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Richard is specifically a public figure who influences a lot of people, and some of that influence comes from platforms like his MIT professorship that imply endorsement from other groups.

I agree it's distasteful for people to focus on personal judgements about Stallman's communications when we haven't walked in his shoes, mentally. But public discourse is necessary to determine what to do with the platform given to comments like this - including if they come from "non-neurotypical" individuals.

Separately, because Stallman's area of focus extends into community formation and protection of individual rights, I don't agree that his statements about sexual coercion are separate from the rest of his work.

>Separately, because Stallman's area of focus extends into community formation and protection of individual rights, I don't agree that his statements about sexual coercion are separate from the rest of his work.

That's a fair point. If someone is going to claim a position of moral leadership over community formation, then being judged on their strange political opinions seems reasonable.

In (what I claim) is an ideal world, the fixed cost to this type of collective action against a person like Stallman, would be high enough that only those who participate in his communities would care about this stuff. I still worry that the fixed cost towards sharing/shaming is so low, that people who have no vested interest in Stallman's locus of influence can still join in for fun. This goes for all internet mob justice.

I think the point that RMS was trying to make is that using inherently charged and prejudice language against an individual is sensationalist and (as mentioned) prejudiced.

We should be able to have rational, mature, fact based discussions and entertain suppositions about what may have happened without jumping to conclusions.

> I think the point that RMS was trying to make is that using inherently charged and prejudice language against an individual is sensationalist and (as mentioned) prejudiced.

Not only that, but using such language--for example, a term like "sexual assault"--does not tell you the actual facts of what happened. It only tells you someone's judgment. But if I'm going to take the time to form an opinion about some event of public interest, I don't want anyone else to tell me their judgment about it. I just want to be told the facts. I can make my own judgments. But the media almost never tells you the facts; they only tell you the judgments.

Stallman's email reacted to the use of "accused of sexual assault" in an event announcement. This phrase matches the legal definition of the current facts, so this is not about someone choosing inflammatory language beyond the norms.

Stallman would prefer that language distinguish between physical coercion and the kind of coercion that can take place because of a difference in knowledge or power (in this case, age). That's a fine point to discuss, but there are very considered reasons people use the same term - it's not just sloppy language.

Also, he'd prefer to assume a scenario where Epstein hid any coercion from his guests - which would make this a "an alleged but possibly unknowing sexual assault". I'm not sure what that's supposed to do to our discourse. Is everyone supposed to imagine the same scenario he does? Or the most expultory possible scenario? I think the uncertainty of the situation and presumption of innocence were already covered pretty well by "alleged".

The facts of the actual case are for the courts to sort out. Stallman's focus on avoiding the factual label for the accusations is a weird priority, and there is nothing immature or irrational about calling it out.

> " Is everyone supposed to imagine the same scenario he does?"

I think it's fair to expect everybody to consider the possibility (and subsequently discount it for lack of credibility.)

Are you trying to suggest that Stallman does not intend to be political, and does not intend to use the FSF as a political organisation to further his political goals? The FSF is a non-profit with implicitly political aims, primarily related to the use of free software, but the GNU project is used to campaign on other issues. Don’t take my word for that; trust Stallman himself https://sourceware.org/ml/libc-alpha/2018-05/msg00001.html https://sourceware.org/ml/libc-alpha/2018-05/msg00115.html

Given that the FSF asks for donations for technical projects, and explicitly defines itself as a political organisation; the political opinions of its President would seem very relevant, valuable, and useful to discuss.

It may change how people choose to support free and open source software in future.

But RMS does things about his political views. He founded the FSF, gives talks, tries to change policy. As a public figure, he should open to criticism.

It's very valuable in building up evidence that naming and shaming doesn't work.

And also gives us a clear count, within a population how many people will continue to do it anyway.

As regulation of news media and social media are being designed, one of the big questions is what to do about that part of the population.

Most of them are triggered and trapping themselves on treadmills that go nowhere. And most of them need help getting off that treadmill.

> They focus intensely on some topics, and harmlessly pontificate on many other topics.

This was on an MIT mailing list, though. Even if we grant that he just wanted to engage in idle intellectual speculation, he ought to understand that an academic environment is not the right place for it.

They were discussing potential impacts on MIT's reputation. That's fair game for an MIT mailing list.

Also, "idle speculation" is not a good term for what they were doing. They were trying to get at the actual facts of what happened, independent of anyone else's judgments about those facts.

Because no one operates in a vacuum. A person's work is never just one person. You're part of a context working on other people's work and your work are in turn used by others.

These people not only normalize abusive behavior, they push people away by poisoning the context making it impossible to interact unless you "tolerate" their behavior.

> they push people away by poisoning the context making it impossible to interact unless you "tolerate" their behavior.

I very rarely comment on these kind of threads, but this quote is a perfect example of an unfortunate epidemic I see ever more often online:

Using vague and virtue-signal-ey language to get away with making a point that - if expressed in plain English - would be instantly exposed as ridiculous (if not downright dangerous).

Vague?!

Let's not dwell on the irony of how you are sort of saying "dangerous" without not actually saying it. Instead let me be clear.

You don't have to research Stallman for long to encounter a whole bunch of people (women) who feel the misgonistic air around him actively drove them away from engaging in fsf style open source.

As someone who experienced very similar things in other (typically white straight male dominated) areas, be it the locker room or upper echelons of power, I used a slightly generalized word "context". Was that the problem? One level of abstraction?

And no. That doesn't define all such contexts and no, that doesn't define all white straight males. We're arguing one single statement here – that why can't we let the "genius" Stallman just be the genius and only judge him for his work. Which is exactly what I was arguing. No one exists in a vacuum. The total sum of output of a person matters.

> Was that the problem? One level of abstraction?

No, that's not the problem.

Take this sentence from your last comment, for example:

> You don't have to research Stallman for long to encounter a whole bunch of people (women) who feel the misgonistic air around him actively drove them away from engaging in fsf style open source.

You're being deliberately vague.

You don't say "Stallman is a misogynist" or "Stallman drove women away from contributing to fsf..."

Instead, you say there are people who "feel" that a misogynistic "air around him" drove them away.

Do you not see how that's a problem?

What if I were to claim that people "feel" a "misogynistic air" around you is driving people away from Hacker News?

That could be true, it could be false. Difficult to disprove.

But more importantly, it might not be your fault.

What you're doing is being deliberately vague to get away with blaming/accusing someone of something you wouldn't be able to get away with accusing them of directly.

It's the equivalent of asking "why was that young girl out alone so late at night anyway?" when discussing a sexual assault case.

Stallman may be a very bad man. Maybe he is a misogynist. Maybe he drove women away from working on FSF.

If so, accuse him of it. Don't hide behind waffle and doublespeak.

I have personally spoken with three women who have stated that they will not attend conferences where rms is also attending, or speaking, specifically because he won't leave them alone (by which I mean "keeps coming onto them"), and won't listen to them when they ask him to leave them alone, which they have done repeatedly, and unambiguously.

Is that a direct enough statement of facts for you, or would you like their phone numbers or emails or whatever, so you can fact-check for yourself?

I'm sure you have, and there's no doubt in my mind he deserves the backlash he's getting.

Did you disagree with the point I made in some way, or was this just the most convenient outlet for some keyboard banging?

> It's the equivalent of asking "why was that young girl out alone so late at night anyway?" when discussing a sexual assault case.

No. That's actually very different, I struggle to see any parallel.

> What you're doing is being deliberately vague to get away with blaming/accusing someone of something you wouldn't be able to get away with accusing them of directly.

Of course not. I'm deliberately using words that leave wiggle room, but not for the reasons you think. I believe in processes, not essences, I might sloppily say "Stallman is a misogynist", but I mean "Stallman's actions are misogynistic".

In a similar way, when trying to describe someone else's perspective I would not use absolute language. I can't presume to completely understand another person's experience. In order to be inclusive, I relay my general understanding with language that deliberately doesn't make hard borders for inclusion or exclusion.

Specifically, you suggest fixes to my language that change my meaning:

>> ...encounter a whole bunch of people (women) who feel the misogynistic air around him actively drove them away from engaging in fsf style open source.

> You don't say "Stallman is a misogynist" or "Stallman drove women away from contributing to fsf…"

I specifically didn't mean Stallman exactly, but him in the center of actions/reactions and whoever supports his ways (in mailing lists, meetups etc), hence "misogynistic air around…" (as earlier stated, I don't believe anyone IS anything). I also didn't mean contributing to the FSF only, but that this air around him has affected GNU and related software.

I try to use precise language, but you seem to argue I should reduce my views down to absolutes, which is not how I think about anything.