[OpenID] On the banning of Santosh

[Melvin Carvalho]

On Sun, Nov 29, 2009 at 8:02 PM, David Fuelling <sappenin at gmail.com> wrote:
> David,
>
> I strongly disagree with your banning of Santosh, if even only for 30 days.
> Here's why:
>
> 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?
>
> 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".
>
> 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.
>
> 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).

+1

>
> 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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