[gentoo-dev] Appropriate discussions for this forum (was Re: Something positive!)

[Steve Long]

Ciaran McCreesh wrote:

>> Um, that was in Off The Wall, which is known to be a bit.. er, off
>> the wall?
>>
>> And idiotic as that post was, he wasn't directing his idiocy at
>> another user. (I didn't read the whole thread, admittedly, nor am I
>> about to.)
>
> You mean, he was offending whole groups of users at once, rather than
> one person in particular, so it was ok.
>
No, rather that he was not bullying an individual. I have seen many
instances of that in the archives of this hallowed list. What's saddest is
when someone who's been the victim of such behaviour ends up perpetrating
same on another. I've also noticed, in other walks of life, that weak
characters gravitate to such seemingly strong ones, mistaking fear for
respect.

And personally, while I might find remarks which are disparaging of people
on the basis of *anything* other than their character, to be offensive,
freedom of expression means that the way to fight that prejudice is with
reasoned argument - which I am equally at liberty to express.

So apart from very exceptional circumstances, I don't think a ban is
appropriate simply for expressing distasteful/idiotic/bigoted/[supply term]
views. Whether it's appropriate content for a particular forum depends on
context; OTW is home to some pretty outrageous debates and I believe users
are clearly warned of that fact.

> That's pretty much how the forums work. You're fine saying absolutely
> anything you want about people by category (unless that category is
> the forum mods or a category including their friends), so long as you
> doesn't name any individual (unless it's a member of the mips team --
> it's perfectly ok to say anything you want about any of those).
>
Mate, I don't know what the appropriate public forum is for you to discuss
the issues you've had with forums.g.o. I can understand that you feel hurt
by your exclusion, but I have a feeling you'd probably deny the possibility
of such an eventuality.


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