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In Support of Richard Stallman

stallmansupport.org

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Re: In Support of Richard Stallman

#71

Post by dang »

fulafel wrote: post #55
rambojazz wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Probably flagged because it's political content.

There's currently lots of it on the front page: gay marriage, housing policy, Mark Zuckerberg is using on Signal. Seems the current guideline leads to selective enforcement based on unstated background motives.

There are no unstated motives nor background motives—we've been stating them in the foreground for years! Unfortunately, communication on the internet is largely stateless, so no matter how many times you explain something, the bulk of the audience will not have heard it and/or will make up some other explanation.

See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26713701 and my other posts in this thread for plenty of explanation.

Re: In Support of Richard Stallman

#72

Post by dang »

unethical_ban wrote: post #46
bitwize wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When the topic comes up on /r/linux, the thread gets locked because no fruitful discussion can come of "He wasn't that bad!"/"Yes he was!"/"No, he wasn't!" ad nauseam. That's why the flaggings happen here, too.

Not attacking you, but that line of defense would play a lot better if they didn't allow any discussion of the FSF board or Stallman at all. They have, however, allowed other strong opinions on the site before. It just feels.. eh.

There's no problem with FSF or Stallman being discussed on HN. All that is on topic in principle. What's not on topic is endless repetition of a same-old flamewar.

When there's a major ongoing topic, one important test is whether there's SNI (Significant New Information) in a submission—or just a follow-up that's continuing the same discussion. If there's no SNI, chances are high that the discussion will be a repeat, and when the topic is highly polarized, you'll get a repeat of the same flamewar. That's what we really don't want here, so we downweight such follow-ups.

https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&so...

https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor...

https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&so...

These principles are well-established on HN and have nothing specifically to do with Stallman, let alone whatever opinions the mods have or don't have. You'll see the same patterns about any major ongoing topic that's highly divisive. Assange stories, for example, are pretty much an exact parallel.

Your comment suggests you may feel like there's a bias in which opinions are being "allowed" - that's not the case. See my explanation above: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26713636. It's all too easy to feel like the local authorities are biased against your view, but that perception is in the eye of the beholder—i.e. it's rooted in cognitive biases, such as the one where people notice the cases they dislike and overlook the others (https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...).

Re: In Support of Richard Stallman

#73

Post by dang »

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…

Please don't do the never-ending flamewar on HN. That includes making spurious generalizations about the community and then shame-on-you-ing the spurious generalization. Tedious lock-in on intense positions against intense opposition kills curiosity, and eventually its own host.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re: In Support of Richard Stallman

#74

Post by dang »

icha wrote: post #56

Why does HN moderation staff keep flagging posts related to Stallman? This topic is extremely important and yet they're trying to prevent any discussion of it.

The posts are being flagged by users, not moderators. This is in the FAQ: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html.

For more explanation see my comments at the top of the thread.

Re: In Support of Richard Stallman

#75

Post by guenthert »

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.

Ever seen clowns? Some of them make quite a business out of making people uncomfortable

"comfort the disturbed -- disturb the comfortable"

Re: In Support of Richard Stallman

#76

Post by marstall »

unityByFreedom wrote: post #18
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 just wonder why he hasn't updated or amended his website, https://www.google.com/search?q=pedophile+site%3Astallman.or...

good lord.

Re: In Support of Richard Stallman

#78

Post by browningstreet »

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.

How do you see that it was flagged? This looks like a normal post to me, but I see this "flagged" comment frequently, but don't understand what people are seeing. Thx.

Re: In Support of Richard Stallman

#79

Post by c7DJTLrn »

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…

For every rational person like you who realises their mistake and decides to collect facts first in future, there are 100 others too angry or too obtuse to admit they made a mistake in the first place.

Senseless cancel culture needs to stop.

Re: In Support of Richard Stallman

#80

Post by 2OEH8eoCRo0 »

dang wrote: post #72
unethical_ban wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not attacking you, but that line of defense would play a lot better if they didn't allow any discussion of the FSF board or Stallman at all. They have, however, allowed other strong opinions on the site before. It just feels.. eh.

There's no problem with FSF or Stallman being discussed on HN. All that is on topic in principle. What's not on topic is endless repetition of a same-old flamewar. When there's a major ongoing topic, one important test is whether there's SNI (Significant New Information) in a submission—or just a follow-up that's continuing the same discussion. If there's no SNI, chances are high that the discussion will be a repeat,…

Do you apply this rule evenly? Do you think that some topics are more trouble than they are worth?

Some example topics being US/China geopolitics or the story about "men clamming up" around women.

Fruitful discussion can be made in both of these but it very often is not.

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