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He was being a complete idiot in his bug report. The moderator stated that he has been warned many times before. He completely deserved to be banned after being

He was being a complete idiot in his bug report. The moderator stated that he has been warned many times before. He completely deserved to be banned after being warned that his actions will result in being banned. Sure, he is submitting bug reports, but his childish behavior shouldn't have to be tolerated because of this.

vijaydev 15y ago
We don't know the earlier instances where he was warned. IMHO, this particular bug report doesn't seem to be out of line with the rules here: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/page.cgi?id=etiquette.html https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/page.cgi?id=etiquette.html
- asadotzler 15y ago
  But you could look if you wanted to. How about when he called Thunderbird developers simians and said he wanted to cut off their hands so they couldn't program any more? Is that out of line enough for you? What about saying "screw you" and calling developers children. I consider all of that out of line. He was being a bully and he got banned for it. Good on Dan Mosedale. Bullies suck and we shouldn't let them pollute our communities with their abuse.
  - vijaydev 15y ago
    Yes, I saw one in a link posted above. Definitely out of line. No second thoughts on that. If the ban had happened in reply to one such post, it would have been unquestioned by many.
    - asadotzler 15y ago
      Yeah, unfortunately for everyone he was only warned on the worst of the interactions and given a second chance. Sometimes a ban on the first offense is better. Still, a ban after a failure to heed a warning seems completely reasonable. Heck, a re-evaluation of the original interaction with the knowledge of how he behaved after the warning would have worked too. But again, the important thing isn't where the ban happened, it's that the project rejected a bully.
      - chittis 15y ago
        The important thing is exactly when and why the ban happened. As others have pointed out, his latest bug report that got him banned was hugely better than his older bug report filled with personal insults that got him a warning. This shows that he took the warning seriously enough to stop the personal attacks. Banning him now makes me think the developers of Thunderbird are ego maniacs.
gojomo 15y ago
If this report is representative, I don't think a thousand similar reports would deserve a ban. There's some exasperation, some sarcasm, some foot-stomping while expressing strong opinions. But there's no profanity or insults. The strongest negative word used is 'stupid', and it's applied to a question in the UI, not any person. The details and rationale for considering the software's behavior an interaction faux pas are strong. It's hard to even see which part of 'Bugzilla Etiquette' this report violates: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/page.cgi?id=etiquette.html https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/page.cgi?id=etiquette.html If other reports are worse, that's another matter. But if so, it seems odd this relatively mild report would be the final trigger that brings down the banhammer. (If there's a reliable pattern of abuse, just wait for the next non-mild incident.)
- sid0 15y ago
  No, if there's a track record of obscene bug reports, then the person involved shouldn't be given even the slightest bit of slack. edit: if I were dmose, I'd have banned him a year ago for https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=579372#c2 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=579372#c2.
  - gojomo 15y ago
    If they need to punish obscene reports, punish for those, specifically. When they happen. Don't punish a mild, non-obscene report some other time. edit for your edit: Thanks for finding an earlier clearer example. That comment was unnecessarily personal and abusive. It deserved reprimand or censure. And if the reprimand(s) are responsible for the less-personal tone of the 2011-06-30 comment, compared to the 2010-07-21 comment, they're working to increase the signal-to-emotional-noise ratio. But the controversy of a hard ban for a lesser transgression now introduces new emotional noise.
    - sid0 15y ago
      While we might disagree on the exact mechanics, I think we can agree that any open-source community would be better without such people.

vijaydev 15y ago

We don't know the earlier instances where he was warned. IMHO, this particular bug report doesn't seem to be out of line with the rules here: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/page.cgi?id=etiquette.html https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/page.cgi?id=etiquette.html

asadotzler 15y ago
But you could look if you wanted to. How about when he called Thunderbird developers simians and said he wanted to cut off their hands so they couldn't program any more? Is that out of line enough for you? What about saying "screw you" and calling developers children. I consider all of that out of line. He was being a bully and he got banned for it. Good on Dan Mosedale. Bullies suck and we shouldn't let them pollute our communities with their abuse.
- vijaydev 15y ago
  Yes, I saw one in a link posted above. Definitely out of line. No second thoughts on that. If the ban had happened in reply to one such post, it would have been unquestioned by many.
  - asadotzler 15y ago
    Yeah, unfortunately for everyone he was only warned on the worst of the interactions and given a second chance. Sometimes a ban on the first offense is better. Still, a ban after a failure to heed a warning seems completely reasonable. Heck, a re-evaluation of the original interaction with the knowledge of how he behaved after the warning would have worked too. But again, the important thing isn't where the ban happened, it's that the project rejected a bully.
    - chittis 15y ago
      The important thing is exactly when and why the ban happened. As others have pointed out, his latest bug report that got him banned was hugely better than his older bug report filled with personal insults that got him a warning. This shows that he took the warning seriously enough to stop the personal attacks. Banning him now makes me think the developers of Thunderbird are ego maniacs.

gojomo 15y ago

If this report is representative, I don't think a thousand similar reports would deserve a ban. There's some exasperation, some sarcasm, some foot-stomping while expressing strong opinions. But there's no profanity or insults. The strongest negative word used is 'stupid', and it's applied to a question in the UI, not any person. The details and rationale for considering the software's behavior an interaction faux pas are strong. It's hard to even see which part of 'Bugzilla Etiquette' this report violates: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/page.cgi?id=etiquette.html https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/page.cgi?id=etiquette.html If other reports are worse, that's another matter. But if so, it seems odd this relatively mild report would be the final trigger that brings down the banhammer. (If there's a reliable pattern of abuse, just wait for the next non-mild incident.)

sid0 15y ago
No, if there's a track record of obscene bug reports, then the person involved shouldn't be given even the slightest bit of slack. edit: if I were dmose, I'd have banned him a year ago for https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=579372#c2 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=579372#c2.
- gojomo 15y ago
  If they need to punish obscene reports, punish for those, specifically. When they happen. Don't punish a mild, non-obscene report some other time. edit for your edit: Thanks for finding an earlier clearer example. That comment was unnecessarily personal and abusive. It deserved reprimand or censure. And if the reprimand(s) are responsible for the less-personal tone of the 2011-06-30 comment, compared to the 2010-07-21 comment, they're working to increase the signal-to-emotional-noise ratio. But the controversy of a hard ban for a lesser transgression now introduces new emotional noise.
  - sid0 15y ago
    While we might disagree on the exact mechanics, I think we can agree that any open-source community would be better without such people.