[OpenID] On the banning of Santosh

[Dick Hardt]

On 2009-11-29, at 6:08 PM, Chris Messina wrote:

> 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. 

We don[t have to. We all could email Santosh offlist and tell him we did not think it was appropriate behaviour and encourage him to participate in a productive way. How many people did that?

> 
> I understand that flame wars happen from time to time. That doesn't mean that they should be "okay".

I'm not suggesting they are "okay". I'm suggesting we should rise above the flame, understand what is going on, and remember why we are all here. Santosh may have been frustrated, but I don't think he is "evil". He was not abusing the list. He was upset with other people's behaviour, and exhibited behaviour that was more unacceptable. I strongly believe the appropriate response is to educate, not punish.

> Furthermore, the web and its participants have become much more diverse since the 90s.

Really? 

> This calls for a modernization of social norms on lists such as ours and therefore an aggressive approach in dealing with ad hominem attacks.

I don't think there is anything different now then there was 15 years ago. People are still people.

> 
> 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.

It was not productive 15 years ago either. I gained huge respect for Larry Wall as I watched his approach to dealing with flame wars. We do not need to reinvent the wheel, particularly on social interactions. 


> 
> 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). 

Uh, I would not agree with that. List admins admin the list. Being a judge of what is inappropriate behaviour is not what I would think an admin would do.

> 
> 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.

Really? I do not know of a case of anyone every being banned from a list that was not a spammer. (ie. they signed up to the list to send unsolicited commercial email. Santosh clearly was a member of the community.

> 
> 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

I had not seen my post when I had sent my reply. Thanks for posting these. I disagree with:

"With great power comes great responsibility. People who violate the goodwill of the list community will be unsubscribed swiftly. This responsibility lies with the list admins who are charged with the stewardship of the community lists."