On Wed, Apr 14, 2021 at 1:49 PM Paul Koning <paulkon...@comcast.net> wrote: > > > On Apr 14, 2021, at 4:39 PM, Ian Lance Taylor via Gcc <gcc@gcc.gnu.org> > > wrote: > > > > On Wed, Apr 14, 2021 at 9:08 AM Jeff Law via Gcc <gcc@gcc.gnu.org> wrote: > >> > >> once or twice when physical violence with threatened, but that's about > >> it (aside from spammers). I don't think we want to get too deep into > >> moderation and the like -- IMHO it should be an extremely rare event. > >> As much as I disagree with some of the comments that have been made I > >> don't think they've risen to the level of wanting/needing to ban those > >> individuals from posting. > > > > I think it's useful to observe that there are a reasonable number of > > people who will refuse to participate in a project in which the > > mailing list has regular personal attacks and other kinds of abusive > > behavior. I know this because I've spoken with such people myself. > > They simply say "that project is not for me" and move on. > > > > So we don't get the choice between "everyone is welcome" and "some > > people are kicked off the list." We get the choice between "some > > people decline to participate because it is unpleasant" and "some > > people are kicked off the list." > > > > Given the choice of which group of people are going to participate and > > which group are not, which group do we want? > > My answer is "it depends". More precisely, in the past I would have favored > those who decline because the environment is unpleasant -- with the implied > assumption being that their objections are reasonable. Given the emergency > of cancel culture, that assumption is no longer automatically valid. > > This is why I asked the question "who decides?" Given a disagreement in > which the proposed remedy is to ostracise a participant, it is necessary to > inquire for what reason this should be done (and, perhaps, who is pushing for > it to be done). My suggestion is that this judgment can be made by the > community (via secret ballot), unless it is decided to delegate that power to > a smaller body, considered as trustees, or whatever you choose to call them.
Personally, I think that voting is unworkable in practice. I think decisions can be reasonably delegated to a small group of trusted people. A fairly common name for that group is "moderators". It might be appropriate to use voting of some sort when selecting moderators. Ian
