@phoe

Sorry didn't intend to make you feel attacked. I've had a bad day in a bad period.

Also I've read your words in my reference framework, and that didn't helped either.

Yet, apparently our perspectives are very different, and assuming we are both in good faith, I wonder why and if we can learn something interesting from each other.

Since #freedom is the core value of #FreeSoftware (as defined by #Stallman and #GNU, not me: I think freedom is ancillary to #curiosity, but let's take this for a different debate 😉) freedom of expression and code freedoms are not orthogonal at all: software is a form of expression and we want to keep it free just like any other form.

Yet, if this is childish, I'd like to know what's the "adult" alternative.

And if they are orthogonal (of which I'm not convinced at all), I'd like to know the adult alternatives to each of them, to construct your ideal "adult" value system.

@AbbieNormal

@Shamar @AbbieNormal Yes, thank you; no harm was done, I am also having an exhausting day that makes it hard to focus. [>>]

@Shamar @AbbieNormal The GNU definition of freedom is based on freedom of expression, and therefore one can argue that anything that infriges on that freedom is non-free. One issue with that approach is that one person's expression can harm another person's well-being, and therefore, the ability to express themselves - this makes freedom of expression possibly nonfree and contradictory from its very definition! [>>]

@Shamar @AbbieNormal One solution to that issue that has recently surfaced is a different kind of freedom - a freedom of muting, or filtering, or moderating, or, in other words, limiting what and who I am interacting with. In a way, this is a form of my expression, too, isn't it? [>>]

@Shamar @AbbieNormal The difference between these two definitions can be summed up in the following: you are free to speak, and I am free to not listen. You are free to submit your posts to my mailing lists, and I am free to delete them. If a given community trusts me, I am free to set up rules for what is allowed in that community, and you are allowed to disregard them, and I am allowed to execute the consequences for that, as defined by the community, or me, as its trusted moderator.

@phoe

As far as I can tell, there is an unsound logical step in this reasoning.

The freedom to #speak and the freedom to #ignore are both #individual freedoms: they counters one another and are so equivalent that they can both be contemporarily used in a community of #peers.

I totally agree that these are fundamental freedoms we should all learn to respect.

But then you add #trust to turn ONE of these freedoms to a form of #power: the freedom to ignore becomes freedom to mute.
Moreover such power is not over an individual, but over a community: when a moderator #censor a user, he doesn't just restrict the freedom to speech of such user, but he is also restricting the freedom to listen of ALL other users. AND by doing so, the moderator also restrict their freedom to ignore.
So such power over a community is never balanced with the freedoms of individuals.

To me, trust can justify power only if its scope is very well delimited and if its overly easy to clearly identify and instantly dethrone whoever abuse such power.
I'm not sure that EVERY
communication channel of GNU provides such guarantee.

Does gnu-MISC-discuss provide such clearly defined scope?

@AbbieNormal

@Shamar You speak of power as if it was always an unwanted thing.

It is more than possible for a community to organize itself around an expression that they explicitly do *not* want to see some sort of behaviour. That would be the individuals' expression, their choice. [>>]

@AbbieNormal

@Shamar @AbbieNormal

In such a community, a moderator is entrusted to be the collective executing force of the community members' individual expressions. In other words, the moderators' power to mute explicitly comes from individuals' power to mute, and the *expectation* that the moderator will use that power on their behalf, so they *do not need to* use it themselves.

Such communities exist and thrive. [>>]

@Shamar @AbbieNormal In other words, it is the users that explicitly delegate the muting power to the moderators, so the mods can do the dirty work and the users can do whatever they do in a given community. [>>]

@AbbieNormal @Shamar

I see that GNU is kinda used to telling that censors/proprietors are The Bad Thing™ and users want Freedom™ instead.

See, freedom is relative, not absolute, which in turn means that multiple contradictory definitions of it exist. Sometimes people literally want freedom from freedom - especially if the definition of the latter "freedom" (that happens to be used and endorsed by GNU) causes them harm.

@AbbieNormal @Shamar One could say that such moderation meets the exact definition of a spam filter, where spam is understood as unwanted an unsolicited messages. The users trust the filter to perform in a way they expect well enough to have a nice experience using the service.

Do you use a spam filter on your mail client? Does your mail server check SPF, DKIM, and/or DMARC information for incoming mail? Does it validate incoming mail against spam domain blacklists?

If yes, why?

@phoe @AbbieNormal

I can ensure you I care about oppressed people, just like you do.

So why we disagree on the way to maximize actual freedom?

I think that the fundamental issue is about context.

Whenever there are people oppressed there are oppressors that get advantage from the #oppression itself. Usually they rationalize such oppression as natural, necessary and so on. As #Freire used to say, the oppressed people also tend to internalize the oppression so much that they actively work to preserve it.

Now, you might argue that I'm an oppressed myself defending my oppression or that I'm an oppressor defending something that give me some sort of advantage.

But I'm not from any of the oppressed groups that populate US-people remorse: I'm not a woman, I'm not gay, I'm not a person of colour and so on... I've been part of oppressed groups that were oppressed in Italy, but apparently this doesn't qualify me as an oppressed these day.

So maybe I'm an oppressor?

I'd say I'm not, as I've never joined gnu-misc-discuss (or any other GNU list, as far as I can remember), I'm not a #Stallman fanboy (I think that he got #freesoftware wrong!) and I don't even like many of his past arguments. What could I have to gain as an oppressor?

But I see a logical contradiction in what you both say (not this specific post) followed by a rationalization of it.

You argue that giving too much freedom cause oppression so you need a power structure and censorship to counter this effect.

Note that I'm in no way against moderation, but I think it should always be bound to the context. The context of gnu-misc is only defined by #freedom of #GNU. So much that Andy Wingo is free to openly attack the current moderators.

And indeed, if you look at what's happening from this perspective, you can see who is gaining trust and visibility and who is, ultimately, looking for power.

Now I'm pretty sure that Andy will succeed to break GNU and will build something new that is more "oppressed friendly" (for the oppressed that he like and who like him).

BUT they won't solve the issue you are talking about: they will just collect the power to setup a more centralized oppression system, just against someone else (weirdos anyone?).

@Shamar @AbbieNormal

> So why we disagree on the way to maximize actual freedom?

Hm. Our definitions of "actual freedom" may differ.

I say that there is a freedom to create and enforce a set of rules that act as a spam filter for a given community. The context that you mention in your post *is* the set of rules I mention here, and a good moderator will moderate based on that set of rules.

That's a part of "actual freedom" for me, which is maximized by my definition.

@AbbieNormal

> weirdos (if not worse)

Try to restate this with another oppressed category.

> women (if not worse)
> black (if not worse)
> gay (if not worse)
> gypsy (if not worse)

Are you fine with what you wrote?
I'm not.

To me, such pattern sounds very offensive: being weird is not a defect, just like being woman, black, gay, gypsy or whatever.

> that's a fact of life

No, this is just what your own culture qualify as a fact of life. In another age you would have taken slavery as a fact of life (from ancient Egypt to early US).

> The current GNU is for weirdos

Let's assume this is true.

So someone who today is less weird to #mainstream people decided that weirdos do not deserve access to what they created.

But think for a moment about what is "weird" to mainstream people.

Women who wanted to vote were very weird in the early 20th century.

To many, #LGBTIQ looks very weird.

One could even argue that, from a sociological perspective, all oppressed groups you like spawn from the ever changing and always marginalized group of weirdos.

So you are arguing to take a space from a weak and unrecognised marginalized group to give it to stronger ones who deserve it more.

And, you argue, that's because these stronger marginalized groups have less spaces to meet and organize.

Are you sure this is wise?
You are reproducing the oppression that you suffered.

Even if you don't give a shit about weirdos, are you sure this is politically wise?

When you will win against weirdos you'll open the road for other to win against you!

> Currently, the class of oppressed Andy likes (and I do too) have very few places

And weirdos?
How many place we have?

You know why Andy want to divide and conquer #GNU?

Because it was successful.

If it was just a weird place, he wouldn't give a shit.

But since it's successful, well visible and well known, he (and people like him) want to overtake it.

@phoe