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A post by Guido van Rossum removed for violating Python community guidelines

discuss.python.org

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Re: A post by Guido van Rossum removed for violating Python community guidelines

#171
post #9

These are not "Python community guidelines". These are the guidelines of a tyrannical clique who have grabbed power and control the access to the infrastructure. They abuse their power by banning any opposition and then using said infrastructure to libel and defame their opponents. Google already fired one or two of them. I do not know what is required to restore the health of Python.

It's funny how drama, toxicity and speech suppresion ensues as soon as you establish a CoC and let a bunch of SJWs enforce it. Every. Single. Time.

I would like to see more instances of this kind of thing going on, the fallout, and so on.

Re: A post by Guido van Rossum removed for violating Python community guidelines

#172

Very sad to see this happening to the Python community. Maybe we need a fork with only technical discussion allowed. This CoC/vote stuff seems to poison every community it touches.

I think the politics of power is unavoidable no matter how well you silo your technical work from your people work. Ten years ago, Debian saw three well respected members of the Technical Committee resign — including two former project leaders, one of whom designed the .deb packaging system — during what I see as a similarly heated vote/counter-vote power struggle. This Python saga feels similar.

I believe if things get too heated, all the parties involved should be forced to meet in person for a weekend to talk things out. I'm sure it would solve like 90% of these stupid conflicts, because people rarely get _that_ riled up when in the same room. Written communication, especially asynchronus ones like email or forums, are just unsuitable to capture all nuances of human behaviour. Someone is tired or hungry and makes a bad joke; next thing you know there's a witchhunt…

(I also don't think they should be allowed to cite things said 5 years ago as a reason to ban someone today. How could that still be relevant?)

Re: A post by Guido van Rossum removed for violating Python community guidelines

#173
post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also see for the last python release notes for some hardcore politics injected right into your tooling language. Python is unfortunately radioactive and can't be used responsibly anymore. They're halfway to selfdestruction

What specifically are you talking about? I couldn’t find anything political in the Python 3.12 release notes.

They probably mean the poem at the bottom here:

https://www.python.org/downloads/release/python-3120/

Under "And now for something completely different"

Re: A post by Guido van Rossum removed for violating Python community guidelines

#174

The original text stated: > I don’t know much about voting systems, but I know someone who does. Unfortunately he’s currently banned. Maybe we can wait until his 3-month ban expires and ask him for advice? Currently, the text reads: > This post was flagged by the community and is temporarily hidden. Since it has been hidden for more than 24 hours, this suggests that a moderator action has marked it as permanently hid…

I'm an outsider who only knows Guido van Rossum by way of interviews his writing. Assuming your quote is what the original text said (I don't disbelieve you-- but nobody can see it to confirm) why would this have violated community standards? Is there some rule about not mentioning "un-persons" or something? It's very confusing. Edit: Answering my own question. There appears to be a kerfuffle afoot. Apparently the St…

[flagged]

Re: A post by Guido van Rossum removed for violating Python community guidelines

#175
post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What specifically are you talking about? I couldn’t find anything political in the Python 3.12 release notes.

They probably mean the poem at the bottom here: https://www.python.org/downloads/release/python-3120/ Under "And now for something completely different"

Ah. That’s really inappropriate for a technical document.

Re: A post by Guido van Rossum removed for violating Python community guidelines

#176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

No, it is pure 1984. Censorious nonsense spearheaded by those who are held unaccountable for their actions. The fact that this came about on a topic of voting systems is even more ironic.

I was replying to the comment, not the whole thread.

Re: A post by Guido van Rossum removed for violating Python community guidelines

#177
post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

BDFL model seems to have worked pretty well for so many decades. Guido should have just transferred power to someone he trusted. Now look at him, he can't even comment freely.

I think the lesson is, if you should ever find yourself in the role of a BD and plan to give up control in favour of a committee or suchlike, always retain the option to throw them out and re-assume control, in case of need.

Ah the old Oliver Cromwell approach!

Re: A post by Guido van Rossum removed for violating Python community guidelines

#178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you understand but just don't agree? Can we help in increasing understanding on why people have certain opinions in this topic? Or do you kinda know why and are expressing a kind of disagreement and disapproval of holding the opinions?

Yes, please help me understand why this is a big deal! A committee that was chosen by a community decided to remove a post. It looks like the removal was well within their authority. If the community disagrees with the committee, they can move discussion to another venue, elect a new committee, and so on, no? None of this adversely affects the performance or reliability of software written in python.

It looks like the removal was well within their authority

this is what i'd like to know more about. should they have this authority? especially to remove any posts in a non-transparent way? such a level of authority should be limited to removing obviously illegal or age-restricted content, but not the kind of message in question. and even then, it should require oversight from someone outside the committee, ideally people specifically trained for handling such messages.

Re: A post by Guido van Rossum removed for violating Python community guidelines

#179
post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is actually a really interesting real-life instance showing that, in this particular case, RCV didn't achieve an optimal outcome. But what's a better voting system that would have achieve the presumably optimal outcome here (the less-polarizing GOP candidate Begich getting elected)? If we just compare to simply plurality voting, the outcome seems the same: Peltola got the highest vote of the 3, so in regular FPT…

> But what's a better voting system that would have achieve the presumably optimal outcome here (the less-polarizing GOP candidate Begich getting elected)? One I don't think gets talked about enough is approval voting. Vote for as many candidates as you like, whoever gets the most votes wins. Voting for all of them is effectively the same as voting for none of them. It also has the massive benefit for the general pop…

i like this. i think it even works for electing multiple candidates. we need 5 people in a committee. everyone list their preferred 5 or 10 or more choices. add up all the votes and the 5 top get chosen.

Re: A post by Guido van Rossum removed for violating Python community guidelines

#180
I'm sorry but I have to reuse an old comment:

Pournelle's Iron Law of Bureaucracy states that in any bureaucratic organization there will be two kinds of people: First, there will be those who are devoted to the goals of the organization. Examples are dedicated classroom teachers in an educational bureaucracy, many of the engineers and launch technicians and scientists at NASA, even some agricultural scientists and advisors in the former Soviet Union collective farming administration.

Secondly, there will be those dedicated to the organization itself. Examples are many of the administrators in the education system, many professors of education, many teachers union officials, much of the NASA headquarters staff, etc.

The Iron Law states that in every case the second group will gain and keep control of the organization. It will write the rules, and control promotions within the organization.

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