[ImPostingOnHN]

> Gaslighting in its original sense is a continued process of abuse that leads to a person doubting their own perception

Yes, like the slop-author here adding gaslighting onto their continuing abuse here, using polite language and self-justification to mask that they are being abusive.

> The reason why I advocate for “more empathy” is because I firmly believe it can make you more successful in firm boundary setting and in communicating and achieving your goals

Don Ho tried that first, even encouraging forks under a different name, yet the abuse still continues. Thus, the hypothesis did not hold true in this case. The other comments you see from victims about how the abuser is violating boundaries, are a direct consequence of the hypothesis being tried and failing here.

Not that it will always fail: it's probably a good idea in general. It just didn't work here. It is an unfortunate fact of life that there exist personalities in this world who simply ignore "no" or "stop hurting me" when it conflicts with their own desires. No amount of empathy will make these people immediately stop.

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I did not challenge or question Don Ho’s attempts. I attribute the person’s defensive responses as reaction to other people’s displayed lack of empathy, including some posters here, not Don’s. In fact, when you scroll back you will find that I merely shared my opinion, and then continued to expand on it further to provide more information on why I have that opinion. I don’t need you to agree with me. Often, I expand on my opinions more as a service to other readers, who may still be interested in reading about them.

I don’t share the analysis that it didn’t work; it didn’t work so far; the story is live and still unfolding.

[ImPostingOnHN]

His defensive responses we can set aside for a moment. Even if we ignore those, we see him acting abusively: refusing to get consent; refusing to accept "no", from the very beginning.

> I don’t share the analysis that it didn’t work; it didn’t work so far; the story is live and still unfolding.

I think that Don would, and speaking objectively, we can see that it did not achieve the objective of immediately ceasing violations (potentially including, but not limited to, temporarily taking the site offline while further discussions are had). The immediacy is an inherent part of the objective. A solution that takes days, much less weeks, before the abuse stops, is an inadequate remedy here, and that has been explained to the abuser.