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Agreed. This is social media style moderation being applied to a website that is more similar to infrastructure or a library. If I were a member of a private, p

Agreed. This is social media style moderation being applied to a website that is more similar to infrastructure or a library. If I were a member of a private, professional library* and a colleague was found to hold racist views or had submitted a racist paper, I would still find it unacceptable to see that all of their books and papers had been indiscriminately pulled off the shelves overnight. In fact, such a thing would be unthinkable. * Do such things exist? I'm just trying to keep the example out of the public or academic spheres.

AndrewStephens 4y ago
> This is social media style moderation being applied to a website that is more similar to infrastructure or a library. I don't know anything about the immediate situation here but calling GitHub "infrastructure" is not accurate. I know every man and his dog hosts their repos there but GitHub is a private company (owned by Microsoft!) and is not obliged to host things that it thinks will make it look bad.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- Redoubts 4y ago
  Private companies can be treated as infrastructure, and of course private companies are free to operate in a way that reduces faith in their reliability.
VictorPath 4y ago
[flagged]
- rjbwork 4y ago
  Try steelmanning. Or, at the very least, maybe buttermanning, someone's argument when you respond to them.
sillysaurusx 4y ago
Good lord. The replies you’ve attracted are awful. I just wanted to say that I agree with you, so that you don’t feel like you’re the only one. Have a nice day!
ModernMech 4y ago
> In fact, such a thing would be unthinkable. But wouldn’t you agree that if I run a private professional library, I have the right to add or remove books by any (legal) process I deem appropriate? > Do such things exist? I sorta do this; I have a small collection of historical programming languages texts that I make available to my students and anyone else interested. It’s not really a membership kind of thing tho.
- jetrink 4y ago
  > But wouldn’t you agree that if I run a private professional library, I have the right to add or remove books by any (legal) process I deem appropriate? Of course. I don't think this is a question of freedom of speech or anything like that. I think this is about how Github should moderate its content in a way that is best for its users and its business. Making a Twitter profile or a YouTube channel disappear is categorically different in my mind from making a GitHub repository disappear and I think GitHub should want for me to feel that way. If I don't, it changes how and how much I use the service.
  - ModernMech 4y ago
    > Making a Twitter profile or a YouTube channel disappear is categorically different in my mind from making a GitHub repository disappear and I think GitHub should want for me to feel that way. I agree it's categorically different but not in the way you mean. From your other post, I understand that you view Twitter and YouTube as social media, and they are distinct from software infrastructure like GitHub. The way I see it, all three are social networks, but what make GitHub distinct from the other two is that it's backed by git. So if GitHub wants to ban me, I can easily move my code to any number of services. Which, honestly if you're relying on GitHub as infrastructure, you should have a backup plan anyway for if/when it goes down.

AndrewStephens 4y ago

> This is social media style moderation being applied to a website that is more similar to infrastructure or a library. I don't know anything about the immediate situation here but calling GitHub "infrastructure" is not accurate. I know every man and his dog hosts their repos there but GitHub is a private company (owned by Microsoft!) and is not obliged to host things that it thinks will make it look bad.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
Redoubts 4y ago
Private companies can be treated as infrastructure, and of course private companies are free to operate in a way that reduces faith in their reliability.

VictorPath 4y ago

[flagged]

rjbwork 4y ago
Try steelmanning. Or, at the very least, maybe buttermanning, someone's argument when you respond to them.

sillysaurusx 4y ago

Good lord. The replies you’ve attracted are awful. I just wanted to say that I agree with you, so that you don’t feel like you’re the only one. Have a nice day!

ModernMech 4y ago

> In fact, such a thing would be unthinkable. But wouldn’t you agree that if I run a private professional library, I have the right to add or remove books by any (legal) process I deem appropriate? > Do such things exist? I sorta do this; I have a small collection of historical programming languages texts that I make available to my students and anyone else interested. It’s not really a membership kind of thing tho.

jetrink 4y ago
> But wouldn’t you agree that if I run a private professional library, I have the right to add or remove books by any (legal) process I deem appropriate? Of course. I don't think this is a question of freedom of speech or anything like that. I think this is about how Github should moderate its content in a way that is best for its users and its business. Making a Twitter profile or a YouTube channel disappear is categorically different in my mind from making a GitHub repository disappear and I think GitHub should want for me to feel that way. If I don't, it changes how and how much I use the service.
- ModernMech 4y ago
  > Making a Twitter profile or a YouTube channel disappear is categorically different in my mind from making a GitHub repository disappear and I think GitHub should want for me to feel that way. I agree it's categorically different but not in the way you mean. From your other post, I understand that you view Twitter and YouTube as social media, and they are distinct from software infrastructure like GitHub. The way I see it, all three are social networks, but what make GitHub distinct from the other two is that it's backed by git. So if GitHub wants to ban me, I can easily move my code to any number of services. Which, honestly if you're relying on GitHub as infrastructure, you should have a backup plan anyway for if/when it goes down.