Comment by mikekchar | Hacker News Reader

Comment by mikekchar | Hacker News Reader

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For me, personally, it would be easier to accept a good faith answer if they explained what "sharp tone" led to the expulsion. I mean, I can completely understand if threats were made, or if disparaging comments against protected categories (i.e. sexist, racist, etc comments). Or hate speech, or content that is clearly against policy (i.e. links to pornography). Personal attacks, doxing, stalking, extended periods of harassment etc, etc, etc. There are lots of things that people get banned for and it's pretty easy to say what they are.

Banning someone because they vehemently disagree with you? I mean, that's the only thing I can parse from their statement. It's basically saying, "I do not wish to discuss things with you, so you are banned".

The funny thing is, I don't think that's inherently wrong. In any group, I think you should be able to choose your friends. If you don't want to hang out with someone, then that sucks for that person, but lots of things in life suck. However, banning the co-founder because you no longer wish to talk to them is pretty much the definition of a power grab ;-)

ESR was not banned for having the wrong opinion – many others expressed similar opinions both before and after his messages. But ESR, over the course of a few days where he returned to the mailing list, was increasingly unable to express those opinions in a professional manner.

While the moderators never stated their rationale, an unfortunate combination of off-list and on-list replies leaked one of ESR's blocked emails[1] although there were possibly others. Given the context of the discussion, ESR is not only deeply unprofessional here, but also making personal attacks against Coraline Ada Ehmke. Disagreement is OK, attacks are not.

And as Gil notes in that email, how ESR is promoting his cause is actually hurting and undermining open source, not rescuing it. I'd add that such attacks are even more unacceptable when they come from an ex-President or Cofounder.

If I had been the moderator to make that call, I'd even have considered banning ESR without any particular evidence. That guy isn't new to the scene but has a long history of troublesome behavior. Even his first message upon return did not provide anything new to the discussion, so there was no reason to believe that keeping him around would provide any value to anyone. When his messages were largely brushed off (because they contributed no novel points aside from BeInG wRiTtEn By ThE cOfOuNdEr) that only seemed to encourage him to get more extreme, thus running straight into a ban. If not after that message, surely after the next.

[1]: http://lists.opensource.org/pipermail/license-discuss_lists....

Can you provide examples of the "unprofessional" messages or the "personal attacks"?

Thanks for giving some context. I really believe that if you are banning someone you should explain your rationale. Personal attacks are not good and if that email is to be believed then it certainly seems like a justified decision. Hopefully the moderators will be able to improve on the optics of their decisions in the future.

So, you’re saying “toxic loonytoon” is what got him banned?

And the same adversary behind it as behind so many other similar bannings and near-bannings over the last few years. Does this person actually contribute anything _besides_ tone policing to the many communities they tone police?

It's beginning to feel like his characterization may well be defensible on the grounds of truthfulness.

maybe it was ratf*cker. He then going off saying if you don't let me say my words, the world is doomed. It seems it wasn't the first time he did this.

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