Boycott "Boycott Novell!"

  • Increase font size
  • Default font size
  • Decrease font size
Home Manifesti
Manifesti

Comments Policy, and Some Examples of What Not to Do

E-mail Print PDF

As the editor of this site, I'll be moderating comments.

I will particularly be moderating comments that are senseless, inane, vituperative, in conflict with actual facts or with physical reality, scatological, sexist, violent or otherwise lacking in reason. On the other hand, I may decide to single them out for particular attention, deconstruction and dissection. One never knows; pay your money, take your chances. (Negative bonus points for being an Anonymous Coward. If you don't have an identity, you don't have an opinion that you care about; nor should I.)

If you would like to talk to me about "freedom of speech" or "freedom of the press" and how yours is being trampled, or I'm abusing mine, feel free to set up your own blog and tell the world all about it. Freedom of the press does not mean that you are free to use my press. Getting in your very own is easy enough in this Brave New World of The Future.

In the way of some guidelines, allow me to provide a few real life examples of what's not worth wasting your, or my, time on. These are reproduced in toto, as received, and are completely unedited.

< This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it > writes

corporate scum

Don't hate me because I have a job. Here's a tip for you: if you've been sending out your resumes from that address, I'd use a different one.

< This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it > advises

you should delete your website. It is asinine and in case you're wondering, is as pro microsoft as it can get. Nice job, but you've already been uncovered. Just in case you're wondering, what you're doing does border on libel as I don't see actual fact behind it. DIAF.

In case you're wondering, "DIAF" is an acronym for "Die in a fire". Evidently, "Double Plus Ungood" here not only wants people who hold opinions (regarding software!) which are contrary to his, and who have the temerity to express them, to suffer a painful death, but wishes it on others often enough to feel a need to optimize his typing time.

(See? That's a sickness, friend, Double-Plus-Insane. Seek some professional help, you are suffering from an extremely serious lack of perspective.)

If anyone feels they've been "libeled" here, please have your legal counsel contact me at "lefty" on identi.ca with the particulars. I can provide full contact details once I verify the legitimacy of the request. (My contact details are incredibly easy to find, but I've been amused at how difficult it seems to be for some. Took Mr. Schestowitz months.)

Finally, I am not a government (other than with respect to this web site, but then, I do pay the bills; if anyone wants to propose buying a comment to use as they please, let me know, by all means), so I cannot "censor" you. Again, if you feel the need to say something, and I don't think you need to say it here, for whatever reasons, you're quite free to go to Blogspot, Livejournal, TypePad, WordPress, Vox, or any number of other places, and get one gratis; rant to your heart's content. If those aren't "free" enough for you, let me know, and I'll see that you get an invite code for Dreamwidth.

Add a comment
Last Updated on Saturday, 03 October 2009 20:33
 

Real Community and Phoney "Community"

E-mail Print PDF

REAL COMMUNITY:

  • Works together to scratch mutual itches

PHONEY COMMUNITY

  • Demands that you stop what you're doing and scratch their itch

REAL COMMUNITY

  • Uses an name, and has a reputation

PHONEY COMMUNITY

  • Posts anonymously and is unknown

REAL COMMUNITY

  • Participates

PHONEY COMMUNITY

  • "Advocates"
Add a comment
Last Updated on Wednesday, 30 September 2009 19:42
 

What's This About?

E-mail Print PDF

Our community and the people in it, are under attack. We are being disrupted, we are being defamed, we are being lied to, and, in some instances, we are even having our lives invaded.

More importantly, there is a consistent thread running through these attacks, invasions and disruptions. This attack comes not from Microsoft, but from a parasitical pseudo-"community" that attempts to pretend it's actually our community.

We are a community of not just coders, but localizers, artists, writers, marketers, conference volunteers, web designers, legal experts, photographers, experience and interface designers, and users who file bugs, make suggestions of provide feedback. This is the community that accomplishes and supports the work on the software we use and love.

We are seeing people making a pretense of involvement in FLOSS and in our community, people who we don't actually know, people who never join us at conferences, don't work in projects, and only participate in mailing lists to instigate flame wars. We are seeing people who seem to be making a sort of religion out of "free software" and issuing their demands to the rest of us to do things their way. These are people who will excoriate you as something less than a "true GNU/Linux user" if you should touch a Macintosh or (heaven forbid!) a Windows box. These are folks who will berate you for buying a piece of software or owning an iPod. These are people who will classify you as a "freedom hater" if you express reservations about the GPL v3.

Our community thrives on disagreement, and we (mostly) deal with it in healthy ways. We reject uniformity of opinion and we always have. In stark contrast, this pretense of "community" insists that their way is the One True Way, and we should all just shut up, learn the catechism, and do their bidding.

Our community is founded on reputation, we value people based on their contributions: this is the "rough meritocracy" within which we operate. When the imposters of true community engage in defamation, invasions of personal privacy, taking mailing list disagreements into real life by contacting people's employers, they create a chilling effect—people fear to express themselves as themselves, and reputation is lost.

These people are the "Faux FLOSS Fundamentalists". They are disrupting and dividing our community with their demands that we do things the way they say, and their tactics of anonymous comment-bombing, mailing list trolling and defaming members of the community.

We say enough is enough. We are putting our collective feet down as far as strident demands from complete non-participants in the community go. We are saying "no" to Faux FLOSS Fundamentalism, and people like Roy Schestowitz, Sam Varghese, "Penguin Pete", "Jason" of mono-nono, and the like, as well as the assortment of associated and sympathetic trolls who post endless anonymous comments to blog postings they dislike and start up flame wars on development lists.

The Faux FLOSS Fundamentalists have nothing to offer the community but their propaganda, their dogma, and their misplaced sense of entitlement. We need to reject those who demand that we all sign up for "Freedom the Way We Tell You To" and we need to make it clear to them that they need to either actually start participating in a meaningful way or simply stop "advocating" at us.

Plain old "freedom" is good enough for us.

Add a comment
Last Updated on Wednesday, 30 September 2009 19:42
 

A Statement on Sexism in the Community

E-mail Print PDF

 

Stop Sexism

STOP sexism by Casey West. License:

 

We want the open source communities in which we participate to be dignified, respectful, inclusive, and welcoming places. We’ve all been witnesses to off-color jokes, misogynistic back channel chatter, questionable imagery and unnecessary, trolling comments. We pledge to do better to stand up and call this behavior out when we see it in conferences, online and other public settings. we don’t expect it to go away but we're not going to tacitly condone it any longer.

[Thanks to Luis Villa and Nick Sieger]


Add a comment
Last Updated on Monday, 27 July 2009 09:37