I feel you are misrepresenting what I said, and the point I was trying to make. I never said or implied it was for me to decide if the account should stay or not. I simply stated that I thought the decision to remove the account was in bad taste, as his actions occurred on different services. If I insult you from a Gmail account, my Yahoo account should remain untouched, as an example.

I also think you were exaggerating what my point is. Once again, I feel I have to explain that I am not ’siding’ with the guy, who I agree was a bigot. However, I don’t believe the action taken was a correct one.

Two wrongs do not make a right. I am not defending a bigot, but defending what I believe to be an import right, fairness and equitable treatment for all, and everyone accoutanble to the rule of law. In an ideal world.

No doubt he was deserving of some punishment. In that case, notify his ISP, since you have his information. Notify the admins of the services he is abusing etc.

There is/was no need to have his accounts on unrelated services shut down, simply because you don’t like the guy or approve of his content. However legal and permissible such actions are, they are still in bad taste. Of course, no where near as bad as what he did..

I won’t be replying again, as I would rather this not turn into an argument. Thankyou for the conversation thus far.

All the best,
Josh

I feel that people should always be treated equally and fairly…in this case, that would mean banning him from mailing lists where appropriate, deleting comments of his blog, notifying his ISP etc. Not removing him from unrelated services.

Or you know, maybe asking people to enforce their terms and conditions? Would that apply to your list here? Just saying, because that’s what happened.

Please do not mistake me defending his right to be a bigot, as me defending his stance and what he states. I do not agree with his stance at all, but I felt the situation was handled in a poor way. I also never said anything about scores of women being worth less than a bigot, so I don’t know how you got to that conclusion.

You think that everyone here hasn’t heard that argument a million times before. Rights interfere with each other. If you privilege one, you deny another one. By standing by someone’s right to spew hateful, violent speech at a group of people you are denying that group the right to not have to their lives interrupted by this speech. That’s why you’re valuing scores of women below a bigot because you’d rather have said bigot be able to tell a group of people that they would be better off dead then to have that group of people not have to hear that.

His freedom of speech is not curtailed; he can go elsewhere, find other hosting, run his own server if he so chooses. There are all sorts of places on the internet where such bigoted and odious speech is not only tolerated, but encouraged. He could voice his opinions there.

I find it very curious that bigots and hatemongers, when they finally face consequences for their actions, so often find “devils-advocate” defenders in the average man* on the internet, while people of marginalized groups, such as women, who try to speak out and find themselves attacked and harrassed, even sent death threats, until they are forced to close down their blogs for their own safety and sanity find no such defenders. Where were the stalwart champions of free expression when Kathy Sierra was forced off the net by a mob of misogynist trolls posting threatening messages?

Where, indeed.

* Choice of gender deliberate.

I beleive I addressed that in my previous comment. The behaviour you refer to happened on blogs did it not? He was not sending messages through SF was he(not including the content of his code, as that is not what I am referring to)?

Skud,

If you read my original comment, I noted that everything was in agreement with the license, but that did not make it right. IMO.

Rick,

I do apologise if I did not understand the situation. I read a blog post “not in my neighbourhood” which, to me, implied that the blog author had some power at SF. The neighbourhood being SF.

As I said earlier, the fact that anys ervice can kick any user for any reason does not make it right. I’m sure there a heap of offensive projects on SF, but SF is happy for them to stay there, unless enough noise is raised.

That is what happened in this case.., and unless SF was used as a conduit for his behaviour, then the account should have been left alone.

Because the owner of one of the blogs happens to also be an admin at say, gmail, he deletes the skinnazis gmail account.

For another thing, neither Beth Lynn nor anyone here at GF is (to the best of my knowledge) an admin at SourceForge. The request for them to review the code against their terms of service was made through the same public channels that are available to everyone else. At a minimum, the code violates 3(f) of their Terms of Use.

Having freedom of speech doesn’t compel anyone else to publish your speech. If you loaned someone your car, and they started driving it like a reckless dumbass, you’d take your car the hell away from them. Same principle applies here.

I see this as being analogous to, say, an overly active skinnazi posting comments on peoples blogs, from many different races. Because the owner of one of the blogs happens to also be an admin at say, gmail, he deletes the skinnazis gmail account.

And then, takes some draft messages, edits them for comedic effect and reposts them.

Or have I got this all wrong?

Well, for one thing you seem to be missing the point that he released his code under a license that specifically allows and encourages modification and re-distribution.

He does not have the right to use SF or any other site as a platform to engage in illegal activities like this. Freedom of speech does not protect such actions.

Thanks for the comments.

Leigh,

I didn’t mean to accuse the people of this particular blog in doing the driving out, but in many various comments I had read there was an attitude and tone where it was celebrated and advocated. Something I think is wrong.

Yes, what he was doing was wrong, but silencing people because you don’t like what they say is wrong in so many ways. I feel that’s what the action by SF amounted to.

Meg,

It should not matter what he was campaigning for. I don’t agree with what he was saying, at all, but I would support his right to say it. He hates women, and isn’t too well adjusted, and I don’t have a problem with people deleting comments from their personal blogs at all. Nor being banned from the debian mailing list, as his messages were inappropriate.

Please do not mistake me defending his right to be a bigot, as me defending his stance and what he states. I do not agree with his stance at all, but I felt the situation was handled in a poor way. I also never said anything about scores of women being worth less than a bigot, so I don’t know how you got to that conclusion.

As for violating a contract…that really is just nonsense. Each of the services he has been kicked out from, all big companies, basically have a clause equivalent to “we can ban you at any time for any reason just because we want to”. There are many hate blogs, and simply removing a blog due to succumbing to pressure from a community….well, I don’t agree with that.

Liz,

My point, was that he should not have had his code account removed, simply because someone on sf didn’t like his behavior on an unrelated site. Yes, what he did was very very wrong, and 99% of people will disprove of his actions…that still doesn’t mean he code should have been removed IMO.

—————

I’m not trying to be argumentative or stir the pot, but this is what I believe. I hate it when people feel that it is fine to take matters into their own hands, and everybody agrees because there is a mutual disapproval. I feel that is what has happened here. I feel that people should always be treated equally and fairly…in this case, that would mean banning him from mailing lists where appropriate, deleting comments of his blog, notifying his ISP etc. Not removing him from unrelated services.

I see this as being analogous to, say, an overly active skinnazi posting comments on peoples blogs, from many different races. Because the owner of one of the blogs happens to also be an admin at say, gmail, he deletes the skinnazis gmail account.

And then, takes some draft messages, edits them for comedic effect and reposts them.

Or have I got this all wrong?

For my part, I found this hilarious. It was quite a treat, being able to read through his “creative work” and see how, well, unimaginative and pedestrian it was. It read like the kind of bog-standard, cut-and-paste, brute force and ignorance stuff you get from unimaginative first year students who have no idea how to do things elegantly or efficiently, and also lack the curiosity to find out.

Add in the nonsensical ranting, the pointless insertion of misogyny into the documentation and even into the code, the terrible spelling errors, the obviously poor understanding of the language…be honest, if it wasn’t for the fact that he got the boot for his virulent misogyny causing him to engage in illegal acts of harrassment and intimidation, you would be laughing too.

Me, I’m laughing my head off. And, because I despise the misogyny that infects much of the free software culture of which I am otherwise proud to be a member, I must say that my schaden is also freuding.