A couple of concrete proposals, then I will shut up (because I do support the decision made, and I think enough has been said on this whole matter).
As I said, for each claimed violation, please state in which kind of space it happened and/or which kind of proof was gathered. For now, you can see people going through past public discussions and trying to find out whether there’s enough justification for the sanction. You can probably agree that’s not optimal.
What does the suspension mean? I need Tim’s expertise for some issues, what should I do?
It’s not different from if someone is on vacation, or busy, or out sick, or disappears for whatever reason. Find someone else with expertise, or become the person with the expertise, or wait and hope they come back. (Gaining expertise isn’t a bad idea anyway, it’s a good thing to have multiple experts on any given topic.)
Surely Serhiy can try to contact whomever he might need help from?
This is not so easy. In one case, Tim is the author of the code, and we need to discuss possibility to reconsider the decision made more than 20 years ago (either extend it or deprecate and replace with other solution). Only he can have background details about it. In other issue, he is one of few core developer (besides Mark Dickinson and me) who worked on that and adjuncted code last years, and my expertise here is limited. I planned to write code on the border of my qualification and would need his review. To reach his level, 17-year-old me would need to spend several years for specialized education and several years for practicing. Today’s me would need more time, and I am not particularly interested in this area.
As a last resort, I would start general discussions, but under the circumstances it would be unethical to start them without Tim.
Looks like the only option is to put these issues off for another 3 months and hope for the best (if I remember them after 3 months).
It seems that while Tim was blocked on Discorse, his GitHub account was not completely blocked on GitHub (only his rights to commit and close issues were suspended). If it is not an oversight, we can continue discussions on GitHub.
I am not trying to challenge the committee’s decision. I believe they had good reasons. I don’t even understand enough about what it’s about (I do not know what is “reverse racism” and “genuinely funny”) and I’m not going to delve deeper. I was just worried that this would not only punish Tim, but could bring inconveniences to all of us.
This is my first post in this topic, and I intend it to be my last. My ban is history now (well, at least my Discourse account has been restored). I’ll pick over its bones in my blog instead.
I want to thank Ethan Furman. The atmosphere of fear here was so thick it took 6 whole days before anyone found the courage to make the first reply. He’s my idea of a role model: someone who cared enough to take personal risk. He may deny it, but that was brave.
Regardless of whether you agreed with his conclusions, the entire community should thank him for his work, and for standing up for what he believes in. Courage is the rarest of virtues.
For those who still feared to click on Ethan’s dissent, I understand, and appreciate your private support. I clicked on it too, but don’t necessarily agree with voting out the current SC. The system itself is broken, and they may or may not say something relevant in their individual nomination announcements (for those who decide to run again).
They’ve done an outstanding job at managing the technical aspects of their charter, and that should be primary. Pablo in particular deserves a universe of credit for the new REPL 
. The SC shouldn’t be in the “ban business” to begin with. To the contrary, they should function more like a trade union, defending the distribution, and the core devs who create it, against the occasional excesses of PSF management.
I’m going back to the code and the actual community (which, in fact, I had already done 2 weeks before the ban started).
Not my usual style? No. Times change.
(post deleted by author)
I’m glad that your suspension is over and that you are continuing to share your technical knowledge. I respect your technical insights and the grace you have shown me. I know that I have shared this privately with you. I respect all you have achieved with Python over the past 30 years.
Barney, can we please stop pouring fuel on the fire already? This is not a boxing ring. Thanks in advance.
It was only fair that Tim got to comment on his own banning now that he is back (notice he didn’t get an eternal ban? that means he’s part of this community again), regardless of whether his comment is making a good or bad point. There was no need to try and counter him, and there was especially no need to start calling people “missing stairs” and throwing out strawmen such as “peanut gallery’s suspicions of woke CoCs”.
And, yes, people have opinions, some agree with you, some agree with Tim, some may agree with both or neither of you, and it’s not the end of the world (this episode is actually pretty minor, the only reason is feels so important to us is because we care a lot about this particular community). This is a diverse community and people should learn to live with each other, and refrain from calling other people names.
That’s just putting words in my mouth, then? In any case, I don’t think this tangent is of much interest. Let’s stop here.
While it may not be appreciated by all, I’m all in favor of Barney having his say too, as bluntly as he likes.
Since Chris McDonough can’t post in this category, and was an unnamed subject of Glyph’s blog post, I want to pop up briefly again to point out some facts:
So Glyph’s post, while very well written, isn’t directly to the point here.
If you want to discuss the evidence, please do so (although I suggest that would be better done in Ethan’s related PSF topic, where everyone can post). Chris already analyzed the evidence, and I did too on my blog. Ethan did his own digging, with his own moderator’s eyes (he’s not a Discourse mod, but has been in other PSF spaces, and has imposed his own “corrective actions”), and was content to strongly endorse Chris’s analysis. I do too, although in one of my blog posts was far less civil about it (I won’t even link to it) than Chris was.
I already posted my own mea culpa, but it doesn’t apologize for claimed violations I also find baseless. Instead I’ve totally changed my posting style, which I agree was taken far too often in unintended ways, which I was oblivious to for reasons explained there.
So I too think the ban had some good outcomes. But they could have been achieved far more easily with far less community-damaging drama, and with no broadcasting of shrill, demonizing defamations. Those were raw assertions, with no links to supporting evidence at all. Like it or not, “just trust us” is broken now for a much larger share of the community.
Not my problem to solve, and I’ve already told the SC things that could be done to address it.