Other things beyond the ban process have improved though. These days I’m seeing a lot less of that yellow this post has been hidden dialog, more moderation being done above board. The request to stop editing other people’s posts – even for benign typos – was acted on. Even the fact that this thread has been kept unlocked, despite its more ugly moments, is a testament things having changed.
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Yes, that looks better to me too.
Although that one happened before my ban. Even before David Mertz’s Discourse ban (which happened about 3 weeks before my ban). So that one wasn’t an outcome of any ban, but a consequence of contentious actions in discussions before the bans. As I recall, complaints about editing didn’t get anywhere before @barry (on the SC) spoke against them.
Although Brett acknowledged earlier that they were making a deliberate exception for this specific topic, and that its special treatment was ending,. To my eyes, as often happens, they think about “locking” a topic when discussion shows every sign[1] of dying off soon on its own anyway. As happened at the time in this topic:
So this specific topic was “special” that way. My “Information Asymmetry” blog article revealed information that never would have come out otherwise, and of a nature such that “excessive” moderation of feedback would have made the bad publicity even worse.
It was that blog post at work here, not the ban itself. Most bans very quickly faded from public memory, because the ban target never wanted to come back before, and “their side” was never heard by the public.
well, every sign to me - but I’m reading posts for meaning instead of looking for things that may give offense, so may have a better sense of where topics are heading ↩︎
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Tim, please stop replying to this thread. Your horse is dead already.
Preempting anyone bothering to formally ask:
That was private Tim. The SC reached out and asked you if that was what you wanted - because if it was a request coming from you, we would honor it. You replied and told us it was not. So we didn’t. End of story.
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If the horse is dead, then that implies that the SC has no intention of changing anything about what led to this ban, and therefore there will likely be further bans of similarly baseless nature.
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Except that isn’t true, @gpshead. My reply said twice that it was what I wanted (not all that I wanted, but part):
Which parts of “yes, I do want to see them redacted”, and “So, by all means, redact away.” did you read as “no”?
As I said, I pointed this out so that @ambv wouldn’t be left looking disingenuous.
I do wish you would have pushed back against the CoC WG’s original recommendation. You’re quite selective about which of their recommendations you choose to wish away 
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Your ban was well deserved Tim. It’s unfortunate for our community that you seem not to have learned from it.
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By what justification? The original citations have been shown to be entirely untrue. Please, elaborate on the deservedness of the ban.
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I haven’t disputed “the ban” for some time. I’ve been talking instead about that specific list of contrived “CoC violations”. About which you, and the SC, and the CoC WG, have never said a single word, neither on Discourse nor to me in private. They’re almost entirely baseless, and have attracted almost no buy-in from anyone, neither on Discourse nor across the web. They’re nothing but an embarrassment to the PSF.
And, yes, I noticed that you had no answer to my pointing out that I in fact said “yes, redact”, contrary to your claim that I said “no”. Instead another deflection from the issue at hand.
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From your email reply to us your very first words were:
“It’s actually better for me, personally, if those defamations remain
visible.”
that to me reads as “no”.
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This is childish, @gpshead. The real world has nuance. Rather than tediously spell it out, I’ll include my entire email, and let people read it for themselves. I don’t think a reasonable person could conclude “no”, but that’s up to them:
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Here, have the whole text of our question to you:
Hi Tim. The Steering Council has received a request from the CoC WG to redact the quote from the CoC WG’s recommendations on this message: [oft-repeated-url-elided].
The SC is amenable to this suggestion, but we wanted to confirm that this is your preference. We propose to replace the entire quoted text with the following:
"We have edited this quote to remove the original list of complaints at the request of the suspended person and the CoC WG.”
We won’t change anything outside of the quote block.
Please let us know if this is something you want.
You responded. From that it was clear that we didn’t have the whole picture and this wasn’t something you preferred for your own sake.
Your perceptions of what is best for the community do not match ours.
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Can only repeat that “yes, I do want to see them redacted” and “So, by all means, redact away.:” are crystal clear. You didn’t need “the whole picture”, or telepathy, to read “yes” as “yes”. You chose to read it as “no” to suit your own agenda, whatever that may be.
On that I expect we wholly agree! And it’s a genuine relief to hear it stated plainly instead of being demonized for it. Adults can disagree without rancor. And on that, I wish you a good night 
.
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TLDR; This drama does not improve the Python programming language. The steering council (SC) made an appropriately bad decision in banning Peters in the way it did. Mr. Peters should simply stick to discussing Python in Python forums.
Probably too long version: I first became aware of the ban following a discussion on the r/Python subreddit. Based on the information available to me at the time, I was definitely “team Tim”: there was a clear lack of due process, and no one likes Star Chambers. It’s apparent to me the Python community has a left-of-center vibe, and I knew, for example, the 1970 SNL sketch was funny when I saw it broadcast live – I’m old, not because Dan Akroyd called Jane Curtin a slur but because the blunt language contrasted to James J. Kilpatrick rather pompous rhetoric. Since I’m sure my “n” is much smaller than a Python fellow’s, I keep such thoughts to myself here because it has nothing to do with Python and it’s a “you had to be there” kind of thing. (Don’t cry for Jane; ChatGPT tells me she has a net worth of 8 to 10 million.)
Then, this past December, I read this entire thread. It was about a two-hour time sink. I was like, “Oh, I get it now.” Since the thread was quiescent, I decided to keep my mouth shut and just watch it.
The incessant squabbling over stupid stuff e.g., ‘the ban can’t be “relitigated” because it wasn’t “litigated”’ theme in the context of a world where there are wars in the Mideast, Ukraine, Africa, flood devastation in Western North Carolina and firestorms in California, massive political upheaval in at least the US and the UK, infrastructure being destroyed in the Baltic sea is childish. I’m reminded of Rick Blaine’s (Humphrey Bogart’s) famous line in Casablanca, “I’m no good at being noble, but it doesn’t take much to see that the problems of three little people don’t amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world.”
The churn about the injustice of the ban is reminiscent of Billy Joel’s Angry Young Man:
There’s a place in the world for the angry young man
With his working class ties and his radical plans
He refuses to bend, he refuses to crawl,
And he’s always at home with his back to the wall.
And he’s proud of his scars and the battles he’s lost,
And he struggles and bleeds as he hangs on his cross
And he likes to be known as the angry young man.
Give a moment or two to the angry young man,
With his foot in his mouth and his heart in his hand.
He’s been stabbed in the back, he’s been misunderstood,
It’s a comfort to know his intentions are good.
And he sits in a room with a lock on the door,
With his maps and his medals laid out on the floor
And he likes to be known as the angry young man.
I believe I’ve passed the age
Of consciousness and righteous rage
I found that just surviving was a noble fight.
I once believed in causes too,
I had my pointless point of view,
And life went on no matter who was wrong or right.
I said above the SC made a bad decision and I stand by that. The vagueness of the announcement, the lack of transparency definitely had a chilling effect on discourse in Python spaces. Unfortunately, the confidential nature of the Python Software Foundation (PSF) reporting procedures ties the SC hands. While the ban may have been a bad decision, it seems to me it was the least bad decision available to the SC.
The primary purpose of the SC is to, well, steer the Python language. I don’t know how / why PEP 13 stuck them with the burden of being conduct enforcers for core developers, but there it is. Those complaining about the lack of due process should explain what, exactly, due process would look like. Should the PSF hire third-party lawyers for $500 to $2500 per hour to investigate? Fly all participants to a central location so the accused can cross-examine witnesses? .Rhetorical questions, obviously. In the US, the right of free association means a private organization is perfectly within its rights to exclude someone based on from its forums. No one is being fined, losing property, or going to jail. As some advocates for Tim have demonstrated, they are free to say whatever they want on other parts of the web.
Occam’s Razor suggests that if the SC was grossly out of line, there would have been a no-confidence vote. To the best of my (and ChatGPT’s) knowledge, there was never a second to the motion from the ~100 core developers, many / most of whom, being far wiser than me, have refrained from commenting one way or the other.
The code of conduct expects us to “gracefully accept constructive criticism.” My message to Tim is thus: Your experience and knowledge can continue to provide great value to the Python community if you choose. Simply keep your comments in PSF spaces focused on Python programming, and don’t discuss anything else.
My message to Gregory Smith and the rest of the SC is: Nothing you can say will ever satisfy everyone. As David Bowie wrong / sung in 1982 (Cat People):
And I’ve been putting out the fire with gasoline
Putting out fire
With gasoline
I don’t see any benefit to further engagement. Not because you were wrong but because the pattern has been for those who disagree to parse and quibble about every word, so continuing to engage continues the unproductive discussion.
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Does the Code of Conduct bind the SC to also gracefully accept constructive criticism, or does it only apply to the rest of us?
Put these two statements together and ask yourself: Are you REALLY sure that people would have spoken up, or is it possible that the vagueness and lack of transparency led to every possible seconder being terrified of being targeted by another equally baseless ban?
And so, once again, we have a voice saying “just shut up and keep giving everything you possibly have”. This sort of pressure drives people away, but that’s okay, because you never see the people who are gone. All you know is that the voice speaking out against the authority has been silenced, so all is well.
The problem has ALWAYS been the silence. Utter, total, stonewalling silence. Everyone keeps pointing to the confidentiality and saying “look, they have to say nothing”, but if this were being done in good faith, there would have been other things that could have been said, without violating anyone’s confidentiality. Instead, what we have is a complete refusal to communicate.
Tell me, what do you feel that your post has contributed? It may be a little hypocritical to both demand that other people stop posting, and also to post without adding anything to the discussion. Or is it only those who disagree with the SC who are to have their voices silenced?
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That is also a point of view.
There is a possibility that a portion of the horrible things that you have mentioned that are happening in the world were once “problems of three little people”.
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The grand total of all injustices done in all software projects to all people across the world across all time doesn’t amount to a drop of spit compared to what happens every day in, e.g., Gaza or Ukraine.
But I use my voice where it can be heard. On Facebook I rage against the larger injustices of the world. Here I stick to injustices in my immediate community. I’m not the first and - in the absence of real change - won’t be the last.
Ironically enough, I had stopped posting in the PSF category entirely 2 weeks before the ban, and represented to the CoC WG (when I filed my own CoC complaint) that I intended never to post there again.
There was no “posting behavior” left to “correct”, except that they wouldn’t take not posting at all for an answer. Going on to post baseless specific charges was on them. The SC’s reply (in part):
It’s not that your behaviour hasn’t been just fine when you were completely silent, it’s more that it takes the wheels of bureaucracy a little time to process these things.
Posting false charges is unjust, immoral, and unethical. Not compared to, e.g., genocide, but in the context of what the relatively insignificant PSF does, it certainly applies. But:
“You will never understand bureaucracies until you understand that for bureaucrats procedure is everything and outcomes are nothing.” - Thomas Sowell
It doesn’t matter one whit who claimed offense when the thing being claimed isn’t real. “Privacy” has nothing to do with it then. For example, I never even mentioned “reverse sexism”, let alone defended the doctrine (which I certainly would not have done, had I mentioned it - I reject that doctrine).
If there is such a post, link to it - nothing needs to be revealed about who took offense - it’s enough if a “reasonable person” could have taken sane offense at it. If not, retract the baseless charge. Etc. Do t really want to be associated with an organization that doesn’t extend basic human decency toward its disfavored members?
It’s a complex decision, because the PSF (including the groups in question) does a lot of good in the world too. If it were just about me, I would have vanished forever last August 7. To the extent it was partly my child, it’s hard for me to give up on the PSF as a lost cause. I still mostly wish it well, and absolutely still love the actual community.
Before @gussis’s recent message, this topic went about 7 weeks without a peep. Stonewalling hasn’t worked, and won’t. It went too far this time. “Just stop talking about it” here leaves a community seething with suppressed anger and fear. If that’s what’s wanted, close the topic. It’s not what I want.
For a start, for claims supposedly based on public posts, supply links to the posts in question. They presumably read them, right? While I may be the oldest person in the PSF now, even I mastered copy/paste for URLs
As is, at least 3 bloggers dissected those claims one by one. Some were so vague no two of us agreed on what they might be talking about. As a Reddit commenter said:
It’s like you take everything we know to work about a working justice system and do the complete opposite. There’s really just no way this system could ever produce good results, no matter who is in charge.
There is a vast gap between perfection and what’s actually done. I’m a “perfect is the enemy of the good” guy, but I see so far no will to make any improvements to the processes.
But there’s a different topic for that, also going nowhere:
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If we can forgive brief advocacy for women, Jane Curtin deserves better: her character was a breakthrough for American TV comediennes, and she fought for that role. She wasn’t at all playing the usual flavor of “adorable airhead” common at the time, but a strong and intelligent woman who wasn’t passively putting up with Dan’s “pompous ass”/“miserable failure” (things she routinely called him) character.
She overwhelmingly wasn’t the butt of the jokes: he was. The women I knew at the time loved the recurring Point / Counterpoint segments. A bit more so than the men (in contrast, e.g., the “Hans and Franz” segments were much more a “guy thing”, although not to my liking)
If people read what I actually wrote, I never expressed an opinion about those skits (I said the show was funny, to help date it). But, in fact, I did think they were comedy gold. Not at all because of Dan’s use of a specific slur, but for brilliant comic writing start to finish, brilliantly played by Curtin and Akroyd. His insulting catchphrases were no more or less funny than hers. Not funny for their own sake in isolation, but in the context of over-the-top parody of (chiefly) James Kilpatrick and Shana Alexander in their “60 Minutes” recurring Point / Counterpoint segments.
Was it a “you had to be there” kind of thing? I don’t think so, but the nature of the parody is certainly much clearer to those who endured the sometimes tediously faux-civil “60 Minutes” segments of the same name. Then again, my crew’s appreciation for SNL at the time was probably also informed by a variety of recreational psychoactive substances.
De gustibus non est disputandum.
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I’m not sure what ‘“excessive” moderation’ you’re referring to, but the moderation team is simply applying the same moderation practices here as is applied to the rest of the site since I posted that comment well over 2 months ago. You can disagree with our moderation practices if you so choose.
I honestly don’t understand what this has to do with my comment about simply moderating here equally and fairly like we do all other topics on this site (once again, you are free to disagree with my characterization of “fairly” if you want). If this is a general comment on moderation and its usefulness then I choose not to personally engage in a debate on that topic.
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The person I was replying to wrote:
I pointed out that you pointed that this topic was given “special treatment” for some time, but that you also said that had ended. That’s all
Wasn’t (and Isn’t) my intent here.
Perhaps you chafe at the word “excessive”? If so, my apologies. I meant no more than what you meant when you wrote:
No matter how it’s phrased, there’s a distinction there between “more” and “less” moderation, and by your account “we wanted to make sure” it wasn’t on the “more” end. If had been. that’s pretty much a definition of “excessive” to me (more than necessary). Descriptive, not pejorative.
I would only disagree with the “a bit more freely” part. We obviously hear feedback from different people, but it was more than “just a bit” freer expression to those I hear from. Although, to my eyes, I didn’t see a real difference between the day before you said it ended and the day after.
I’m not complaining. It’s true that I’m personally far more tolerant of people expressing strong honest emotion (and regardless of which “side” they’re on), but that’s not my call to make.
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BTW, I don’t understand what it had to do with it either! . Point taken. It was some mix of thinko / stream-of-consiousness rambling. Sorry for the needless confusion.
Wasn’t the point at all, and it’s not a discussion I want either (especially not in this topic).
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