So I'd like to step back, because these arguments have a tendency to start to miss the point. My general claim here is "people treat ESR uncharitably". In this

So I'd like to step back, because these arguments have a tendency to start to miss the point. My general claim here is "people treat ESR uncharitably". In this thread, that started with people choosing an unfavourable interpretation of you are not a master of C until.... When I pointed out that this was uncharitable, people said "this is a common theme in ESR's writing". I think that what they meant was something like "it's okay to take the uncharitable interpretation, because ESR often writes things similar to the uncharitable interpretation, so it's probably correct". mwfunk gave a specific example of ESR acting similar to the uncharitable interpretation. I pointed out that the example was simply not true. It made three verifiable claims, and all of them were false. I call mwfunk uncharitable for this. The example was "ESR took action Y". You said my evidence showed that ESR actually took action Z, and Y and Z are both instances of ESR taking meta-action A (updating the jargon file to say hacker politics match his own). And if ESR has done A, then uncharity becomes more justified. But to interpret Z as A is much easier if we accuse ESR of being a neoconservative. This, too, is uncharitable: he has said that he is not and has never been a conservative, and that conservatives are villains. He did align with neoconservatives on one issue that a lot of people fervently disagreed with neoconservatives about, but that doesn't make him a neoconservative. And if ESR isn't a neoconservative, and merely aligns with them on one issue that people care a lot about, then Z is much less strongly an instance of A. You have leveled accusations against ESR that I think stand by themselves. But they're far less damning than we started with, and in the meantime, this thread has been filled with examples of uncharity, which is exactly what I'm objecting to. (On a broad level, I think what we have here is uncharity piled upon uncharity. ESR says something, and people interpret it uncharitably, because the uncharitable interpretation is how ESR acts; and they know this, because of uncharitable interpretations of previous things that he's done. But those interpretations are justified because... And perhaps this tower bottoms out with something that is not uncharitable, but every level of uncharity makes the next one less justifiable.)