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KWin Maintainer: Fanboys and Trolls Are the Cancer Killing Free Software
An anonymous reader writes "Martin Gräßlin, maintainer of the KWin window manager, writes an informative blog post about his experiences with the less favorable pockets of the Free Software community. Quoting: 'Years ago I had a clear political opinion. I was a civil-rights activist. I appreciated freedom and anything limiting freedom was a problem to me. Freedom of speech was one of the most important rights for me. I thought that democracy has to be able to survive radical or insulting opinions. In a democracy any opinion should have a right even if it's against democracy. I had been a member of the lawsuit against data preservation in Germany. I supported the German Pirate Party during the last election campaign because of a new censorship law. That I became a KDE developer is clearly linked to the fact that it is a free software community. But over the last years my opinion changed. Nowadays I think that not every opinion needs to be tolerated. I find it completely acceptable to censor certain comments and encourage others to censor, too. What was able to change my opinion in such a radical way? After all I still consider civil rights as extremely important. The answer is simple: Fanboys and trolls.'"
Censoring other people in your own domain IS A FORM OF SPEECH!
The Neo Nazis can go spout their nonsense, but it doesn't mean I have to let them do it in my own home. Neither does Martin censoring his own blog mean that he is against free speech. He is exercising his own free speech in his own domain by censoring trolls.
There are any number of reasons to censor people in your own domain that doesn't indicate that you think their ideas are dangerous in themselves. You simply are telling them to take their ideas somewhere else, which we all have a right to do.
There wasn't one rational reason stated why censorship is a good thing
Really? How about the idea that having a bunch of lame-ass mooches, trolls, and flamers causing nothing but drama increases the stress level of developers and causes them to abandon projects entirely?
That's a net loss for EVERYONE. The projects don't complete or get kicked way back on deadline waiting for someone else to pick them up, learn the code, learn to extend it, and finish it off. If they ever do, since those same lame-ass trolls and flamers are waiting to pounce again.
This guy needs to grow up and grow a pair.
OR, the lame-ass trolls need to grow up.
Look, I get it. You're 14, you live in your parents' basement, and to you swearing is only nominally less exciting than a furtive glimpse at a pair of tits. You think it makes you sound grown up. Used in moderation, it can. But there's a right way and a wrong way to phrase things, a right way and a wrong way to handle conflict, and a right and wrong way to deal with drama.
The problem with trolls, fanboys and flamers in this context is that they increase rather than decrease the drama levels and stress levels. Rather than putting out fires and being a little diplomatic, they throw gasoline on fires and expect the house to still be standing after the inferno.
Bad move. It destroys projects and drives people away from open source. Hell, the reason I never made the jump to using Linux on the desktop was my own experiences trying to set up a Mythbox in my living room; because I didn't have the exact hardware that one of the developers had, asked for some help, got shouted at "RTFM you fucking loser" over and over again when the documentation was crap and had no relevance to the situation I was asking about... screw it. I'm not going to try to navigate the 300:1 odds of finding someone helpful among that lame-ass crowd in order to try to use F/OSS and I can understand why it drives developers away too!
It's simple.
In the wake of the NSA scandals, you have all sorts of people who want to support their side (aka the good guys) and make sure the other side (aka the bad guys) don't score political points on them.
So you see all these new and interesting mental gymnastics: "I supported free speech, but honestly it's over-rated. It's no big deal really. Illegal search and seizure?It's been going on for a long time now and we're safer! People are happier with fewer rights!"
And then because these thoughts become a total mess in their minds, they start making arguments that make no sense - like TFA. If it's your server, feel free to say whatever you want and let speak whoever you want. You have a right to to say whatever you want - but you do not have the right to force yourself to be heard. If you say something dumb on another person's server, it is their property and they can expunge it. If you say something dumb on your server, feel free to do so - no one can stop you - but there's no one who will be forced to visit your site to actually read it.
The point of the free speech amendment is make sure THE GOVERNMENT cannot decide that YOU will say whatever THEY want on YOUR servers.
Look, I get it. You're 14, you live in your parents' basement,
Way to improve the level of discourse.
On the other hand, you've pretty well proved your own point about trolls and moochers causing drama.
Well played sir.
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
If you have some system like Slashdot's which moves junk comments to lower rating positions, this isn't a problem. Everybody should get to blither, but nobody should have to read or listen to their blithering.
Wrong attitude. One may grow a thick skin naturally due to the harshness of the environment, however it should never be a requirement to grow a thick skin to get on the internet, or join a video game's forums, or to become a free software developer. And why should being a free software develooper be such a difficult job when you don't need to grow a thick skin to be a proprietary software developer? If someone wants to spend their own time and their own money to make a product better why should they have to grow a thick skin first? If someone wants to go to a conference and learn more about some computing technology they shouldn't have to grow a thick skin first.
And why aren't pansies allowed to be free software developers? I'm not saying Martin is, but we shouldn't restrict people from contributing or scaring them away because they're too nice. Everyone body should be joining in here, not just just the rude people and those with swagger.
The very premise of "grow a skin" or "grow a pair" is wrong headed.
This isn't censorship anyway. It's his personal blog. Censorship is something that someone in power does, like governments or corporate bosses, or people who act as gatekeepers of information, such as letters to the editor of a newspaper. The trolling opinions are not being squelched, they can be spoken loudly and clearly on their own blog if they like, or on KDE mailing lists, and so forth.
Its just an open, and free form of censorship. The only way to make it more open would be to say who modded you up and down and why. But this might lead to reprisal voting and politics so as far as I'm concerned peer censorship works.
Additionally the -1 comments are still there, they are just out of the way and can be read if you want to have a laugh about goatse and frosty piss.
Why is it ok to be extremely rude on the internet, but not ok to react to the extreme rudeness by deleting people's comments?
It takes a certain amount of maturity to express differing opinions on a public and largely anonymous forum in a constructive and polite matter, but I think that maturity should be expected - and people who fail to show it should be censured appropriately. Having your comments removed from someone's personal blog because they are rude and immature is perfectly acceptable.
I noticed at least one person in the linked comments owning up to their rudeness and apologising. That is the short of behaviour that should be encouraged, not the development of a 'thick skin'.