Re: [Last-Call] Last Call: BCP 83 PR-Action Against Dan Harkins

[John C Klensin <[e-mail]>]

--On Friday, October 7, 2022 15:32 -0400 Theodore Ts'o
<[e-mail]> wrote:

> On Fri, Oct 07, 2022 at 04:38:30PM +0100, Jay Daley wrote:
>> > 
>> > Would you care to restate it in terms of his actions and
>> > behavior rather than his intentions?
>> 
>> My statement above is indeed a statement of actions and
>> behaviour. It is an objective fact that his post had no
>> content that was not ridicule.  My statement is therefore, to
>> use a phrase from your postscript, based solely on observable
>> behaviour and nothing else.
>> 
>> You or others might wish to speculate on a motive not
>> inherent in the text that somehow alters the seriousness of
>> that post, but I don't think that would be appropriate for
>> me to do when making moderation decisions.
> 
> I have to agree with Jay here.  If someone introduces race
> into a discussion about masking, that should be raising all
> sorts of red flags.  Whether it is because that person doesn't
> have the awareness about why that might not be a good thing to
> do, or was doing it with malice aforethought, IMHO, doesn't
> matter.  It has the potential of being highly divisive, and
> trolling, and again, if someone can't figure that out, then
> maybe their ability to post should be restricted for a time,
> until they can figure that out.

Then I think you missed the point I was trying to make and
probably Jay did too.  I certainly agree about the red flags and
the rest of the above, including the "doesn't matter" point.
And...

--On Friday, October 7, 2022 15:37 -0400 Joel Halpern
<[e-mail]> wrote:

> And, as occurred in this case, they should be talked to about
> whether they understand the problem and are willing to change
> their behavior.  If not, and if they demonstrate they are
> unwilling to modify their behavior, then we as a community are
> obliged to take explicit steps to prevent the bad behavior.

Yes.  Agree with that too.

But Jay's original comment was not, e.g., either of

	"He introduced race into a discussion that previously
	had nothing to do with it and..."

or

	"Regardless of his motivations, the comment could not
	serve as a genuine contribution to any serious debate
	and could only be interpreted by reasonable readers as
	belittling and ridiculing the discussion"  

those statements would be about behavior and impact on the
community.  The original,

> Dan however did not introduce it for any serious debate or
> other genuine contribution, he did so solely for the purpose
> of belittling and ridiculing it. 

was about Dan's intent and goals.

And, Richard, I don't consider that distinction a philosophical
discussion.   The examples above and the statement that Ted made
are about specific behavior with impact of the community (and
hence justification for a PR-action.  It is possible for those
statements to be incorrect although I don't, personally, think
they are.  A statement about Dan's intent or motivation requires
a certain amount of mind reading (even if the mind reader
believes the conclusions are obvious) and, as I believe others
have pointed out, is not very much different from a personal
attack.   

   john