[laughinghan]

> 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.

[0]: "Is it OK to start referring to people as pussies in emails to them if they don't give up their names?" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11383607

[1]: "make a DELIBERATELY offensive or provocative online..." (emphasis added) https://www.google.com/search?q=trolling

[2]: "Being a prick on the internet BECAUSE YOU CAN. ..." (emphasis added) http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=trolling

[3]: "...with the DELIBERATE INTENT of..." (emphasis added) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_troll

[jsprogrammer]

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11341285

Your claim of misremembering is vacuous. I never claimed Bob called Azer a pussy.

>Just so we're clear, you're saying that if someone fucks you over illegally,

Just so we are clear, I never said that. If you believe otherwise, you'll need to produce a quote. Your hypothetical is baseless as kik was not "fucked over illegally". kik can't produce a Trademark. Azer didn't even know who kik was.

> In fact, once Azer had made it clear that he wasn’t going to change the name, we decided to use a different name for an upcoming package we are going to publish to NPM. We did hope that Azer would change his mind, but we were proceeding under a different package name even when we were told we could have the name Kik. https://medium.com/@mproberts/a-discussion-about-the-breakin...

I may get to the rest later today.

[laughinghan]

> https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11341285

What is this? Is this supposed to be a point you made that I didn't respond to? This doesn't appear to be a thread I participated in, this appears to be a distant cousin at best to any exchange I'm part of.

> Your claim of misremembering is vacuous. I never claimed Bob called Azer a pussy.

It's strongly implied by:

> How does one non-NPM user [...] get to harass an actual NPM user [...], in violation NPM policy [...]? Is it OK to start referring to people as pussies in emails to them if they don't give up their names?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11383607

Was that just a non-sequitor?

> Just so we are clear, I never said that. [...] Your hypothetical is baseless as kik was not...

    > Would Alice's additional emails be spamming and harassment?
    In your hypothetical? It would appear so.

I thought it was pretty clear "your hypothetical" referred to my Alice vs Monsanto allegory, not kik.

But I really don't care what you didn't say. I'm trying to understand what you ARE saying. I'm trying to understand your notion of harassment. If someone illegally fucks you over, and you email them asking them to stop, and they ask you not to email them again (about them fucking you over), is it harassment to try one last time to reason with them, and CC them when escalating the situation?

> If you believe otherwise, you'll need to produce a quote.

While I very much appreciate that you're engaging with me, I'm under no impression that you're obligated to do anything. I hope you realize that goes both ways.

> kik can't produce a Trademark.

What leads you to believe this? Because they haven't yet? Neither NPM nor Azer asked them to, why would they?

> once Azer had made it clear that he wasn’t going to change the name, we decided to use a different name for an upcoming package we are going to publish to NPM. We did hope that Azer would change his mind, but we were proceeding under a different package name even when we were told we could have the name Kik.

I'm not sure why you're quoting this, it doesn't say they don't want it, it says they're not using it for the package they're going to publish. No one is disputing that fact. Their stated reason for wanting the package name still applies, namely, avoiding confusion for people who install 'kik' expecting a package by them.

[jsprogrammer]

>> 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].

The thread I linked to was in response to the above ^. There (in the link) is more about it. I believe the claims were made on Twitter and the Tweets have likely since been deleted.

>> Your claim of misremembering is vacuous. I never claimed Bob called Azer a pussy.

>It's strongly implied by:

>> How does one non-NPM user [...] get to harass an actual NPM user [...], in violation NPM policy [...]? Is it OK to start referring to people as pussies in emails to them if they don't give up their names?

>Was that just a non-sequitor?

No, it is not a non-sequitor. The problem is with Bob's language. The language violates the Code of Conduct, but was tolerated by NPM. If NPM tolerates that language, they should also tolerate the word 'pussy', or a derivative, being used, however, my guess would be that NPM would backpedal on their tolerance if a Dispute ever arose containing that word.

>But I really don't care what you didn't say. I'm trying to understand what you ARE saying. I'm trying to understand your notion of harassment. If someone illegally fucks you over, and you email them asking them to stop, and they ask you not to email them again (about them fucking you over), is it harassment to try one last time to reason with them, and CC them when escalating the situation?

My notion of harassment isn't really pertinent. Further, we are talking about a synthetic hypothetical (where it is already accepted that "someone [is illegally fucking you over]" [honestly not sure what this means]), which makes the discussion rather moot.

Bob never tried to reason with Azer. When Azer finally responded to Bob about "is there something we could do for you in compensation", Bob never responded, but kept whining to NPM.

Bob was completely disingenuous the entire time. Note his second email to Azer after Azer asked to not be e-mailed again:

> I don’t know why you think that makes us a dick.

Bob can't even comprehend his own text. Bob literally opened his second email with:

>We don’t mean to be a dick about it, but

Then Azer called him out for being a Dick and Bob has no idea why Azer could possibly think him and kik Interactive are dicks? The guy is a top troll.

> kik can't produce a Trademark.

>What leads you to believe this? Because they haven't yet? Neither NPM nor Azer asked them to, why would they?

That and I have looked up all Trademarks for "kik" and none of them would apply in this situation. If Azer was "fucking kik over illegally", Bob would be able to prove it beyond a shadow of doubt by showing the specific Trademark that he claims is being infringed. It's trivial, yet he didn't do it. Why would that be?

>I'm not sure why you're quoting this, it doesn't say they don't want it, it says they're not using it for the package they're going to publish. No one is disputing that fact. Their stated reason for wanting the package name still applies, namely, avoiding confusion for people who install 'kik' expecting a package by them.

Unfortunately this contradicts Bob's first email:

>Azer: We’re reaching out to you as we’d very much like to use our name “kik” for an important package that we are going to release soon. Unfortunately, your use of kik (and kik-starter) mean that we can’t and our users will be confused and/or unable to find our package.

And Mike Roberts' side:

> In fact, once Azer had made it clear that he wasn’t going to change the name, we decided to use a different name for an upcoming package we are going to publish to NPM. We did hope that Azer would change his mind, but we were proceeding under a different package name even when we were told we could have the name Kik.

Edit: From the previous post (sorry, but I actually don't want to debate every fine point of this story, at least not on HN [terrible interface]):

>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.

The fact that the package remains unused by kik Interactive. [0]

[0] https://www.npmjs.com/package/kik

[laughinghan]

> The thread I linked to was in response to the above ^. There (in the link) is more about it. I believe the claims were made on Twitter and the Tweets have likely since been deleted.

Okay then.

> If NPM tolerates that language, they should also tolerate the word 'pussy', or a derivative, being used

What? Your argument seems to be "if NPM tolerates this one word, they should also tolerate this other word." Why?

Even if they were equivalent in offensiveness, the way you used the word and the way Bob used the word was fundamentally different. Calling someone a pussy is aggressive. It's understood to be an insult. Telling someone that you don't mean to be a dick is not insulting them. "Fuck" is arguably a worse word than either of these, but there are plenty of ways to use it that no one would call harassment. "I fucked up", for example.

> My notion of harassment isn't really pertinent.

I meant your interpretation of NPM's definition of harassment. Has it been unclear that that's been the core point of disagreement for our entire conversation?

> "someone [is illegally fucking you over]" [honestly not sure what this means]

I was very specific in the original statement. Someone is publishing your proprietary code under their name.

> which makes the discussion rather moot.

It's not moot, my point logically follows from it.

> Bob never tried to reason with Azer.

You seem to believe Azer has some kind of fundamental right to this name in the NPM package namespace. What could Bob have said that, in your view, would have counted as "trying to reason with" Azer?

> Bob was completely disingenuous the entire time.

See, when I think that, that's when I try to reconsider my take on a situation. I can't believe Bob woke up that morning, looked himself in the eye and decided to fuck over Azer. I think Bob was trying to release his open source project with his own company's name, was annoyed by Azer's curt response to his first request, and sent a pushy followup email.

> That and I have looked up all Trademarks for "kik" and none of them would apply in this situation.

I'm sure you have, jsprogrammer LLP.

> It's trivial, yet he didn't do it. Why would that be?

How about because no one asked him to? Because no one cares?

> Unfortunately this contradicts Bob's first email

Huh? It's perfectly consistent with "once Azer had made it clear that he wasn’t going to change the name, we decided to use a different name". Is there something about the timeline we're not agreeing on

First, Kik wants to publish a package, they ask for the name 'kik' from Azer to minimize confusion. Then, Azer gives them the middle finger, Kik switches names so releasing their package won't be blocked on seeing how this thing with Azer shakes out, but continues pursuing the name 'kik' to minimize confusion. Finally, NPM transfers the name to Kik, but they don't bother switching back their package's name.

Is that not their undisputed account of what happened?

[jsprogrammer]

You aren't reading me right. The problem is not the way in which the word was used, but the fact that the word was used at all. The Code of Conduct forbids it.

Further, the problem is not that Bob "d[id]n't mean to be a dick about it"; it is that despite Bob's well-meaning intention to not be a dick, he immediately reversed course with his next word, "but". So, Bob informs Azer that he doesn't mean to be a dick, then double slaps him with full-on dick-mode.

Like I said, a top troll.