[OpenID] On the banning of Santosh

[David Fuelling]

David,

I strongly disagree with your banning of Santosh, if even only for 30 days.
Here's why:


   1. Santosh's "offenses" may seem [insert negative adjective here], but
   they don't warrant a ban.  Some people construed his remarks a
   "disrespectful", but this is a relative term.  If Santosh feels some people
   are stupid, I believe he should be free to voice that opinion.  The person
   being called stupid is free to disagree or ignore.  Are we really so
   thin-skinned that we can't handle somebody describing us with a term that we
   don't like?

   2. This sets a dangerous precedent.  Because a few people chirped in and
   said they wanted him gone (and you happened to agree), he's now gone?  I
   respect all of the work you've put into OpenID (especially like setting up
   these lists), but I don't think that people should be banned for trying to
   defend themselves, even if it's in an ungraceful way.  I do think that there
   should be a clear OIDF policy here (for things like spam), but in general I
   would argue for a policy of freedom -- let people say what they will, no
   matter how "disrespectful" because one person's "noise" is another person's
   "signal".

   3. Politeness as a bar for list participation is a bad idea -- the whole
   idea of politeness is murky, and sometimes being polite discourages
   technical debate.  Besides, who of use should be the one defining what is
   polite and what is not?  I would argue nobody should be given that
   responsibility nor that authority.

   4. Finally, what of the people on this list who have responded to Santosh
   by calling him a variety of names, including "disrespectful"?  Should they
   not be banned as well, for isn't it "disrespectful" to call somebody
   "disrespectful"?


I respectfully request that you un-ban Santosh from this list immediately so
we can put this episode behind us.  If there are those on this list who do
not like what Santosh has to say, then they are free to ignore his words
(though to my above points, I haven't seen much of this happening lately).

Sincerely,

David Fuelling
sappenin at gmail.com



On Sat, Nov 28, 2009 at 7:06 PM, David Recordon <recordond at gmail.com> wrote:

> Having been one of the creators of this list, I've banned Santosh and will
> remove that ban in 30 days.  Santosh, many people – myself included – have
> very politely asked you to think about your postings within this community
> and to be more respectful.  Obviously you've continued to ignore us.
>
> John, MarkMail has a bunch of awesome analysis tools for many different
> open source mailing lists. http://markmail.org/search/?q=openid
>
> --David
>
>
>
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