Audacity's team is censoring legitimate questions • Hacker News Board

Re: Audacity's team is censoring legitimate questions

#41

Post by martimarkov » Wed, Jul 21, 2021, 1:24 PM UTC

TameAntelope wrote: post #23

antisol wrote: post #2

They're almost impressive in their commitment to Gestapo tactics: only 10 mins to close the issue and block me without any comment or justification.

For what it's worth, the tone you struck in the submission here would have resulted in a removal of your comment on any platform I've moderated in my years on the Internet. Constructive criticism is completely fair, but your entitled tone both on GitHub and here on HN, is inappropriate. I'm not at all surprised your issue was removed and you were banned temporarily. Honestly, what are you trying to accomplish here? I…

Is it just me, or does

"These decisions took time to arrive at because - despite my role as the lead on the project - calls on this specific issue are not mine to make"

sound a hell of a lot like a diplomatic way of saying "I have been instructed to add spyware to audacity"?

How is the above entitled tone?

Re: Audacity's team is censoring legitimate questions

#42

Post by zenexer » Wed, Jul 21, 2021, 1:25 PM UTC

The company behind Audacity has been doing some absolutely abhorrent things (e.g., https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27891005). These deserve to be pointed out on HN because they are abnormal and unprecedented.

This is not one of those things. The person submitting this link to HN posted a snarky rhetorical question—while it made a fair point from my perspective, it certainly wasn’t a constructive comment, and I would’ve been expected to be banned from commenting further if I had done the same. Instead they’re now complaining about it on HN.

HN posts like these trivialize the far more insidious actions of Muse Group. They make it seem as though this is just another FOSS infighting drama, which clearly isn’t the case after reading https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27891005.

Re: Audacity's team is censoring legitimate questions

#43

Post by TameAntelope » Wed, Jul 21, 2021, 1:26 PM UTC

martimarkov wrote: post #41

TameAntelope wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For what it's worth, the tone you struck in the submission here would have resulted in a removal of your comment on any platform I've moderated in my years on the Internet. Constructive criticism is completely fair, but your entitled tone both on GitHub and here on HN, is inappropriate. I'm not at all surprised your issue was removed and you were banned temporarily. Honestly, what are you trying to accomplish here? I…

Is it just me, or does "These decisions took time to arrive at because - despite my role as the lead on the project - calls on this specific issue are not mine to make" sound a hell of a lot like a diplomatic way of saying "I have been instructed to add spyware to audacity"? How is the above entitled tone ?

"The submission" I reference in my comment is the GitHub issue submitted to Hacker News that we are now commenting on, which is not the original comment, but a response to Audacity's moderation of its own repository.

Re: Audacity's team is censoring legitimate questions

#44

Post by sundvor » Wed, Jul 21, 2021, 1:26 PM UTC

noitpmeder wrote: post #25

antisol wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my book you lose the right to not be called a scumbag when you start acting like a scumbag. Blocking me without comment for asking a legitimate question which is not in violation of the code of conduct is the act of a scumbag. If you'd like to debate me on this point, please begin.

I think the point of GP is that you are not helping yourself here. I think it is evident from the initial reaction here on HN that you are throwing away much of the goodwill of many who would have supported your position in the first place.

It seems there was a lot of history going in to this, and it must have built up over some time to get to that point.

But yes, you're completely correct it doesn't read well (at all) to someone coming in with no context (ie likely the vast majority of us).

I'm trying to see behind the words as I'm reading about it, nonetheless. It raised very valid concerns about the state of the project; I may have some cleaning time ahead of me on my wife's PC as she recently installed it.

Re: Audacity's team is censoring legitimate questions

#45

Post by antisol » Wed, Jul 21, 2021, 1:27 PM UTC

CountDrewku wrote: post #26

That's not a legitimate question where an answer was expected. That was a statement formed into a question.

no it was not.

Re: Audacity's team is censoring legitimate questions

#46

Post by antisol » Wed, Jul 21, 2021, 1:29 PM UTC

TameAntelope wrote: post #38

antisol wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> what are you trying to accomplish here? Raising awareness of censorship

In life, we choose which battles are important and which aren't worth the effort. I'm not sure I'd personally have chosen, "Private organization on a private platform has 'censored' my snarky comment." as a battle worth fighting (though I do sympathize, it does not feel good to be ignored), but I am not you.

My response to this is: "fair enough" :)

Re: Audacity's team is censoring legitimate questions

#47

Post by antisol » Wed, Jul 21, 2021, 1:32 PM UTC

maverwa wrote: post #32

Doctor_Fegg wrote: post #11

I'll be honest, if someone described me as "scumbags who have tried to turn into spyware" on the issue tracker for a project I maintain, I'd probably block them too. That kind of language really doesn't achieve anything, and any issue-tracker is better off without it.

Exactly. Disagreement, even a stronge disagreement with peoples opinions or actions does not require or even permit personal attacks. I do like changes done to audcity, but I dislike calling people "scumbags" or stuff like that.

I'd argue that the post contains no personal attacks, only descriptive terms.

Re: Audacity's team is censoring legitimate questions

#48

Post by cgtyoder » Wed, Jul 21, 2021, 1:35 PM UTC

sundvor wrote: post #13

Doctor_Fegg wrote: post #11

I'll be honest, if someone described me as "scumbags who have tried to turn into spyware" on the issue tracker for a project I maintain, I'd probably block them too. That kind of language really doesn't achieve anything, and any issue-tracker is better off without it.

Just closing the issue with no further comment on such an important allegation is not good though. I know my wife recently installed Audacity; I'm going to scramble to figure out what the state of this is now. Thanks Antisol for bringing it to my attention!

Executive Summary: 3.0.2 is "safe"; further versions TBD.

Re: Audacity's team is censoring legitimate questions

#49

Post by antisol » Wed, Jul 21, 2021, 1:35 PM UTC

sundvor wrote: post #44

noitpmeder wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the point of GP is that you are not helping yourself here. I think it is evident from the initial reaction here on HN that you are throwing away much of the goodwill of many who would have supported your position in the first place.

It seems there was a lot of history going in to this, and it must have built up over some time to get to that point. But yes, you're completely correct it doesn't read well (at all) to someone coming in with no context (ie likely the vast majority of us). I'm trying to see behind the words as I'm reading about it, nonetheless. It raised very valid concerns about the state of the project; I may have some cleaning time…

>It seems there was a lot of history going in to this, and it must have built up over some time to get to that point.

Maybe not as much as you'd think, but yeah.

>I'm trying to see behind the words as I'm reading about it, nonetheless.

Well thanks. It does seem that some people find me... let's go with "abrasive". I appreciate you taking the time to try to grok what's going on completely even if you were somewhat put off by the tone :)

Re: Audacity's team is censoring legitimate questions

#50

Post by IfOnlyYouKnew » Wed, Jul 21, 2021, 1:36 PM UTC

martimarkov wrote: post #35

IfOnlyYouKnew wrote: post #19

The "question" is just rhetorical, asking for confirmation of the worst possible way to interpret something. As such, it's close to the definition of assuming bad faith , and itself hard to interpret as an attempt to resolve anything constructively.

Hey they have the option to answer the OG question. They chose not to. Their behaviour the is one in bad faith to begin with. 1. Ask a legit question 2. Ban If that is not bad faith...

What... you expect someone who is obviously carefully weighing the words they use to reply with "yes, I'm being forced to this! Send help, the boss is evil!!"?

No... you wouldn't get answer even it were true.

What does it look like under the assumption that there just isn't a grand conspiracy? I. e. the person on Github just isn't the only person working at audacity and is careful not to make promises they can't keep?

Then you are just fanning the outrage flames and putting more pressure on someone who has explicitly told you, just now, that they are not in a position to give in to your demands and, less explicitly, that they don't enjoy being put in that situation.