[2h]

no, this is not acceptable. If you have an issue with someone online, ban their email, ban their IP and move on. It is not appropriate to go hunting this person in real life. you yourself have then become the creep, the person acting inappropriately. you've become the very person you have issue with.

to anyone reading this, DO NOT listen to the person I am replying to. Even if this extreme case seems "justified", its all too easy to fall down a slippery slope, where you start doxxing anyone that slights you. I have been the victim of this, its NOT OK.

[shadowgovt]

Slippery slope is absolutely a risk. Claims that a person transgressed should not be taken lightly.

... but in the presence of persistent harassment that will not cease online, tying the behavior to the person behind the behavior and bringing proper consequences to bear is the only regulatory system that actually works. There's a reason that you can be fined or imprisoned for trying to pull crap like that IRL.

But I am sorry that you were falsely accused. That is a possibility (both in doxxing attempts and in more "traditional" harassment).

False accusation is entirely possible, but it doesn't imply we just let harassers get on unchecked.

[2h]

> tying the behavior to the person behind the behavior and bringing proper consequences to bear is the only regulatory system that actually works

nope. trolling online is not a crime, so no regulations are needed. its the same as if someone walks up to you in real life and calls you a jerk. you dont get to do anything about that. you just move on.

[shadowgovt]

I think you're choosing an example that is lower-severity than the topic on the table.

If someone just walks up and calls me a jerk (and, well, we ignore the particulars of the words they used and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fighting_words), I agree.

If they do it every day, every hour, or call my house 24 times a day, I can legally compel them to stop.

[2h]

this is a user posting on an issue tracker, so your example doesn't hold either.

[Blackthorn]

> no, this is not acceptable. If you have an issue with someone online, ban their email, ban their IP and move on

Here's the thing: they did do that. But the banned person would not move on, and continued to evade the ban and be a pile of misery for everyone involved. "Ban them and move on" is the sort of advice that works great until it doesn't.

[2h]

this is just more rationalizing. to justify doxxing, which is itself essentially stalking (or worse) should be a quite high bar, which hasn't been crossed, even in this situation.

If the troll was threatening life or some other crime, then fine do what you need to do. but the person is just essentially being annoying, that is not grounds to doxx someone. if they do not have the skills to keep out harmful users, thats their own fault, they should implement a captcha or some other tactic.

[shadowgovt]

A captcha doesn't keep out harassing users; they're human, after all.

Changing the communications policy of the organization to only allow people a communications forum after they've been vetted might. That's a significant change that puts an OSS project at a severe disadvantage towards gathering support / interest. Also, it wouldn't even work in this situation; the actor in question proved willing to use every communications channel they could find to attack project volunteers.

[2h]

> A captcha doesn't keep out harassing users; they're human, after all.

its not my job to teach people how to police their own forums. nor is it the judicial systems job.

[shadowgovt]

In this case, they're policing their own forums by, having exhausted other options, disclosing the bad actor's name and warning others of the bad actions.

[2h]

so they have resulted to crime, to combat a problem user?