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In Support of Richard Stallman

stallmansupport.org

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Re: In Support of Richard Stallman

#61

Post by d_tr »

unityByFreedom wrote: post #53
amanzi wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That doesn't appear to be his style. And even if he did update or amend old posts, there would still be archives and copies floating around that people could refer to if they felt the need. He has changed his views on some topics over the years, including this: https://stallman.org/archives/2019-sep-dec.html#14_September...

It makes me wonder whether he is sincere in his new position. He could easily add a note to his prior statements in a minute's time. He chooses not to do it. Perhaps he doesn't do it because he doesn't want to change what's been written. To me it comes off as insincere given how easy it is to modify websites. Ultimately, what he does is his choice and how it's perceived is everyone else's.

The only difference I can see is that he could do himself a favor by amending the older note. Why do you think it could be sign of insincerity? There are also literally many thousands of political notes in his site, but people seem to be fixated on like five of them.

Re: In Support of Richard Stallman

#62

Post by CodeGlitch »

radmuzom wrote: post #12

Personal story - I was the person who used to get angry and outraged whenever these stories of harassment were published, taking a stance which was pro the supposed victim. Independently, I used to be a huge fan of Stallman and read a lot of his writings as well as what others wrote about him. So when the story first broke out in 2019, my first reaction was "This is simply not possible." Of course, upon researching f…

So far we've heard that he has expressed questionable views in the past (not a crime) and that he can come across as a bit creepy to some people (again not a crime, I know tonnes of people like that). Basically he has committed thought crimes (to some people) and is being cancelled in a very obvious sense.

Given what he has achieved in his life that has benefited everyone of us, I'm amazed HN folk are so quick to go along with cancelling him. Shame on you.

Re: In Support of Richard Stallman

#63

Post by d_tr »

okareaman wrote: post #59
unityByFreedom wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree. This "debunking" is simply a defense of Stallman's views on pedophelia. And Stallman's statement is still on his website. Nothing has changed, https://www.stallman.org/archives/2006-mar-jun.html

I'm being downvoted into oblivion by people who believe children should be able to choose to have sex with adults. I have to guess because the downvoters won't leave comments defending their position of support for sex between children and adults. I am surprised that they exist on Hacker News, not by their cowardice.

Richard Stallman has changed his views on the matter with a very sincere newer note. I am not ok with adults having sex with children by the way and I never was.

Now, at what age do you think that a child is capable of giving consent to undergo hormone therapy and gender altering treatments or operations in general? Is 8 good? I think there has been some, you know, discussion about this as well.

All of these "taboo" matters have to be discussed at some point. Scientists discuss them and society discusses them every now and then, and they will be rediscussed sometime in the future, maybe in 10 years, maybe in 50, maybe in 200. It is kind of natural to discuss things.

Re: In Support of Richard Stallman

#64

Post by tenaciousDaniel »

emilyst wrote: post #44
tenaciousDaniel wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm really trying to understand the issue with the card itself, but the tweet has no further context. Did he only give these out to women? Were they given with other social cues that would indicate he was handing them out as a way to hit on or make a sexual advance towards women? If either of those things are true then I'd understand. But the cards alone look like a business card from a person with a slightly odd sen…

He made people uncomfortable. He was asked to stop. He was reported. He kept doing it. So it's not a "slightly odd sense of humor." It's not humor if no one laughs. If someone tells me something makes them uncomfortable, I stop it.

How many people were made uncomfortable? How many times was he asked to stop? Is it documented anywhere, other than this persons tweet? And why are they being called "pleasure cards"? It makes it sound like these were handed out in order to solicit sex from women.

Do none of these details matter? Am I going crazy? Why are so many people so incurious about factual information once there is any mention of the word "uncomfortable" or "unsafe"?

Re: In Support of Richard Stallman

#65

Post by bmn__ »

Someone1234 wrote: post #14

So I went to their "Debunking False Accusations" page, then clicked through and read the email ("Email #2"), then returned to the page. It feels like they set up a bunch of straw-men which they then went on to debunk. They don't actually defend the content of "Email #2" but instead claimed that people said untrue things about it and then said those were "lies." But without citing the untrue claims they're debunking,…

> Claim #4 is "I am skeptical of the claim that voluntary pedophilia harms children" from 2006 until it was recanted 10+ years later.

Correction of omission: he changed his mind 2016 or earlier.

Re: In Support of Richard Stallman

#66

Post by d_tr »

CodeGlitch wrote: post #62
radmuzom wrote: post #12

Personal story - I was the person who used to get angry and outraged whenever these stories of harassment were published, taking a stance which was pro the supposed victim. Independently, I used to be a huge fan of Stallman and read a lot of his writings as well as what others wrote about him. So when the story first broke out in 2019, my first reaction was "This is simply not possible." Of course, upon researching f…

So far we've heard that he has expressed questionable views in the past (not a crime) and that he can come across as a bit creepy to some people (again not a crime, I know tonnes of people like that). Basically he has committed thought crimes (to some people) and is being cancelled in a very obvious sense. Given what he has achieved in his life that has benefited everyone of us, I'm amazed HN folk are so quick to go…

We were barely able to keep this post alive. It doesn't matter. Stallman will probably be out of the FSF soon and people will keep thinking of him as a monster and be happy that they got rid of him in this way.

Re: In Support of Richard Stallman

#67

Post by einpoklum »

radmuzom wrote: post #12

Personal story - I was the person who used to get angry and outraged whenever these stories of harassment were published, taking a stance which was pro the supposed victim. Independently, I used to be a huge fan of Stallman and read a lot of his writings as well as what others wrote about him. So when the story first broke out in 2019, my first reaction was "This is simply not possible." Of course, upon researching f…

I may not have all of the background information, but reading the open letter against the FSF board:

https://rms-open-letter.github.io/

and the incidents they cite:

https://rms-open-letter.github.io/appendix

I find that the signatories seem to be conflating expressions of opinion with action, and demand extreme action in the face of a collection of statements-of-opinion which they disagree with. But even this is not the worst part of the demand: The letter is not really targeting RMS - it targets anyone who is willing to _tolerate_ RMS, and specifically the FSF board.

It is imperative IMHO that this initiative be fended off, unless you'd like an FSF - and other NGOs - which shudders in fear at the thought of making statements or taking positions which are not in-line enough with mainstream politics. And they will be sure to police each other, since a rhetorical vice by one is a capital offense by all.

And that's all before getting into RMS' neuro-atypicality; and the fact that board membership is not management of the FSF; etc. I just don't think the appropriate defense here should focus on RMS.

Re: In Support of Richard Stallman

#68

Post by dang »

unethical_ban wrote: post #26

So this is literally a website dedicated to defending the character of a major figure in the open-source world, and it gets flagged. This is HN - people should be able to make their own judgement on the content of the site and discuss it here.

There was a massive thread about this a couple weeks ago: Richard Stallman is coming back to the board of the FSF - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26535224 - March 2021 (854 comments)

Since then, there have been over 100 follow-up submissions. (Not a typo! Over 100 submissions in just two weeks.) I've posted a list of the larger threads below. If you click through those links, you'll see that most have been flagged. They were flagged by users, not moderators.

From a moderation point of view, the issue isn't Stallman—the issue is repetition. Curiosity withers under repetition (https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&so...) and flamewar burns it to a crisp.

Stallman is on topic for HN, obviously. But endless flamewar is off topic, and the latter trumps the former. In a situation like this, we usually wait for Significant New Information (SNI) to show up. Has there been SNI since https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26535224? I haven't seen it.

I wouldn't mind turning off flags on another large discussion about this, since the last one was 2 weeks ago and there is obviously an appetite for it (among some HN users) in addition to aversion to it (among others). Aversion has been having its way lately, so we could give appetite a chance. However, it would require an article that is capable of supporting a more substantive discussion. In particular, it would have to be something other than a "yay RMS" or a "boo RMS".

There's another issue too: if we turn off the flags on a Yay or a Boo, people will accuse us of being Yayers or Booers, and generally we prefer not to release the hounds of hell on ourselves. People accuse us of that anyway; imagine what they'd do with a big fat juicy data point.

Edit: if there is any question I haven't answered, please let me know - but please read this comment and its cousins (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26714003 and https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26713701) first, to make sure that it's truly unanswered.

Re: In Support of Richard Stallman

#69

Post by dang »

dang wrote: post #68
unethical_ban wrote: post #26

So this is literally a website dedicated to defending the character of a major figure in the open-source world, and it gets flagged. This is HN - people should be able to make their own judgement on the content of the site and discuss it here.

There was a massive thread about this a couple weeks ago: Richard Stallman is coming back to the board of the FSF - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26535224 - March 2021 (854 comments) Since then, there have been over 100 follow-up submissions. (Not a typo! Over 100 submissions in just two weeks.) I've posted a list of the larger threads below. If you click through those links, you'll see that most have been fla…

HN threads with 10 or more live comments since Stallman went back to FSF:

In Support of Richard Stallman - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26707498 - April 2021 (58 comments)

Richard Stallman Has Been Vilified by Those Who Don’t Know Him - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26681014 - April 2021 (25 comments)

Richard Stallman Removed from the GCC Steering Committee - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26670379 - April 2021 (97 comments)

The FSF unionised because of RMS - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26649968 - March 2021 (43 comments)

Richard Stallman FSF support/remove letter signature counts - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26646423 - March 2021 (41 comments)

Libreboot – Defend Richard Stallman - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26646048 - March 2021 (235 comments)

Red Hat Withdraws from the Free Software Foundation After Stallman’s Return - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26626512 - March 2021 (26 comments)

Stallman's return denounced by the EFF, Tor, Mozilla, and the creator of Rust - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26624951 - March 2021 (54 comments)

Not the First Time We Tried (FSF, GNU, RMS, etc.) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26611519 - March 2021 (70 comments)

“The Tor Project is joining calls for Richard M. Stallman to be removed [...]" - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26610061 - March 2021 (35 comments)

Remove RMS from the GCC Steering Committee - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26598066 - March 2021 (59 comments)

Red Hat Pulls Free Software Foundation Funding over Richard Stallman's Return - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26596378 - March 2021 (104 comments)

Red Hat statement about RMS’s return to the Free Software Foundation board - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26585378 - March 2021 (78 comments)

Stallman isn't great, but not the devil - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26579225 - March 2021 (63 comments)

Statement on Re-Election of Richard Stallman to Free Software Foundation Board - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26575214 - March 2021 (28 comments)

Return of Stallman sparks outrage among open-source and free software leaders - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26574186 - March 2021 (19 comments)

Mozilla, Tor Join Calls to Oust Richard Stallman from Free Software Foundation - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26573717 - March 2021 (220 comments)

An open letter in support of RMS being reinstated by the FSF - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26568144 - March 2021 (106 comments)

The X.Org Foundation is joining calls for RMS to be removed - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26565579 - March 2021 (11 comments)

RMS Support Letter - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26565107 - March 2021 (47 comments)

About the RMS Cancellation - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26562247 - March 2021 (27 comments)

Free software advocates seek removal of Richard Stallman and entire FSF board - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26562138 - March 2021 (13 comments)

OSI Response to RMS’s Reappointment to the Board of the Free Software Foundation - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26559049 - March 2021 (11 comments)

rms-open-letter.github.io - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26558348 - March 2021 (139 comments)

Richard Stallman back at Free Software Foundation, says he won’t quit again - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26544440 - March 2021 (26 comments)

Richard Stallman is coming back to the board of the FSF - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26535224 - March 2021 (855 comments)

Re: In Support of Richard Stallman

#70

Post by dang »

rambojazz wrote: post #51
unethical_ban wrote: post #26

So this is literally a website dedicated to defending the character of a major figure in the open-source world, and it gets flagged. This is HN - people should be able to make their own judgement on the content of the site and discuss it here.

Probably flagged because it's political content.

Political stories are not off-topic on HN as such. On-topic stories are ones that gratify intellectual curiosity (https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html), and plenty of those have political overlap. However, for a story to be on topic for HN, it needs to be intellectually interesting and capable of supporting a substantive thread. Many political stories tend to be sensational rather than intellectually interesting, and also tend to be extremely repetitive. Those are some of the qualities that make a submission off topic for HN (see https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&so...)

There are many past explanations here: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&so.... Some good threads to start with might be https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21607844 and https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22902490. Also https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17014869, which shows how far back political discussion goes on HN, as well as the argument about politics on HN.

If anyone still has a question that hasn't been answered there, I'd like to know what it is, and if you know a better way for HN to relate to political topics while fulfilling its mandate of curiosity (https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor...), I'd really like to know what it is. Just please familiarize yourself with the past material first, because if it's something simple like "just ban politics" or "just allow everything", I've answered many times already why it won't work.

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