As I was writing this meta-reply, Mr. Samuelson, Mr. Beattie and Mr. Nusinow made some mention of the proper use of the term censorship. In this context in my posts, please read "censorship" to mean "some sort of large-scale (i.e. channel- or server-wide) filtration of the IRC traffic generated by some target individual."
The other more totalitarian senses of the word are not what I had in mind. [Mike Beattie] <<Matt, I hate to burst your bubble, but IRC is not real life, and in the grand scheme of things it really doesn't matter - we do not control what people say or do. We cannot, and we will not. Your mail fairly much appears to say nothing.>> Were it true my e-mail said nothing to you, I seriously doubt you would have made any effort to reply. I suspect what really is true, is that you don't have a better way to express your disagreement with it, and so therefore have resorted to discounting the meaning of the content of my post. I think you will find your opinion on the collective responsibility to maintain a hospitable channel environment to be in the minority. I truly think most channel users and operators want to create a healthy, useful channel that helps users with their problems. [David Nusinow] <<That's absurd. People get kicked and banned for obvious trolling, crapflooding, and racist remarks. We can and we do control what people say or do, and we can do better.>> Agreed. [Mike Beattie] <<Have a brain please? I was not talking about the technicalities of whatever one does on IRC... Last I looked, Debian's world domination plan did not include censorship.>> I agree, when taking censorship to have the totalitarian meaning. Totalitarian control of self-expression is a Bad Thing (TM). Where censorship becomes a problem is when it is imposed from outside by a rogue governmental authority on specious or insufficient grounds. If we self-regulate our channel to enhance its usability, it is within our rights, and arguably, the only sensible thing to do. Why should trolls, flamers, and script kiddies be able to take free reign on #debian? [Peter Samuelson] <SNIP> <<...Others should do the same - and some do.>> </SNIP> Agreed. <SNIP> <<Note: the behavior I'm talking about is actually almost never the sexist crap - there's a lot more non-sexist abuse and trolling in that channel. Complaining only about abuse toward women, and not abuse toward men, is itself a form of sexism - an implication that the women are less capable of taking care of themselves. I've actually found the opposite to be true. But my point is, it all needs to be dealt with.>> </SNIP> I am afraid I have to throw a wobbly over the logic of this passage. The title of my message that started this thread was, "Some Comments on Sexism in #debian." I specifically said I was reserving my comments to sexism and to our official channel, #debian on freenode. To say that my deliberate attempt to limit the scope of my remarks to a digestible level implies I have some ulterior belief about other subjects that I have specifically eliminated from consideration in my commentary is not fair. My posts should not be read in a manner which would imply I think women are incapable of taking care of their own problems. I was just expressing MY opinion on a subcomponent of a larger contextual issue that was interesting to ME. I really do not think I can make that any more cut-and-dried. [Peter Samuelson] <<Censorship is entirely appropriate when it comes to maintaining some decorum in a forum such as IRC. Just as it is appropriate to forcibly remove people in a (physical) public forum who are being disruptive and refuse to stop.>> Agreed, when used the way I have been using it, as could be expected, since I brought up the idea in my original post.
