Re: FreeBSD Core Team Response to Controversial Social Media Posts

On Sun, May 19, 2019 at 11:34 AM Igor Mozolevsky <igor_at_hybrid-lab.co.uk>
wrote:

> On Sun, 19 May 2019 at 17:54, Warner Losh wrote:
> >
> > On Sun, May 19, 2019, 10:25 AM Graham Perrin wrote:
> >
> > > I know, it's not appropriate to find fun in a serious discussion, but
> > > these six words did make me chuckle:
> > >
> > >  > … freedom of expression … End of discussion.
> > >
> > > No offence intended. I was speed-reading (waiting for a browser to
> > > launch) and those six words leapt out at me :-)
> > >
> >
> > Yes. There will always be limits, just like in real life. You can't tell
> > fire in a theater, and claim freedom of expression, for example.
>
> <snip>
>
> While that is an often cited example, it is rather tenuous as far as
> "freedom of expression" is concerned: yelling "Fire!" in a crowded
> theatre is by no measure an expression of one's views, thoughts, or
> opinions. At the same time, the invocation of a CoC ctte review is
> triggered by precisely the latter.
>

It is a difficult problem. The project needs to protect itself and its
members from harm. Sometimes, though rarely, that harm comes from
expressing ones views in a way that's so extreme it causes real and lasting
problems either for the cohesiveness of the project, or its effect on the
project's reputation is so extreme, people can't separate the two and stop
using it. There needs to be a review mechanism for cases that are extreme.
At the same time, reviews are detrimental if they are triggered for
'ordinary' conduct: they take time and energy away from the project that
could otherwise be spent on making things better. The trick is to have any
such review reflect the broad consensus within the project of what's
clearly out of bounds, as well as having a fair and just response by the
board in the cases that require some action.

Warner