NPM supplied the definition of harassment. The problem is Bob's second email:
>We don’t mean to be a dick about it, but it’s a registered Trademark in most countries around the world and if you actually release an open source project called kik, our trademark lawyers are going to be banging on your door and taking down your accounts and stuff like that — and we’d have no choice but to do all that because you have to enforce trademarks or you lose them.
Bob was using inappropriate vulgarities and further threatened non-physical harm against Azer's "accounts" (and other "stuff like that"), in addition to threatening to send people to Azer's physical location ("stalking", "following", and, "deliberate intimidation" are also considered harassment under the Code of Conduct).
I may be stepping into hot water here, but I agree with grandparent and NPM that it wasn't harassment.
Consider the following situation, which I hope we can all agree wouldn't be bad behavior (on the threatener's part), but would be "harassment" by the same argument you're using here:
Alice writes proprietary code for a living. Monsanto somehow (she has difficulty proving it was illegal) obtains her (non-open-source) code and publishes it as open source on NPM under their own name. Alice asks Monsanto to take it down, threatening to sue them. She also asks NPM to take it down, who complies.
Should NPM have sided with Monsanto because Alice sent them an email that contained a threat? No, she had a legal right to make that threat!
In the email exchange between Bob and Azer, the vulgarity was referring to Bob himself, not Azer, and the threats were ones Bob had a legal right to make—a legal obligation, even, in some sense ("you have to enforce trademarks or you lose them" is universal in intellectual property jurisdictions, at least according to Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trademark#Maintaining_rights ).
> Edit2: Wow, hit a nerve here.
> Edit to Steve (rate limited): [...]
Hmmm, whose nerve was hit? I hate corporations as much as the next indie open source developer, but they're not the bad guy in every corporation vs open source developer story. Sometimes the open source developer legitimately infringed on a right that people in the corporation worked hard to earn.
>Should NPM have sided with Monsanto because Alice sent them an email that contained a threat?
NPM should side with the first to register until told to do so by a court. NPM just sides with whatever Trademark sends them emails containing threats?
The NPM Code of Conduct also states,
>There is never a good reason to be rude over package name disputes.
Why is Bob informing Azer that he and kik Interactive are dicks?
>Any spamming, trolling, flaming, baiting, or other attention-stealing behavior is not welcome, and will not be tolerated.
About 8 minutes and 10 minutes after Azer asks Bob to stop email him, Bob fires back two more unsolicited emails. kik has already decided that they don't even want the `kik` package name, so, Bob is even trolling at this point (just wants to squat a package name). On top of all that, Bob never even responds to Azer's response to Bob's offer of compensation. Bait-and-switch much, Bob?
>Hmmm, whose nerve was hit?
HN won't publish the downmod feed, so I don't know, but the post shot to -2, with no responses, pretty quickly.
> > Should NPM have sided with Monsanto because Alice sent them an email that contained a threat?
> NPM should side with the first to register until told to do so by a court.
Even if they believe doing so will cause more confusion among npm users than the alternative?
> NPM just sides with whatever Trademark sends them emails containing threats?
What leads you to believe that the threats are the cause for them siding with Kik? They've stated in multiple places they sided with kik because they believe it would reduce confusion, and they present reasons for that belief, and also explicitly stated that the legal issues weren't "pertinent". I've seen no compelling case that they're lying or presenting those reasons in bad faith.
You didn't address my point that sending a threat isn't harassment if it's a reasonable threat to send, like threatening a lawsuit to protect your legal right.
> Why is Bob informing Azer that he and kik Interactive are dicks?
I'm worried this will sound condescending but hopefully you'll appreciate that's not my intention, I'm just not good enough at explaining things to figure out a better way to word this. Bob isn't informing Azer he's a dick. "We don't mean to be a dick, but" is a casual phrasing of "Hi, it's not our intention to cause you pain, but we have to do this thing you're not going to like". Someone who's writing is about to not be very nice, but they're not being disrespectful.
By contrast, "you’re actually being a dick. so, fuck you" is unequivocally disrespectful.
> About 8 minutes and 10 minutes after Azer asks Bob to stop email him, Bob fires back two more unsolicited emails.
I believe that Bob only sent one email to Azer, the other was to NPM support not Azer, but regardless, this would be analogous to, in my allegory, Monsanto asking Alice to stop emailing them, and Alice sending one (or two) more email trying to reason with them. Would Alice's additional emails be spamming and harassment?
> Bob is even trolling at this point
I've never heard a definition of trolling that didn't involve some level of malice. Is your read that Bob is actively trying to fuck up Azer's open source project? (You're right that Bob implies Kik ultimately ended up squatting the package name, but you really think that's out of spite? Bob is the one saying he doesn't mean to be a dick, not the one saying "fuck you" and summarily unpublishing hundreds of node packages.)
> Bob never even responds to Azer's response to Bob's offer of compensation.
Seemed obvious to all 3 parties that Azer's offer was not a serious one, Azer's blogpost specifically uses the language "After I refused them".
>Even if they believe doing so will cause more confusion among npm users than the alternative?
Yes. Transferring names causes tons of havoc, as witnessed. Further, no one was confused by this package name, nor are people confused with other package names that may contain Trademarked names with code unrelated to the Trademark.
>What leads you to believe that the threats are the cause for them siding with Kik?
People close to NPM keep making this argument. Others have reported that some of those claims actually turned out to be lies.
>You didn't address my point that sending a threat isn't harassment if it's a reasonable threat to send, like threatening a lawsuit to protect your legal right.
You didn't address many of my points, so I think skipping around is fair game. The problem with your point is that the threat is not reasonable. Bob couldn't even give a concrete Trademark registration that the package violated (because one doesn't exist). You're telling me that a court will have no problem with agents sending threats of "our trademark lawyers are going to be banging on your door and taking down your accounts and stuff like that"?
>Bob isn't informing Azer he's a dick. "We don't mean to be a dick, but" is a casual phrasing of "Hi, it's not our intention to cause you pain, but we have to do this thing you're not going to like".
You're right, he is informing Azer that he and kik Interactive are about to "be a dick about it"[0]. There is just no way to spin this as being compliant with the Code of Conduct. None. It uses an inappropriate word, and the meaning of the phrase sets the user up as someone who violates the Code ("non-friendly", "rude", "unsafe", "unwelcoming", "confusing", "non-respectful", etc).
>I believe that Bob only sent one email to Azer, the other was to NPM support not Azer,
Per NPM policy, Bob was required to CC Azer on emails to them. Azer indicates that he was CC'd on multiple emails from Bob to NPM, so it is highly likely that Azer received the email sent ~8 minutes after Azer asked Bob to stop emailing him (and then Bob sent another email 2 minutes later).
> but regardless, this would be analogous to, in my allegory, Monsanto asking Alice to stop emailing them, and Alice sending one (or two) more email trying to reason with them. Would Alice's additional emails be spamming and harassment?
In your hypothetical? It would appear so.
>I've never heard a definition of trolling that didn't involve some level of malice.
You and Bob have already admitted to malice (here comes, "We don't mean to be a dick about it, but", again). I don't think malice is actually required to be considered trolling though. kik Interactive doesn't even want (and isn't even now using) the package, yet it is trying to acquire it. Why is Bob spamming again (six separate emails in under three hours, three of which received no replies)?
>Seemed obvious to all 3 parties that Azer's offer was not a serious one, Azer's blogpost specifically uses the language "After I refused them".
I've read Azer's blogpost and "after I refused them" undoubtedly refers to his first, entirely reasonable response, "Sorry, I'm building an open source project with that name.". Bob escalated the situation from there.
>"fuck you"
How is this not a casual phrasing?
Bob: troll, spammer, baiter, flamer ("Azer seems to be acting pretty poorly." [hilarious by the way]), dick, harasser
NPM: Sure Bob, have this package. Azer, good luck with your refactor!
> Transferring names causes tons of havoc, as witnessed.
What if they believe not transferring the name will cause more havoc?
> > What leads you to believe that the threats are the cause for them siding with Kik?
> People close to NPM keep making this argument. Others have reported that some of those claims actually turned out to be lies.
I'd love to hear more about that, but I hope you'll forgive me for distrusting your memory seeing as you seem to have misremembered Bob saying he doesn't mean to be a dick as Bob calling Azer a pussy [0].
I assume you've already seen the various places on their blog and on Twitter than NPM has said that the threats weren't the cause for them siding with Kik. I'm happy to produce them if you haven't.
> You didn't address many of my points, so I think skipping around is fair game.
I certainly tried my darnedest to, which point did I not address?
> The problem with your point is that the threat is not reasonable. Bob couldn't even give a concrete Trademark registration that the package violated (because one doesn't exist).
In my allegory, would Alice's threat only have been reasonable if she had produced a "concrete" copyright registration?
> You're telling me that a court will have no problem with agents sending threats of "our trademark lawyers are going to be banging on your door and taking down your accounts and stuff like that"?
Yes, I am. I've never heard of a court having a problem with use of metaphorical language when threatening lawsuits, legitimate or otherwise.
> There is just no way to spin this as being compliant with the Code of Conduct. None.
This isn't an argument, it's just asserting I'm wrong. The Alice vs Monsanto allegory in my initial reply to you directly addressed this.
> it is highly likely that Azer received the email sent ~8 minutes after
I'll concede this point, hopefully it's clear that it's irrelevant to the larger point I'm making.
> > Would Alice's additional emails be spamming and harassment?
> In your hypothetical? It would appear so.
Just so we're clear, you're saying that if someone fucks you over illegally, and you email them asking them to stop, and they ask you not to email them again, you trying one more time to reason with them as well as CC-ing them when you escalate the situation is spamming and harassment of the people fucking you over?
> You and Bob have already admitted to malice (here comes, "We don't mean to be a dick about it, but", again).
I acknowledged that Bob in fact did say "We don't mean to be a dick about it, but", and suggested that it could be paraphrased to include "Hi, it's not our intention to cause you pain...". When did I "admit" to malice? I was specifically trying to explain why "We don't mean to be a dick about it, but" is not malice.
> I don't think malice is actually required to be considered trolling though.
Do you actually want to debate this point? [1] [2] [3]
> kik Interactive doesn't even want (and isn't even now using) the package
They went through a lot of trouble to get it, what leads you to believe they don't want it? At the very least they explicitly say they want it to avoid confusion for people expecting a package by them.
> Why is Bob spamming again?
That's actually a great question for you. Why do you think Bob is spamming, if not his stated reason (avoiding confusion from people expecting the 'kik' package to be by Kik, the software company with almost as many users as the population of the US)? Do you think Bob woke up that morning, looked himself in the mirror and decided his goal for the day was pissing off Azer?
> "after I refused them" undoubtedly refers to his first, entirely reasonable response, "Sorry, I'm building an open source project with that name."
You're right. Re-examing the timeline, "We’re not getting anywhere with this" is clearly a response to "Azer's response to Bob's offer of compensation".
> > "fuck you"
> How is this not a casual phrasing?
It is casual phrasing, but it's also disrespectful. By contrast, "We don't meant to be a dick" is acknowledging that the recipient is probably not going to like what they have to do.
> "Azer seems to be acting pretty poorly." [hilarious by the way]
"fuck you" and "bunch of corporate dicks" aren't exactly shining gems of discourse.
>We don’t mean to be a dick about it, but it’s a registered Trademark in most countries around the world and if you actually release an open source project called kik, our trademark lawyers are going to be banging on your door and taking down your accounts and stuff like that — and we’d have no choice but to do all that because you have to enforce trademarks or you lose them.
Bob was using inappropriate vulgarities and further threatened non-physical harm against Azer's "accounts" (and other "stuff like that"), in addition to threatening to send people to Azer's physical location ("stalking", "following", and, "deliberate intimidation" are also considered harassment under the Code of Conduct).