[OpenID] On the banning of Santosh

[Chris Messina]

On Sun, Nov 29, 2009 at 6:50 PM, Dick Hardt <dick.hardt at gmail.com> wrote:

>
> I disagree with removing Santosh from the mail list. I prefer a fully
> inclusive community. I remember some pretty abusive flame wars on the
> perl5-porters mail list in the early 90s. The inclusive approach that Larry
> Wall took was that we all knew where the delete key was, and if we were
> lazy, we could add the annoying member to a kill file so that we never saw
> their email.
>

While I prefer inclusivity as well, I don't believe that we should abide
behavior that in its effect is exclusive.

I understand that flame wars happen from time to time. That doesn't mean
that they should be "okay". Furthermore, the web and its participants have
become much more diverse since the 90s. This calls for a modernization of
social norms on lists such as ours and therefore an aggressive approach in
dealing with ad hominem attacks.

Verbal bullying is never productive, and banning someone for a set period of
time is one effective way of creating distance between the intimidator and
their target.


>
> While I can empathize with the frustration of someone not being what we
> consider respectful, banning someone for a subjective action is a slippery
> slope. Banning someone for sending spam is a different manner[1].
>

While we haven't done a great job making it clear who the admins of the
lists are and what their jobs entail, one of the reasons we have admins is
to act to protect the interests of community in situations like this (the
interests being a productive, safe environment for discourse).

I think David did the right thing by warning Santosh on several occasions.
Santosh is the master of his behavior; if he wanted to continue being
prickly to the point where he became verbally violent, I think that he must
bear the consequences therein. Being banned from a mailing list is nothing
new; it should not come as a surprise that the next logical escalation was
such a step.


>
> Written guidelines/rules for a mail list (or any tool) codify the expected
> behaviour and are a "good" thing to have. The Microformats policy [2] is a
> reasonable starting point and contains many common expected behaviours of
> internet mail lists..
>
> I would propose that we adopt the Microformats policy except for #16 (and
> number them!), allow Santosh back on the list, apologize for banning him,
> and direct him at the new policy and ask that he (and others) comply.


Did you read the version that I posted to the wiki? I can't tell if you're
providing feedback or alternative wording to what I already wrote up?

http://wiki.openid.net/Mailing-List-Policies

Chris


-- 
Chris Messina
Open Web Advocate

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