> Sent: Thursday, April 15, 2021 at 2:08 AM > From: "Nathan Sidwell" <nat...@acm.org> > To: e...@thyrsus.com > Cc: "gcc@gcc.gnu.org" <gcc@gcc.gnu.org> > Subject: Re: removing toxic emailers > > On 4/14/21 9:18 AM, Eric S. Raymond wrote: > > Nathan Sidwell <nat...@acm.org>: > >> Do we have a policy about removing list subscribers that send abusive or > >> other toxic emails? do we have a code of conduct? Searching the wiki or > >> website finds nothing. The mission statement mentions nothing. > > > > I'm not a GCC insider, but I know a few things about the social > > dynamics of voluntarist subcultures. You might recall I wrote a book > > about that once. > > > > The choice to have a policy for ejecting jerks has serious costs. > > One of those costs is the kind of rancorous dispute that has been > > burning like a brushfire on this list the last few weeks. Another, > > particularly serious for hackers - is that such a policy is hostile to > > autists and others who have poor interaction skills but can ship good > > code. This is a significant percentage of your current and future > > potential contributors, enough that excluding them is a real problem. > > > > Most seriously: the rules, whatever they are, will be gamed by people > > whose objectives are not "ship useful software". You will be fortunate > > if the gamers' objectives are as relatively innocuous as "gain points > > in monkey status competition by beating up funny-colored monkeys"; > > there are much worse cases that have been known to crash even projects > > with nearly as much history and social inertia as this one. > > > > Compared to these costs, the overhead of tolerating a few jerks and > > assholes is pretty much trivial. That's hard to see right now because > > the jerks are visible and the costs of formal policing are > > hypothetical, but I strongly advise you against going down the Code of > > Conduct route regardless of how fashionable that looks right now. I > > have forty years of observer-participant anthropology in intentional > > online communities, beginning with the disintegration of the USENET > > cabal back in the 1980s, telling me that will not end well. > > > > You're better off with an informal system of moderator fiat and > > *without* rules that beg to become a subject of dispute and > > manipulation. A strong norm about off-list behavior and politics being > > out of bounds here is also helpful. > > > > You face a choice between being a community that is about shipping code > > and one that is embroiled in perpetual controversy over who gets to > > play here and on what terms. Choose wisely. > > > > I'd just like to eject the jerks, because they make the place > unwelcoming. I wouldn't associate with them in physical space, I don't > want to associate with them here. And yes, I fully realize there are > other ways I can choose to not associate with them here. > > nathan > > -- > Nathan Sidwell >
Everybody knew what you wanted to do with that post from the beginning. Eradication. Glad you said it.
