If Tim’s name continues to act as a trigger word for more meta-analysis and philosophical debates about ethics and the meaning of tolerance then I’d be surprised if we ever get him back. I’m glad Ethan shared Tim’s say on the matter but I suspect that the rest of this conversation is more likely to reinforce the idea to the PSF that Tim == trouble rather fix anything.
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They can’t do anything with Tim, IIUIC. The current CoC:
This Code of Conduct applies to the following online spaces:
* The python-ideas, core-mentorship, python-dev, docs mailing lists
* All other mailing lists hosted on python.org
* Python Software Foundation Zulip chat server
* Python Software Foundation hosted Discourse server discuss.python.org
* Code repositories, issue trackers, and pull requests made against any Python Software Foundation controlled GitHub organization
* The python.org mercurial server hg.python.org
* Any other online space administered by the Python Software Foundation
Tim’s blog is not listed here.
Non bis in idem (с)
Again, you add to the smoke by not explaining his actual infractions with details. If it is all in the correspondence here then point out his actual sentences and the interpretation made of them that warrents his exclusion so that the community can make their own decision. This has not been done, leaving many thinking it would not help the case for exclusion. There is a lack of transparency.
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It is not about individual sentences, as has been said, many, many times. It is about a larger pattern of behavior, the same way no single drop of water turns a lake into an ocean. This pattern is obvious if you read all the threads. You can disagree with this pattern being a problem, but asking for detailed referrals to individual messages or sentences just indicates that you are unwilling to actually accept the arguments the other side is making as potentially valid.
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Now, it is about a stated larger pattern of behavior that is not shown. Yes, the community may well need policing, but that policing also needs transparency, especially given the subjects past in Python. (Yes, the more famous the individual, the more transparent and meticulous the policing must be - just like for our politicians and super-rich).
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That is because I have you in particular muted, not because i generally block DMs.
I have you muted because of your excessively long writing style all across the forum with often very little substance. Ofcourse, this is my personal opinion which is why I never reported any of your posts in case that is an accusation that is going to be thrown my way.
As for the rest your message, I don’t really know what you are trying to say, and I am still not sure if you actually read up on the contexts. You haven’t acknowledge that many of your previous posts in this thread were based on false assumptions.
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IMO, it is clear from the publicly available text messages - If this is not enough for you, that is at least a somewhat valid concern in contrast to the demand for being pointed to individual sentences. I don’t really know how to rectify your complaint in this case, nor am I in a person where I need to do that. Maybe someone else has more success/better ideas in this.
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What’s being claimed above is that no single message from Tim violated the CoC. By any reading of his messages, that’s true.
Unfortunately, the recommendation from the CoC WG used by the SC to validate Tim’s suspension claimed in 9 of the 10 reasons it gave that specific messages from Tim did violate the CoC. I can only assume they misread his messages.
Only the remaining one (“overloading the discussion”) fits the claim above and might have merit in the eyes of a reasonable person. I don’t agree that the “pattern is obvious,” but it doesn’t really matter. I’m not on the SC or CoC WG, and I don’t get to make that call.
Whatever happens with Tim is not really relevant anymore. It’s about how the next suspension and the ones that follow are handled.
The SC doesn’t need a reason to suspend a core developer. It doesn’t need a recommendation from the CoC WG either, although one of those maybe makes the pill easier to swallow for the broader public. But even without one, it can kick anyone out it sees fit for however long it wants.
And that, IMO, is OK. The SC is a duly elected body, and if its constituents (core devs) find that it is behaving in Python’s best interest, so be it. If they don’t, they can vote to replace SC members. This was an argument used by folks “on the other side” of Tim wrt to the bylaws changes thread (although then about the Board), and I think it has merit. If only because that argument was mostly about the type of majority of the Board needed to de-fellow someone, not whether it should be possible or not.
But recently, various members of the SC signalled that they would like to get out of the conduct enforcement business. As they are currently bound by governance documents to do this (without delegation), they will have to hold an amendment vote to change the documents to abrogate.
Where will this power go?
It should not go to the CoC WG in its current form.
The CoC WG is not an elected body. In order to become a new member, existing WG members must approve. There are no term limits. Members of the WG are not prevented from themselves filing CoC complaints, and all complaints are kept secret. It is formally accountable to no one.
As CoC enforcement recommendations are often followed pro-forma, their current power is just garden-variety unreasonable. As described by various SC and Board members, I don’t think it has ever happened that the CoC WG has supplied a recommendation to the SC or Board that was not followed.
For what I hope are obvious reasons, it would be comically unreasonable if the CoC WG itself gained the power to enforce its own recommendations. At least currently, an elected body must pull the trigger on enforcement, and that would go away.
The CoC WG got 9 of 10 reasons wrong on this recommendation. I hope it’s understandable that folks aren’t chomping at the bit to give it more power. Tim’s suspension only validated the concerns he expressed in the bylaws thread. These concerns aren’t meritless.
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A reasonable post does not explicitly ask for others to abuse the flagging feature.
And note again: I have never flagged any of your posts nor have I flagged any posts in this thread (as far as I can recall at least, discourse doesn’t seem to allow me to check my own flagging history).
I have a lot to say still and IMO @mcdonc in this last message is doing bad faith interpretations of my words and the given ban reasons, but I am not going to discuss this further since the only result will be even more anger.
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I did the flagging.
In this case, your message was both a personal attack and was not making any useful contribution to the discussion.
When you post something publicly, please ask yourself: am I contributing useful information or advice, or am I just using this platform for a personal fight? This is common advice for any Internet forum.
(and, please, don’t argue over this. It’s pointless and you are not making yourself any favor.)
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Did you also flag my reply?
No (let’s make this over 10 characters).
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Antoine,
Thank you for identifying. I will look at my post from that perspective and see in which ways it was a personal attack. As to not making a contribution to the discussion, it seems to depend on what some people think the discussion is about.
But since some of what I want to talk about is not part of the discussion, I will try to reply to you in private.
How many threads did Tim start, exactly? Can you please list them here? And also please show which are actually threads that Tim started, and which are posts that he made which were subsequently moved out into a separate thread.
It indicates that the pattern is not as self-evident as you are implying - or at least, is not self-evident to anyone who does not start from the assumptions that you have started from. It’s fine to have starting assumptions - we all do - but when it’s clear that other people are NOT seeing things the same way you are, it may be time to go back and explain your assumptions instead of doubling down on the insistence that it is self-evident.
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This topic is temporarily closed for at least 4 hours due to a large number of community flags.
Mod here: This topic, and posts in it, are getting flagged to us regularly as problematic. We want to leave it up so everyone can keep having a conversation, but we do need everyone to continue to adhere to the CoC and participation guidelines for that to happen. In case we receive further flags here, we will have to take action.
EDIT: FYI the temporary locking of this thread was automatic, not an explicit moderator action.
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This topic was automatically opened after 4 hours.
There’s already too much in this thread for me to respond to all of it, and it’s not possible for me or anyone to write a comment immune to a bad-faith reading anyway.
My first comment in this thread was immediately responded to with a “So are you saying…” comment with the complete opposite interpretation of what I said.
Then someone has their facts wrong about the number of votes, and when this is pointed out to them (thank you Cornelius), their 500 word “nevertheless” reply showed they didn’t change their mind at all.
Then someone brings up the original 1945 Karl Popper quote on the paradox of tolerance. This is an irrelevant derail to the current conversation.
Then Tim makes his blog post referring to my “endless relitigation” words and… I suppose I have to point out that “This whole debacle…” wasn’t referring to just Tim personally and not just this one bylaw change but rather referring to, well, *gestures to the last two months*.
Then… and then… and then… But there’s already too much in this thread for me to respond to. All of which reinforces my earlier points:
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It’s exhausting to keep responding to previously-addressed points, but I also know it’s frustrating to have questions unanswered. I can do a quick reply to this:
Right. This is why I said, “…he added new topics and accusations.” It might be hard to understand what I mean by this because Tim’s original topic for that post (later changed at the behest of someone else) was something like, “Is the Python community welcoming to neurodivergent people?” which not-so-subtly implies that the Python community is not. More specifically, he was conflating a forum member’s unapologetically combative behavior with being neuroatypical to accuse the mods of unfairly banning them.
That’s a can of worms I don’t want to reopen. But again, the common thread is that it 1) creates far more work for mods/COC WG to address while 2) attempting to delegitimize their decisions to enforce the CoC, which is often the only way popular and longstanding members can be held accountable for their lapses.
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Oh, that’s me 
I was responding to your use of the paradox applied to the current topic. If you didn’t bring it up then yeah I wouldn’t have brought that up either.
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