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My issue with this is not that codeberg and its members want to uphold a certain set of political beliefs. Any private organization is free to do that. It's tha

My issue with this is not that codeberg and its members want to uphold a certain set of political beliefs. Any private organization is free to do that. It's that they haven't defined the rule that's supposed to encode those beliefs. As written, the rule is a non-exhaustive example of "content that harms codeberg's reputation". Someone asked in the pr whether "cryptocurrency-related" is defined anywhere and it merged without an answer. The responses to wording concerns was essentially they will figure it out later. Moves like this don't fill me with confidence.

tkel 2mo ago
You're still not understanding the point. It's not about an organization being "private" or "public" (what does "private" even mean?). Everything is political. When you try and cleave society into things that are and aren't political, what you are doing is creating a normative set of things that aren't allowed to be challenged, on the basis of your claim that they aren't political, obscuring/obfuscating their actual underlying politics, and everything else is pushed outside of it. It is an attempt to create strict boundaries around the limits of discussion and action, which is itself a political act!
- fluoridation 2mo ago
  >When you try and cleave society into things that are and aren't political, what you are doing is creating a normative set of things that aren't allowed to be challenged, on the basis of your claim that they aren't political What are you talking about? Whether something is allowed to be challenged has nothing to do with whether it's political. Actually, what even is not allowed to be challenged? I struggle to come up with a single example.
  - tkel 2mo ago
    Yes, in communities that try to claim that certain things are "political" and certain things are "not political", "banning cryptocurrency" could be rejected on the basis that it is "political". The point is that saying something like "we don't do politics" is absurd. There is always an underlying politics, even if it has been normalized or obfuscated, repressed or unexamined. Reread my above comment.
    - TobTobXX 2mo ago
      No, I think both, political and apolitical decisions can exist. If you ban a project because its CI pipeline mines crypto and that ia a drain on your server, it is an apolitical argument. If you ban a project because it drains recources because an AI agent is commutting multiple times a second, that is apolitical. If you ban a project, because it hosts content that doesn't align with your ideals since it uses cryptocurrencies, that is clearly political. Sure, there may be a small grey zone. But there are swaths of decicions that are clearly political/apolitical.
      - inigyou 2mo ago
        Is the set of acceptable uses for shared infrastructure not a political question? What's different between mining crypto on a free CI server, letting my cows eat all the grass at the park, or dumping industrial waste into the river?
        iamnothere 2mo ago
        Most people distinguish practical questions from normative questions. Practical questions may have some small political component, but usually it’s not useful or constructive to consider them as political issues. Some practical questions have an obvious political dimension, in which case it’s fair to consider that component, but people will often argue over whether the question is “political enough” to justify debate. To deal with this, you need processes to ensure that debate is contained but not overly restricted on this kind of issue. Making every question political is a trick right out of the OSS Simple Sabotage Field Manual. Whether to pay the hosting bill shouldn’t be a political question. Whether to change hosts may or may not be, depending on the reasoning.
        inigyou 2mo ago
        It's political as in it contains politics. Yes paying the hosting bill is political for at least three reasons (belief in the value of money and capitalism, belief that specific host should not be boycotted, belief the whole organisation agrees you get more value from the hosting than from keeping the money). That doesn't mean a political debate is needed every time it's time to pay it. It does mean that if someone says "hey this hosting provider is also hosting kiwifarms, should we really give them money?" a response of "paying the hosting isn't political" is incorrect.
inigyou 2mo ago
Real-world lines are blurry. If you try to define a bright line, someone finds a loophole. Like the other thread (about codeberg banning vibecoded projects) had arguments about whether a project with 49.999% generated code would count. Which is based on a category error - things just don't work that way.
- iamnothere 2mo ago
  It sounds like Codeberg needs to define both clear guidelines and a systematic process by which potential violations of the policy can be fairly reviewed and/or appealed—table stakes for a system that’s going to be integrated into your project as a hosting provider and community hub. What you seem to be arguing for is seat-of-the-pants reactive mob governance. Functional communities and societies don’t work that way.
  - inigyou 2mo ago
    It sounds like the process is that if your project is obviously spam, they just delete it and ban you, otherwise they reach out to you first. Such indkvidualized contact is only possible because Codeberg is relatively small, and not a garbage dump for every code file or spam project.
    - iamnothere 2mo ago
      Yeah, well we’ll see what the future holds. Based on past experience, without well-defined procedures, I expect activists will eventually seize control of the process and go after devs/projects that they have personal grievances with. I will not use or recommend Codeberg until they put some structure around this.
      - inigyou 2mo ago
        Okay? They're not asking you to use or recommend it. In fact they prefer that you don't.
        2mo ago

tkel 2mo ago

You're still not understanding the point. It's not about an organization being "private" or "public" (what does "private" even mean?). Everything is political. When you try and cleave society into things that are and aren't political, what you are doing is creating a normative set of things that aren't allowed to be challenged, on the basis of your claim that they aren't political, obscuring/obfuscating their actual underlying politics, and everything else is pushed outside of it. It is an attempt to create strict boundaries around the limits of discussion and action, which is itself a political act!

fluoridation 2mo ago
>When you try and cleave society into things that are and aren't political, what you are doing is creating a normative set of things that aren't allowed to be challenged, on the basis of your claim that they aren't political What are you talking about? Whether something is allowed to be challenged has nothing to do with whether it's political. Actually, what even is not allowed to be challenged? I struggle to come up with a single example.
- tkel 2mo ago
  Yes, in communities that try to claim that certain things are "political" and certain things are "not political", "banning cryptocurrency" could be rejected on the basis that it is "political". The point is that saying something like "we don't do politics" is absurd. There is always an underlying politics, even if it has been normalized or obfuscated, repressed or unexamined. Reread my above comment.
  - TobTobXX 2mo ago
    No, I think both, political and apolitical decisions can exist. If you ban a project because its CI pipeline mines crypto and that ia a drain on your server, it is an apolitical argument. If you ban a project because it drains recources because an AI agent is commutting multiple times a second, that is apolitical. If you ban a project, because it hosts content that doesn't align with your ideals since it uses cryptocurrencies, that is clearly political. Sure, there may be a small grey zone. But there are swaths of decicions that are clearly political/apolitical.
    - inigyou 2mo ago
      Is the set of acceptable uses for shared infrastructure not a political question? What's different between mining crypto on a free CI server, letting my cows eat all the grass at the park, or dumping industrial waste into the river?
      - iamnothere 2mo ago
        Most people distinguish practical questions from normative questions. Practical questions may have some small political component, but usually it’s not useful or constructive to consider them as political issues. Some practical questions have an obvious political dimension, in which case it’s fair to consider that component, but people will often argue over whether the question is “political enough” to justify debate. To deal with this, you need processes to ensure that debate is contained but not overly restricted on this kind of issue. Making every question political is a trick right out of the OSS Simple Sabotage Field Manual. Whether to pay the hosting bill shouldn’t be a political question. Whether to change hosts may or may not be, depending on the reasoning.
        inigyou 2mo ago
        It's political as in it contains politics. Yes paying the hosting bill is political for at least three reasons (belief in the value of money and capitalism, belief that specific host should not be boycotted, belief the whole organisation agrees you get more value from the hosting than from keeping the money). That doesn't mean a political debate is needed every time it's time to pay it. It does mean that if someone says "hey this hosting provider is also hosting kiwifarms, should we really give them money?" a response of "paying the hosting isn't political" is incorrect.

inigyou 2mo ago

Real-world lines are blurry. If you try to define a bright line, someone finds a loophole. Like the other thread (about codeberg banning vibecoded projects) had arguments about whether a project with 49.999% generated code would count. Which is based on a category error - things just don't work that way.

iamnothere 2mo ago
It sounds like Codeberg needs to define both clear guidelines and a systematic process by which potential violations of the policy can be fairly reviewed and/or appealed—table stakes for a system that’s going to be integrated into your project as a hosting provider and community hub. What you seem to be arguing for is seat-of-the-pants reactive mob governance. Functional communities and societies don’t work that way.
- inigyou 2mo ago
  It sounds like the process is that if your project is obviously spam, they just delete it and ban you, otherwise they reach out to you first. Such indkvidualized contact is only possible because Codeberg is relatively small, and not a garbage dump for every code file or spam project.
  - iamnothere 2mo ago
    Yeah, well we’ll see what the future holds. Based on past experience, without well-defined procedures, I expect activists will eventually seize control of the process and go after devs/projects that they have personal grievances with. I will not use or recommend Codeberg until they put some structure around this.
    - inigyou 2mo ago
      Okay? They're not asking you to use or recommend it. In fact they prefer that you don't.
      - 2mo ago