this post was submitted on 24 Jul 2024
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I don't know, man. I read Vaxry's response and I think that he has a point. There was an incident, and it was dealt with.
Then someone from redhat (because they e-mailed him with from RedHat address) told him "hey we saw improvements on you moderating your community. Great! But if you break our CoC again, we'll ban you!" To which he replied "Uh, we don't have a CoC, we don't belong to your organization, what's is this about?" And the person replied "This is not a RedHat position. And again, we'll ban you!"
He explained this in a blogpost and posted the full e-mail conversation.
He also said that the misrepresentation got to such point that a another transgender coder made a contribution to Vaxry's project, expecting that it would be rejected, and got surprised that her PR got merged.
I've also read Vaxry's response and it's complete nonsense. It's even apparent in your condensed version.
Exactly. This is more than "an incident" as you put it. It's a long-lasting pattern of Vaxry refusing to commit to any standards of behavior. He explicitly calls "upholding any value" nothing but an inconvenience. His only reaction to his community ridiculing the concept of a CoC is to say "nice one".
What's funny is that the person who opened the issue said "Instead of attacking the post, could you provide some evidence against it? (e.g. say "Trans rights are human rights")" and it was completely ignored. See, the CoC is not about the text itself. It's about taking an open stance against bigotry. Vaxry can cry all day about how this one incident is misrepresented and how moderation has become more strict now, but nowhere in this discussion or the FDO emails or his own blog about the issue have I seen him take an actual moral stance on the issue.
What does this have to do with anything? FDO, a space that aims to be LGBTQ+ friendly, banned a bigoted person from participating, as they should. It's such a stupid childish argument to say "but I didn't out myself as a bigot in a commit message I submitted to you, checkmate!". No-one cares. You can't leave your "fuck trans people, lol" sign at the door and walk in, mate. You're still a toxic asshole and you're still a threat to the LBGTQ+ people we want to participate in our community.
This is just so funny to hear from Vaxry himself. After people have repeatedly tried to explain to him that not enforcing any code of conduct on a toxic community is going to make it an unsafe space for LGBTQ+ people, Vaxry is shocked to find that LGBTQ+ people are afraid of being discriminated against!
Oh, but no, you see it's because of the "misrepresentation"! Vaxry's had made it so clear through his words and actions that trans rights are human rights and that bigotry is unacceptable, so it can't possibly be on him. Even as he's posting pictures this conversation where he's accused of being a transphobe, and a trans person is expecting to get rejected, does he point out how he's not a transphobe and how he respects all human rights? Nope, he only says that he only cares about the code.
But that's just me picking apart his comments in a few specific discussions. What if he has in fact taken a moral stance, but just not in these particular discussions where's he's felt attacked and pressured into making a statement?
He did post this in one of his blog posts:
Hey, that's not bad. There's mention of equality here and he seems against discrimination! Now let's read the rest of this Inclusive community activists are harming FOSS blog post and see what it's really about! Oh no, the above statement was only to set the stage for accusing SJWs of not understanding that not everyone agrees with them and how they shouldn't "cancel" us for "saying bad words". So he does think to talk about equality and discrimination, just not in any of the above discussions. But he'll do it here to defense people acting like assholes on the internet!
And then he says this:
So there you have it. Vaxry will literally accept Hilter into his community, just casually interacting with Jewish people (presumably he doesn't ban them from participating). It's all fine, just as long as the gassing happens outside his own platform. Gosh, I wonder why people are feeling unwelcome in his community. Surely it is the misrepresentation of his views.
Here's an archive link for the above article just in case: https://web.archive.org/web/20240511145845/https://blog.vaxry.net/articles/2023-inclusiveActivists
I think you're attributing malice to something else. Bear with me while I point out these two things:
First, The tomatoes quote is a consequence of something he mentioned later:
And second, he goes on to write this:
Here's what I think: The dude is dogmatically dense. Not a literal nazi or transphobe. His response about moderation is part of that. "Ugh, I just want to code, not to babysit. If no one is spewing hate in my turf, they are welcome." And even though I don't agree with his stance, I still think he has a point: extremes are bad. And if the far-right is bad ("you're either with us or against us; death to you!"), the far-left is bad too ("you're either with us or against us; cancelled!")
I've been there. Even after explaining that I was a transgender rights ally and supporter, and asked a question about sports - a question, as in I was trying to get myself informed, this one mod lashed out at me as if I was the devil, simply because my views didn't perfectly align with hers before getting answers. It really caught me off guard. And she wouldn't budge. It's either her view or "pure unadulterated transphobia," which I found ridiculous. That's extreme.
But I'm capable of trying to reach to a middleground, whereas Vaxry stays firm - and that's fine. Don't like it? Don't participate in his community! But don't demonize him for some imaginary intentions you're placing on him.
There are only so many ways "I don't care if Hitler is active in my community as long as he doesn't talk about the gassing in my discord" can be interpreted and "I just want to code" is not one of them. For starters, the practical issues of moderation and whether he wants to do it are never relevant to his argument throughout the blog post. He's saying that "we should not care about people's political views on a community unrelated to politics, as long as they do not use it to spread their agenda". The words "we", "should", and "care" are pretty clear. This is a moral statement.
There are many more quotes that make it clear he is not talking about moderating his own community. His point about Hitler is clearly used to demonstrate his thoughts on how communities in general should be run, and why FOSS communities are getting it wrong.
Bonus points for explicitly listing LGBT issues as a topic one might disagree with.
It's all unambiguous. Vaxry is at no point talking about the practicalities of keeping Hitler out of his community. He is explaining why he thinks Hitler should be welcome into his community and the FOSS community in general, just as long as he doesn't use these communities to further his goal of gassing people. If there was ever any confusion over whether Vaxry doesn't care about the toxicity or just can't deal with it, this blog post definitely clears it up. He doesn't care. He's welcoming evil and harmful people in his community and in all communities and he takes a stance against the people who have an issue with this.
Your interpretation doesn't work unless you ignore all the words he uses, the logic of his arguments, and even the fucking title. Not to mention all the other times he's talked about these issues. In so many blog posts about how his community is unfairly represented and how his ban was unwarranted, Vaxry has not once just simply stated in any terms that he is not okay with evil and harmful people in his community, or that he even acknowledges trans rights. The only thing I've seen him say on the incident of harassing a trans person by editing their profile to change their pronouns is that it was "unprofessional". No mention of ethics or possible harm done.
Ah yes, seeking people to harm because of their race and innate characteristics and banning people from your platform because of their morals and behavior. Equally bad things. I see the rights and wrongs of both sides now.
That's exactly what he is saying. I don't agree with it, but if you read his stuff, you can tell that it's pedantry rather than hate what makes him say that.
That's your opinion, and we're going in circles.
But they are, though.
Moral or pragmatic, sure, whatever you say. But the base is not standing on hate. Just... Apathetic practicality? Laziness?
We don't disagree here. But so what? You could also say "fascist shouldn't exist," and someone somewhere will say that you're condoning genocide.
You're not saying anything we haven't discussed already - we've the term transphobia several times already.
Exactly. We're going in circles here. You're attributing malice to this sentence. You're saying that he is secretly saying "hurr hurr I am a nazi and this is how I get away with it." He isn't. I don't like it, I fucking hate nazis. But I don't think he is one. He's probably autistic before being a nazi.
Correct. More of the same.
It does work.
Because it was unprofessional from his point of view. He's not secretly and deliberately condoning transphobia.
Again, we don't disagree. I should have that phrase stored somewhere, ready to be pasted when discussing with you.
Look, show me a picture of him doing the nazi salute or protesting a pride parade, and we'll talk.
Otherwise, I stand by what I said. The dude is a dense moron. Not evil.
What are you on about? Nothing you say has any relevance to what I said or to what Vaxry said. Go back and read my comments. I said this:
And then I quoted Vaxry's own posts showing exactly that. I didn't claim that he is a nazi and I don't have to prove to you that he is. No one cares. Welcoming nazis into his community and advocating that we should all be doing the same is the problem. Whether he is a nazi or a "dense idiot" is a question only you posed. By his stance alone he is creating exactly the type of unsafe and toxic community other people want nothing to do with. That's all that needs to be said. Your statement that this was only a "Discord dumpster fire that was thankfully put out months ago" is plain false. My comment was a statement of fact. Nazi salutes and proof of malice are irrelevant to any of this.
Seriously, what even is this level of strawmaning?
You need to work on yourself if this is how you react to people online simply saying a fact that annoys you.
Also, don't bother writing another long meaningless comment. I don't care to convince you. It's clearly impossible, anyway. My previous comments were to bring Vaxry's actual quotes and political stance into this thread because I knew people would either lie or genuinely not know about it. And now this one was to point out the dishonest debate tactics that most pro-Vaxry comments use, where they try to "win" the argument by moving the goal posts, misrepresenting the facts (deliberately or not), and twisting other people's arguments. Now that all of this is in the open (in this thread at least), there's nothing to talk about.
Alright, bro. Let's leave it at this point, then.
I'll just add that I do agree with you in many aspects. Welcoming nazis to a community, closeted or not, is bullshit. I would never do that. I would uproot those motherfuckers and kick them out for good.
I just don't think that Vaxry is one of them - maybe he is one by association, as in "you welcome nazis? Then you're one!" But from where I am standing, he's just a privileged moron who thinks that life is simpler than what it really is.