Re: Reminder to remain civil

[Jens Mølgaard]

Ricardo Wurmus <address@hidden> writes:

> Please keep the language here civil.  We don’t need more anger on our
> lists.  If you feel frustrated, please take some time off email [...]

I agree about the language, but I have to say that I share ng0's
sentiment, and I'd like to weigh in for some more moderation of these
topics.

Jean Louis in particular provides good examples of many of the kinds of
behaviour that have been considered unacceptable since the dawn of
electronic communications (and before):

- Spam: Excessive crosposting and directly flooding personal mailboxes.
  It is one thing to invite people to join a relevant discussion in a
  relevant forum (or even ask where to have it), and another to make
  sure everyone receives twenty copies of your email and have no way
  argue against you without adopting the same behaviour.

- Sealioning: Repeatedly demanding "evidence" or "facts" while ignoring
  and refusing to engage with any they are presented with. Claiming to
  be civil while not engaging with arguments and repeatedly driving
  discussions back to square one.

- Copypasta: When emails are not simply resent, but most or all of the
  paragraphs are copied in wholesale from previous messages. The wall of
  text in a reply bears no actual relation to the message it is supposed
  to be a response to.

- Arguing in bad faith: Publicly posting an opinion about how GNU should
  be run is "vile", "harrassment", "defamation" - but demanding the
  "disgusting" people in question be ousted is making "kind requests",
  "entitling people to their opinions". By someone who "could not care
  less what people write about each other". (Quotes, not scare-quotes.
  Slightly out of context, but there is no way to respond reasonably to
  this type of arguing.)

- Demanding answers: No one is entitled to a reply, and the above
  behaviour signals very clearly that the querent is not interested in one.

This kind of behaviour typically has two possible outcomes. Either
everyone who disagrees gives up and leaves, leaving behind the derailing
person feeling self-righteous and vindicated. Or the derailing person
gets ejected from the space, leaving them feeling self-righteous and
vindicated. Neither outcome is particularly desirable.

Personally, I think putting some people in a moderation queue is a good
idea. In that case, the criteria for letting through a message shouldn't
be that it meets the absolute minimum requirement of civility, but that
it contributes to the discussion. I.e. that it doesn't just restate the
same argument, that is is not just copy pasted from a previous message,
and that it is actually responding to the message it is a reply to.

Info-dumping is not necessary or helpful either. If someone needs to
refer to a previous argument or one that is stated elsewhere (which
can't be quoted in a line or two) it is easy to link directly to the
email in question or the blog post etc. Most of the good points that
can be made have already been made elsewhere.

Finally, I am very grateful for the new co-maintainers of Guix! I hope
the rest of us can do our part in keeping the mailing lists on track, so
you don't have too much pointless work in moderating them...

-Jens