Ihor Antonov <ihor@antonovs.family> writes: > And separately, I got interested in Debian because it was using mailing > lists in the first place. Mail is decentralized by design and this is > why it is so important for freedom of speech.
I don't understand this comment. Mailing lists are inherently centralized by design. > Now you suggest a centralized platform for communication, because it is > easier to moderate (oppress freedom of speech). To me it sounds like: > "Yes you can talk, but only if you do it on my terms, on my territory". > Moderation is a slippery slope, using centralized communication platform > is one step closer to dictatorship. The forum to which you sent this message is already moderated and has been for months. I suspect you didn't even notice. That said, I will argue that "yes, you can talk, but only if you do it on my terms, on my territory" is a message that the Debian project should send about its own communication channels. (Obviously people can go create their own and that's no business of ours.) That's how we create a community that can get things done together, rather than a 4chan free-for-all full of abuse and trolling. We should think carefully about both the terms and the territory and be both gentle and understanding, but we will not successfully create a free Linux distribution (the actual point, after all) within the noise of complete freedom from consequences in communication. I don't believe Debian is or should be a welcoming home for people who care more about the ability to say anything they want whenever they want in project forums than about making a free software distribution together. And yes, these two goals do sometimes come into conflict (although we can try to minimize how often that happens). -- Russ Allbery (r...@debian.org) <https://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/>
