering to host a mirror. He isn't affiliated, and havent contribute in any other way to the project. There is nothing to boot here.
microcolonel 9y ago
I think the point here is that a) he did everything right b) he did nothing wrong and c) it doesn't really matter what characters go into the name. I think the complaint is quite petty, and it doesn't really solve any problems. Approximately nobody is going to have a worse opinion of Arch Linux because of the content of a url in /etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist, and it's basically a waste of time to address this as an issue.
- scrollaway 9y ago
  > it's basically a waste of time to address this as an issue. It's just as much of a waste of time to defend it. Arch has hundreds of mirrors and dozens come and go every month. Dropping one takes less time than it took me to reply to you here.
  - microcolonel 9y ago
    > It's just as much of a waste of time to defend it. If by "defend" you mean "not spend more money on registering yet another domain", then I'd say it's worth defending. A hundred dollars is worth at least a few emails, especially if it is at the expense of a productive community member, on behalf of some anonymous whiner.
    - viraptor 9y ago
      Domains don't cost hundreds of dollars if you really don't care about the name. You can find some for $5 a year for one which nobody needs to remember/type.
    - scrollaway 9y ago
      Nobody is forcing the person in question to host an arch mirror. Being included in the official mirror list does not come without rules and if one of these rules is "don't have a shitty domain name", I don't see the problem. PS, domain names on non-egregious TLDs are 5-10 bucks a year.
      - 9y ago
viraptor 9y ago
I'm tempted to say it could've been a provocation planned for some time. The original name for the mirror was cuntflaps: https://bugs.archlinux.org/task/51870 https://bugs.archlinux.org/task/51870 and only changed after a request.
- zimpenfish 9y ago
  And my "they are clearly incapably of behaving professionally" gets a +1 buff.
konart 9y ago
> involved no personal judgement, only a response to user demand So it is okay to remove stuff just because somebody was offended? Why nobody is banning Rammstein concerts then? I'm pretty sure many people will find band's name offencive.
- smhost 9y ago
  > So it is okay to remove stuff just because somebody was offended? Yep.
  - konart 9y ago
    So... do you mind answering the second part then? Will they change ycombinator.com to something else if somebody is offended? Or will you change your "smhost" if I'm gonna tell you it offends me?
    - viraptor 9y ago
      > Why nobody is banning Rammstein concerts then? Because they choose not to. Each venue, organisation, or city which lawfully has influence over such events has the right to refuse. Neither case is "banning".
      - zimpenfish 9y ago
        e.g. Rammstein have been refused on safety grounds before now. 2001: "Rammstein were unable to play their show yesterday at the Astoria in London due to significant restrictions to their stageshow and pyrotechnics. The band feel it would be unfair to their fans, to see a show that would have become highly compromised. If these issues can be resolved the band promises to return to the UK later in the year for live shows. Rammstein apologize for letting their fans down due to a problem which was out of their hands"
        majewsky 9y ago
        That's entirely irrelevant to this discussion.

by JadeNB 9y ago

zimpenfish 9y ago

To be honest, if I was the Arch people, I'd boot him from the project just for the ridiculous self-preening nature of that email. And also for calling himself "Alucard". (This is why I'm not in charge of things, mind.)

microcolonel 9y ago
You'd be making a huge mistake, and if I were at a higher station than you when you did that, I would be very close to booting you if could be argued as a net good or neutral to do so.
- zimpenfish 9y ago
  Why would I be making a huge mistake? They are clearly incapable of behaving professionally and, since the whole thrust of that thread is "Arch wants to behave professionally", booting them would align with that perfectly.
  - microcolonel 9y ago
    Maybe the laid-back, results oriented nature of Arch Linux is what got it here. The IRC and mailing list are openly hostile to people who do not read the manual, and yet it has consistently been the best goddamn Linux distro on the planet earth for the solid five years I've used it. It is on the backs of people like this that Arch Linux was built, and if that laissez faire atmosphere deteriorates, I suspect the productivity will deteriorate with it.
    - jrimbault 9y ago
      (I am a full time arch user and occasionally read some of the mailing lists) I don't see how the RTFM mentality and what you call "laid back" mentality are compatible. Imo, Arch is one of the more severe/strict distros and communities. Guess it's all perception.
      - microcolonel 9y ago
        I know what you're getting at, and that's fair from one perspective. To people who are socially sensitive it can be very stressful to work with these folks. When I say laid-back I figure I mean that it is more tolerant/friendly to autistic behaviour. The low standard for social skills brings in a lot of people who do productive work, at the expense of the perception of people who don't work well with autistic types. More men and boys are autistic (or close to it) than women and girls, so you'll see an even bigger split here than usual. Basically, this domain name is typical autistic weeaboo trash (in keeping with the weeaboo handle). It's obviously not a literal endorsement of child trafficking; probably a morsel of dark humour which is more offensive than humorous if you're sensitive; or perhaps it's a tool for his work at NCMEC. Emotional sensitivity is effectively a cancer to these communities, because a large portion of the members are incapable of it. If it takes hold in the Arch Linux community, it could collapse almost entirely. HN has a lot of sensitive/agreeable people, so (understandable) outrage in this thread has cost me ~50 karma. It's a matter of personality, whether you see this as a sign of a healthy community, or possibly the end of an era. Seems like this guy has a history of being a grade too abrasive for different communities. I understand why he sounds so upset in his response here.
        steanne 9y ago
        side note: autism may not be quite so imbalanced by gender. it's diagnosed in males more often, but the diagnostic criteria were established by observing males and autism presents differently in females. there are suspected to be a lot of undiagnosed ones. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/autism-it-s-different-in-girls/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/autism-it-s-diffe...
- kw71 9y ago
  When your goal is to have a wide audience as possible it is a good practice to avoid bad taste. We could have the same scenario with smart alecks committing code that has "fun" var and function names.
Foxboron 9y ago
It's a random person offering to host a mirror. He isn't affiliated, and havent contribute in any other way to the project. There is nothing to boot here.

microcolonel 9y ago

I think the point here is that a) he did everything right b) he did nothing wrong and c) it doesn't really matter what characters go into the name. I think the complaint is quite petty, and it doesn't really solve any problems. Approximately nobody is going to have a worse opinion of Arch Linux because of the content of a url in /etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist, and it's basically a waste of time to address this as an issue.

scrollaway 9y ago
> it's basically a waste of time to address this as an issue. It's just as much of a waste of time to defend it. Arch has hundreds of mirrors and dozens come and go every month. Dropping one takes less time than it took me to reply to you here.
- microcolonel 9y ago
  > It's just as much of a waste of time to defend it. If by "defend" you mean "not spend more money on registering yet another domain", then I'd say it's worth defending. A hundred dollars is worth at least a few emails, especially if it is at the expense of a productive community member, on behalf of some anonymous whiner.
  - viraptor 9y ago
    Domains don't cost hundreds of dollars if you really don't care about the name. You can find some for $5 a year for one which nobody needs to remember/type.
  - scrollaway 9y ago
    Nobody is forcing the person in question to host an arch mirror. Being included in the official mirror list does not come without rules and if one of these rules is "don't have a shitty domain name", I don't see the problem. PS, domain names on non-egregious TLDs are 5-10 bucks a year.
    - 9y ago

viraptor 9y ago

I'm tempted to say it could've been a provocation planned for some time. The original name for the mirror was cuntflaps: https://bugs.archlinux.org/task/51870 https://bugs.archlinux.org/task/51870 and only changed after a request.

zimpenfish 9y ago
And my "they are clearly incapably of behaving professionally" gets a +1 buff.

konart 9y ago

> involved no personal judgement, only a response to user demand So it is okay to remove stuff just because somebody was offended? Why nobody is banning Rammstein concerts then? I'm pretty sure many people will find band's name offencive.

smhost 9y ago
> So it is okay to remove stuff just because somebody was offended? Yep.
- konart 9y ago
  So... do you mind answering the second part then? Will they change ycombinator.com to something else if somebody is offended? Or will you change your "smhost" if I'm gonna tell you it offends me?
  - viraptor 9y ago
    > Why nobody is banning Rammstein concerts then? Because they choose not to. Each venue, organisation, or city which lawfully has influence over such events has the right to refuse. Neither case is "banning".
    - zimpenfish 9y ago
      e.g. Rammstein have been refused on safety grounds before now. 2001: "Rammstein were unable to play their show yesterday at the Astoria in London due to significant restrictions to their stageshow and pyrotechnics. The band feel it would be unfair to their fans, to see a show that would have become highly compromised. If these issues can be resolved the band promises to return to the UK later in the year for live shows. Rammstein apologize for letting their fans down due to a problem which was out of their hands"
      - majewsky 9y ago
        That's entirely irrelevant to this discussion.