Comment by DarkCrusader2 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by DarkCrusader2 | Hacker News Reader

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From the rust subreddit, which apparently is an "unofficial space" does not want people to discuss any specifics either. Why is this discourse happening in public? They want to use public opinion to bring reforms to the Rust governance but not divulge any details?

Does Rust really have a community if noone but a few select member have access to the information regarding why things are changing and the community members can't even discuss the forbidden topics in "unofficial spaces" either. How do I decide if I an getting involved with a community or just an elite club.

Quoting from the stickied comment from r/rust moderator.

> In the interest of not hastily jumping to conclusions, we will be removing speculation that alleges that this is due to any particular individual(s). The moderation team appears to have gone to great lengths to avoid naming names, ostensibly in the service of focusing a spotlight on the core team as a whole rather than any of its members. If they had wanted to name names, they could have. I understand that it is difficult to discuss a topic without firm details, but please refrain from engaging in speculation. I have confirmation that the core team will be making a statement about this at some point, which will hopefully shed more light on the situation.

>Does Rust really have a community if noone but a few select member have access to the information regarding why things are changing and the community members can't even discuss the forbidden topics in "unofficial spaces" either. How do I decide if I an getting involved with a community or just an elite club.

As a first order approximation, the word "community" is so overused as to mean nothing. It's often used to obscure a power structure, or pretend a mass of people are more cohesive than they are. Sometimes both. Don't go into any software project expecting more.

Rust is a big club and you ain't in it. You can still use it, submit patches, maybe even work towards a position in their project hierarchy. The important thing is you got your first strong sniff of knowing where you stand in relation to the club.

> Why is this discourse happening in public?

Because that's the appropriate scope to discuss what the moderation team wanted to start a discussion about: Processes and structures.

> They want to use public opinion to bring reforms to the Rust governance but not divulge any details?

What they said was basically "Someone did something shitty, we wanted to clean up the discussion, but couldn't because of the current structure where the core team isn't | doesn't see itself as being under any obligation to listen to the moderation team".

Those are all the "details" needed for the subject of the discussion, namely processes and structures. The details of the original "shitty thing" are irrelevant; the same (lack of appropriate) processes and structures applies to any such incident involving the core team.

This all seems pretty self-evident to me; I'm dumbfounded by how many commenters here on HN can't seem to grasp this fundamental but utterly simple difference.

Your quote from the subreddit only shows that the moderators there do get it (no wonder, being partly the same people), and are therefore (quite properly IMO) trying to quell speculation about the (irrelevant!) "original shitty thing".

It shouldn't be so hard to see that there's absolutely nothing wrong with that either.

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