3 ms·

A big problem is that people allow this sort of thing as part of the culture. I've followed the Fedora and PHP development mailing lists a few different times o

A big problem is that people allow this sort of thing as part of the culture. I've followed the Fedora and PHP development mailing lists a few different times over the years ans this sort of thing was tolerated across the board. It doesn't matter if you crowdsource the moderation if nobody thinks the behavior is bad in the first place. Trying to do something about it was called censorship.

npteljes 3y ago
I'm sorry I don't understand your point clearly. Why is it a big problem, and whose problem it is?
- johnny22 3y ago
  The premise of the post I replied to is that the mailing list moderation is currently not great and that it allows people to be abusive. It suggest that we should crowdsource this moderation. I assume they think this will lower the burden. I myself do not think that this is the actual problem. I think the actual problem is that many FOSS communities have fostered an idea that cracking down on certain types of behavior is censorship. Of course they might all agree to ban somebody who is saying certain well known explicit words or being really really aggressive, but there's a lot of behavior that I would consider bannable but they do not. I'm trying to avoid mentioning specific cases because I don't wanna either reopen old wounds or cause another similar dustup. I can say that it reminds me a lot of the really old post about the 5 geek social fallacies https://plausiblydeniable.com/five-geek-social-fallacies/ https://plausiblydeniable.com/five-geek-social-fallacies/ In particular social fallacy #1 Obviously we're not talking about geek culture here (in general anyways). After rereading it, I saw something else that we actually do a see a lot even today. This in particular has happened on many a mailing list, including the ones I'm not specifically mentioning >> <SNIP> when nothing smacking of social selectiveness can be discussed in public, people inevitably begin to organize activities in secret. </SNIP> Well-known annoyances get tolerated for years, and the people who do the work start moving their discussions to bug trackers, irc, or in personal emails to avoid interacting with them.
  - npteljes 3y ago
    I agree with this. In group settings I also look out for group-destructive behavior, and address it as best as I can. I'm the kind of person who thinks that certain rules, while restrictive on the surface, enable a sort of sustainable freedom down the line, similar to how the GPL license works.

npteljes 3y ago

I'm sorry I don't understand your point clearly. Why is it a big problem, and whose problem it is?

johnny22 3y ago
The premise of the post I replied to is that the mailing list moderation is currently not great and that it allows people to be abusive. It suggest that we should crowdsource this moderation. I assume they think this will lower the burden. I myself do not think that this is the actual problem. I think the actual problem is that many FOSS communities have fostered an idea that cracking down on certain types of behavior is censorship. Of course they might all agree to ban somebody who is saying certain well known explicit words or being really really aggressive, but there's a lot of behavior that I would consider bannable but they do not. I'm trying to avoid mentioning specific cases because I don't wanna either reopen old wounds or cause another similar dustup. I can say that it reminds me a lot of the really old post about the 5 geek social fallacies https://plausiblydeniable.com/five-geek-social-fallacies/ https://plausiblydeniable.com/five-geek-social-fallacies/ In particular social fallacy #1 Obviously we're not talking about geek culture here (in general anyways). After rereading it, I saw something else that we actually do a see a lot even today. This in particular has happened on many a mailing list, including the ones I'm not specifically mentioning >> <SNIP> when nothing smacking of social selectiveness can be discussed in public, people inevitably begin to organize activities in secret. </SNIP> Well-known annoyances get tolerated for years, and the people who do the work start moving their discussions to bug trackers, irc, or in personal emails to avoid interacting with them.
- npteljes 3y ago
  I agree with this. In group settings I also look out for group-destructive behavior, and address it as best as I can. I'm the kind of person who thinks that certain rules, while restrictive on the surface, enable a sort of sustainable freedom down the line, similar to how the GPL license works.