Re: removing toxic emailers

[Ian Lance Taylor <iant@google.com>]

On Wed, Apr 14, 2021 at 9:08 AM Jeff Law via Gcc <gcc@gcc.gnu.org> wrote:
>
> once or twice when physical violence with threatened, but that's about
> it (aside from spammers).  I don't think we want to get too deep into
> moderation and the like -- IMHO it should be an extremely rare event.
> As much as I disagree with some of the comments that have been made I
> don't think they've risen to the level of wanting/needing to ban those
> individuals from posting.

I think it's useful to observe that there are a reasonable number of
people who will refuse to participate in a project in which the
mailing list has regular personal attacks and other kinds of abusive
behavior.  I know this because I've spoken with such people myself.
They simply say "that project is not for me" and move on.

So we don't get the choice between "everyone is welcome" and "some
people are kicked off the list."  We get the choice between "some
people decline to participate because it is unpleasant" and "some
people are kicked off the list."

Given the choice of which group of people are going to participate and
which group are not, which group do we want?

(I'm raising this as a kind of first principle.  If there is a system
for banning people from the list, there are various things to discuss
as to how that might work.  And I've seen it work effectively in other
communities.  But if we don't agree on that first principle, there is
no point to continuing.)

Ian