The "toxic loonytoon" part, referencing a prominent candidate to the OSI board? I mean, surely we can all have our own opinions about any candidate, but the optics aren't that good.
That sort of language is normal in the parliament houses of the developed world, upon which our constitutional democracies are based.
If there is some sort of evidence that the candidate in question is in fact a toxic loonytoon, by some sort of objective standard, then it's perfectly fine to use that language.
At some point, you have to call a spade a spade, and a toxic loonytoon a toxic loonytoon.
I don't agree - I think you come across a lot more persuasive when you attack the ideas rather than the person and you do it with less colorful language.
Otherwise I think you only 'persuade' people that already agree with you and others that might have otherwise changed their minds are alienated.
That said, I generally like the idea of not banning people and I have a high tolerance for this kind of communication not really bothering me that much - but I still think it's generally bad form and probably does scare away others.
Suppose you write a mailing list post which absolutely names no names, but only presents expressions of specific ideas, and then calls those ideas "toxic" and "loony", with justifications and all. That will still be equally offensive. It will be still be interpreted as an attack on the identifiable person or group behind those ideas, even though they have not been named.
Calling a person a "toxic loonytoon" for the offense of trying to establish standards of acceptable behavior is ridiculous by any sort of "objective standard". If anything, it demonstrates the importance of having those standards, by serving as an example of the sort of behavior that such a standard should condemn.
I'm pretty the point is that OSI already laid down guidelines that asked for civil communication - and name calling is epitome of uncivil communication. Indeed, his comment is basically contesting those guidelines.
So this was clearly one of those no recovery situations. Either guidelines for civil behavior or "show me the code" meritocracy wins but it's hard to see "agreeing to disagree" being possible here.
Being a prior mod of a city sub.. "toxic loonytoon" is a rather light thing to be called.
My concern is if you're drawing the line over this what you're communicating to people is that you cannot negatively sum up another individual, even when it's warranted. A productive conversation can be had on the merits of the label. Are you trying to incentivize long posts about all of the non-sensical policies that the individual is pushing?
Avoiding name calling a standard guideline for civil communication. Maybe there's some moderation standard where just really bad name calling or something is the only no-no that's avoided but that's really the question here.
The point is it's pretty plausible the ESR was breaking guidelines that had been laid down already. Maybe he should have broken them for all I know but all I'm saying really is that for an authority to remain credible they have to enforce guidelines specifically when someone is openly defying them. That's it.
I think it's a reference to one of the people pushing very hard on spreading CoCs everywhere. Can't recall the name. (Corin?) Reading some of that person's tweets, though, left me with a very bad impression.
I know exactly who you are talking about. I’ve had some heated exchanges with them on Twitter. What started out as me just trying to understand the viewpoint of someone who is different than me, quickly turned into them turning their followers into an angry mob that flooded me with personal attacks.
This one incident turned me off of not only that person but the entire cancel culture movement.
Between that interaction (which wasn’t solely me, there were other people that were treated similarly), and other things I have witnessed from people in that movement, I’m confident that it’s not healthy and not something I want any part of.
They have noble goals, but the approach is wrong in a lot of cases. Many of the people have the same toxic personalities that they rail against so loudly.
There is no problem with an individuals choosing not to engage based on their own experience. The problem with cancel culture is that we are encouraged to treat people as "cancelled" based on hearsay.
You're under no obligation to do anything. Individuals are simply exercising their own right not to engage based on their own experience.
From other comments, you seem to be drawing a distinction between "social pressure" and "individual choices". Can you explain when one becomes the other?
I don't think there's a clear bright line, any more than there's a clear bright line between being avoiding individuals you dislike and discrimination. That doesn't mean the distinction doesn't exist.
If one shopkeeper won't serve you, they're exercising their own rights and you can take your business elsewhere. But if every shopkeeper won't serve you, you're probably being discriminated against. I don't presume to draw the line precisely, but we recognise the difference.
I glanced at the OSI page. I found someone who overtly stated opposition to core FLOSS principals:
>"Giving everyone freedom means giving evil people freedom, too." (OSD FAQ)
It doesn't have to be like this.
It's time to stop bad actors from using our work in unethical ways. It's time to give open source developers around the world the tools they need to exercise their ethical responsibilities as engineers and members of human society. It's time for us to stop shirking our ethical obligations, and take responsibility for the use of our work.
Yup, that's C. A. Ehmke. I'm not sure why she's so opposed to core FLOSS principles, even going as far as calling them evil and unethical; I feel like we're all circling back somehow to the bad old "Linux is cancer" attitudes from the 1990s.
She thinks she's a warrior fighting on the side of the angels, it's what gives her life meaning and structure. To be a warrior-for-good requires there to be evil people to fight. If there are evil people then they must be denied access to anything good. If open source is good, then evil people must be denied access to it, which can only be done via the licenses, which would make them not open source anymore, which open source projects will obviously reject. The only remaining solution is to try and manipulate people by manipulating the definition of open source.
The problem for people like Ehmke is there aren't really many evil people in society, and those who do exist tend to get handled by the justice system. So she just ends up picking fights with random people. She's bad news and anywhere she shows up is best recommended to evict her post-haste.
She has done more than anybody else to cause destructive internal strife in Open Source software projects. Her being on the OSI board is simply appalling. OSI needs to be defunded and ignored if she can not be removed.
So someone who wants to destroy open source then, at the core of its foundations.
I can’t wait until this identity politics pendulum starts swinging back. Some people are going to be really embarrassed about the legacy they left for themselves while it was still around.
If there is some sort of evidence that the candidate in question is in fact a toxic loonytoon, by some sort of objective standard, then it's perfectly fine to use that language.
At some point, you have to call a spade a spade, and a toxic loonytoon a toxic loonytoon.