Add trolling to CoC, or expand definition of harassment

@fugata

1. I don't think 100% agreement with our views is a reasonable expectation from all the participants. So we are not really educating a prescribed syllabus here. There can be ongoing disagreements due to different personal philosophies (like left vs right). We have to see if their involvement is distracting too much. If we see many people finding the participation problematic, that can be an indicator. But obvious personal attacks should not be allowed.

2. I think these are philosophical differences and not based on identity. They are challenging the ideas.

3. This can happen sometimes, but not enough to warrant a ban I think.

4. This also can happen sometimes, but not enough to warrant a ban I think.

Anyway these seems borderline and subjective depending on tolerance level of people. Lets see what other people who were observing these discussions think about it.

I did learn some things through these discussions and it looked to me they agreed with some of my clarifications. So I don't think they were totally dismissive when engaged constructively. We cannot demand a 100% compliance with our philosophy from everyone. Some level of disagreement and questioning is healthy, but if things go out of hand and more long time community participants feels the behavior is troublesome, we can consider action. Some level of foolishness we have to tolerate as well. We need to take action when it turns into more malicious actions I think.

first of all, i haven't gone through the full discussions on fsci matrix room which led to this thread. also, it looks like matrix side has a broken history of messages from xmpp. it seems like some messages are lost in between and some messages don't appear to be in chronological order.

in general, i don't support outright banning without strong reasons. having said that, let me share my opinion about each point raised.

1. Constant repetition of dubious or frequently-debunked claims

this can be considered as a valid reason to ban only if the extend of repititon becomes annoying such that they repeat same stuff over and over than engaging in any meaningful discussion. this is already covered in the CoC: "Sustained disruption of discussion.”

also, i don't think anything can be debunked for once and for all. "get convinced or get banned" doesn't sound so good.

2. Rude, dismissive, and insulting messages.

name calling comes under harassment and this is already covered in the CoC: "We do not tolerate harassment of participants in any form.”

what counts as insult and rude may vary depending on the level of tolerance of people. but calling names that are generally considered as offensive (like freetard) warrants a ban if continued even after warning and without apoligizing.

3. Mischaracterizing others' messages

this again sounds like "get convinced or get banned". imo, not strong enough to warrant a ban.

4. Arrogance

erm, more than labelling something as "arrogance" or not, imo the focus should be on how their behavior is making the place less inclusive and unsafe for others.

@fugata (assuming you're the same person i think who you're), i like the way you approach things rationally. i also appreciate the efforts you take to convince people. but we can't insist that everyone should think and act like us, people do behave irrationally and can even choose not to get convinced regardless of the factual information provided. imo we should accept that we can't simply change that with CoC.

@Pirate Bady specifically about freetard - it may be insulting, but isn't it insulting a philosophy and not based on personal identities? Shouldn't challenging beliefs and ideas fair game in rational debates?

@Pirate Praveen it becomes offensive because of its association with the term "retard", it becomes offensive not because of criticizing some philosophy but because of how it uses a neuroatypical condition as an insult. it is clearly a violation of CoC.

@Pirate Bady ok I think we can start with giving a warning.

I have given a warning to bvul5 on the use of "freetard" as an abusive term. We can take stronger measures like ban if they continue like this.

contrapunctus has been on a harrasment campaign against me when I never said about these things which I don't want to associate with

asd_: Nah, bvul5 believes in corporate monopolies, [implicit] dictatorships, price gouging, environmental destruction, worker exploitation, surveillance capitalism, and billionaires getting richer while people starve on the streets. I guess I don't need to say anything more [sic] 😅
Banning him is necessary

@bvul for now your ban is lifted and @fugata requested mod access be removed from him and we have removed it. But going forward, please use codema.in when we can't build consensus on any issue. This interface has threads and people can easily mute threads they don't want to engage.

@bvul Throughout my discussions with you, I've taken a serious tone and avoided sarcasm (as I'm sure is there for all to see in the logs). And the one time I speak sarcastically, you cite it as justification that "banning him is necessary".

But you have established a consistent pattern of trolling (i.e. unconstructive and low-quality discussion), and you conveniently forget all about it.

As I wrote in another thread -

Repeatedly parroting one's beliefs and ignoring/mocking/talking past others' questions/responses is antithetical to constructive discussion

I repeatedly tried to get you to understand what constructive discussion is. I saw no willingness to improve, no "I'll try", no attempts to change, nothing. When others complained about the same behavior, I banned. Other rooms are even faster at banning your kind of low-effort trolling, with me you got a very generous chance to improve.

Since @Pirate Praveen failed to understand the issues involved with trolling, I have decided to leave the room as long as trolling is tolerated in FSCI.

(@Pirate Praveen It's once again a little strange that you don't address his mischaracterizations here, either.)

Attaching the logs from March 28 to April 12