What to do about intellectual dishonesty at the Trisquel forum

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Magic Banana

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Iscritto: 07/24/2010

Aka "What to do about intellectual dishonesty the Trisquel forum?" but I kept the title heyjoe himself suggested: https://trisquel.info/forum/pretty-new#comment-128465

heyjoe claims he is extremely concerned with surveillance, especially through the computers he communicates with, because they can be "PRISM'ed":

You seem to ignore the most common scenario (which I already explained but again:) host A is perfectly clean/libre system communicating with host B which is PRISM'ed (= all communication is tapped). Now consider that hosts like A are very few and hosts like B are almost all other computers and (currently) all mobile phones. (...) As long as there are infected hosts in the whole network, capable of spying on others, the whole network is unhealthy.
https://trisquel.info/forum/there-perfect-method-guard-our-communication?page=2#comment-128292

He wants everyone to be able to remotely check whether her interlocutor is such an "infected host":

Ideally the system should be designed in a way which everyone can check them remotely. Don't ask me how it can be done within current technology. I don't have an answer. (...) You are making it sound as if those servers have absolutely nothing to do with the users who use the resources of those servers. Well, I disagree. Everyone prefers to use a healthy computer, not an infected one. Again - I am talking about technology only, not about the political mischief Google is involved in. (I know both are related but still)
https://trisquel.info/forum/there-perfect-method-guard-our-communication?page=2#comment-128325

The mischief "infected" interlocutors can do with private data justifies his epidemiological speech:

Same with privacy. If I say (like it's popular) "I have nothing to hide" am actually saying "I don't care about you either. Anything you send to me can end up in the wrong hands."
https://trisquel.info/forum/web-browser?page=5#comment-127628

He takes measures to protect his own privacy:

I enable JS in private mode (i.e. temporarily) for individual sites when it is absolutely necessary (e.g. to pay some bills) and for my local web server on which I do some front-end web dev. But as a whole I browse with JS, cookies and 3rd-party images and CSS blocked. It is amazing how very few good designed sites are out there."
https://trisquel.info/forum/web-browser#comment-126204

Given heyjoe's speech, one would expect his local site to be "good designed", to not be "infected", even less "PRISM'ed". Not deliberately at least. Well, heyjoe actually asks Google (a company that is part of NSA's PRISM program) to track the visitors of his website, through Google Analytics, which is proprietary JavaScript sent to the clients for execution, to spy on them: https://anchev.net/home.js

Pointing at heyjoe's hypocrisy, his let-users-check talk suddenly changes:

How I spend my time and what I put on my website is not your business, especially considering that nobody has forced or even indirectly invited you to visit it (and even less to analyze it publicly).
https://trisquel.info/forum/pretty-new#comment-128465

He blames his victims for not being privacy-concerned:

Privacy concerned people always browse the web with JS disabled, so that does not affect them in any way.
https://trisquel.info/forum/pretty-new#comment-128579

And he affirms that spying on users who, in majority, are already exposed, is OK:

The majority of the visitors are using Mac OSX, Windows, Google Chrome, (not hardened) Firefox, Android and iPhone to browse it, so by visiting this particular site they are surely not more or less exposed than they otherwise are."
https://trisquel.info/forum/pretty-new#comment-128424

So, as onpon4 puts it, heyjoe is "full of shit".

heyjoe is not a Trisquel user. He prefers Microsoft's favorite distribution:

Personally I use openSUSE (...) I also use proprietary drivers from NVIDIA (because nouveau is too slow) (...) I also maintain a separate Windows system
https://trisquel.info/forum/some-questions-about-various-distros#comment-126465

Yet, since he registered, less than seven weeks ago, he has been the most active writer on the "Trisquel users" forum. By a large margin. 182 posts this month, so far, 7.3 a day in average, not counting the posts in "the troll lounge":

$ wget https://listas.trisquel.info/pipermail/trisquel-users/2018-February/thread.html -qO - | awk -F '>' '/^/ { ++count[$2] } END { for (c in count) print count[c], c }' | sort -rnk 1,1 | head
182 studio at anchev.net
115 ar018 at yahoo.com
69 msuzuqi at icloud.com
69 lcerf at dcc.ufmg.br
46 calmstorm at posteo.de
45 Mason
37 onpon4 at riseup.net
33 greatgnu at riseup.net
32 jason at bluehome.net
29 Adonay Felipe Nogueira

The Trisquel forum is "taken over" by somebody dishonest, who does not use Trisquel. It would not be a significant problem if heyjoe was an hypocrite defending (but not applying) free software values. But he spends many posts harshly criticizing the free software movement. One example, among many others: GNU IceCat, developed by quidam (Trisquel's leader too), has Mozilla's telemetry disabled. It does absolutely nothing. But for heyjoe, it is yet another infection:

The baby is infected and is infecting the other babies, including the favorite baby. Then we stop talking about less important things and start healing the baby. Or should we rather stay silent? FSF and GNU have been explicitly notified that their "look no further" recommendation is misleading. I don't think it needs months to say with 2 sentences "Listen people, we made a mistake. Someone from the community found that IceCat has this flaw, we want to be honest - there it is". (...) When one sees that the house is burning one doesn't sit and discuss - one acts instantly. That is real freedom, not the activism, the philosophies, the slide shows, selling gnu puppets and all that business.
https://trisquel.info/forum/pretty-new#comment-128408

For full-of-shit heyjoe, the "gnu puppet seller", i.e., the FSF, is hypocrite:

What is there to wait for? Still not enough data collection? Or an excellent "privacy" policy? Why should we wait for a disaster to strike instead of stopping it right when it is noticed? Again - another irresponsibility. When one proclaims oneself as a defender of freedom and ethics and disregards or stays silent about blatant abuse of human beings this hypocrisy.
https://trisquel.info/forum/pretty-new#comment-128405

I "noticed" heyjoe about Google Analytics on his website four days ago. It literally takes seconds to remove that real "blatant abuse of human beings". Who is hypocrite?

When you tell heyjoe that, disabled, the telemetry component does nothing, he replies:

Yeah, how comforting. The snake is still there, just sleeping and waiting for the next release in which it may be awakened. How marvelous it is "not to be a victim" and to have "freedom". Gnulellujah.
https://trisquel.info/forum/there-perfect-method-guard-our-communication?page=2#comment-128349

A sarcastic "Gnulellujah" is indeed the last "argument" he found to criticize the free software movement:

Maybe we should all sit together in a church and sing motivational Gnulellujahs which would be the ultimate security of communication?
https://trisquel.info/forum/there-perfect-method-guard-our-communication?page=2#comment-128202

Beside sarcasm, heyjoe loves the perfect solution fallacy. The free software movement is "nothing" because it does not solve all "the terrible things going on in the world":

Look at the terrible things going on in the world - do you really and honestly see any reduction of mass surveillance? Or that talks about software freedom change that? Don't you notice that the tech giants are so cunning that they use these FSF-freedoms to make their proprietary war tools even more malicious? Do you think that spending another $100M to support FOSS project is a problem for them if the intellectual result they get in return will give them them even better instrument to control the world, to make "better" wars? You see - one can believe in a great ideal, fight for a cause, for control over one's device forever but that is nothing.
https://trisquel.info/forum/comodo-antivirus-linux#comment-126734

If you tell him that the movement only aims to give us control of our own computers, nothing more, the perfect solution fallacy strikes again:

What actual value have FSF-freedoms when your CPU runs proprietary microcode? (...) Also what is the proof they are people with good morale?
https://trisquel.info/forum/comodo-antivirus-linux#comment-126722

With Google Analytics spying on the visitors of his site, we have the proof that he is not "with good morale"! Contrary to the greatest thinkers in the free software movement. But heyjoe, who prefers masturbatory talks about word etymology (https://trisquel.info/forum/freedom-security-technology-what-can-we-do is impressive in that regard), finds them superficial. About Eben Moglen:

He seems to assume that free software gives him privacy which is rather superficial (...) Too many talkers, too few of them touch the actual essence of the problem.
https://trisquel.info/forum/family-privacy-again#comment-127648

About Edward Snowden:

I dare to say that E.S. seems to me not quite thoughtful of the lower ring issues. In his Twitter feed he merely says "Use Tor, use Signal" which is meaningless considering the former. This makes me question the actual competence of the guy as these are really superficial statements
https://trisquel.info/forum/there-perfect-method-guard-our-communication?page=1#comment-128151

In fact, heyjoe even doubts Snowden's honesty. He invokes a conspiracy theory (here and on other subject such as HTTPS being dangerous, repeating Lunduke's bullshit):

I don't know if anyone has ever considered the possibility of E.S. being a deliberately created figure (for various purposes). To me it seems quite possible.
https://trisquel.info/forum/there-perfect-method-guard-our-communication?page=1#comment-128175

Back to the initial question: what to do about intellectual dishonesty in the Trisquel forum? Again: heyjoe is flooding it. I feel something has to be done before new Trisquel 8 users arrive. In fact, this post is my current answer: linking it, in response to heyjoe's repeated attacks, is easy and warns new users about his intellectual dishonesty. Of course, such a link would not be a proper argument against whatever he writes. But, on the other hand, discussing with somebody who mainly expresses himself with fallacies is pointless and time-consuming. Any other suggestion?

quantumgravity
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Iscritto: 04/22/2013

It made me laugh and at the same time, it's 100% percent justified.
Thank you for this!

chaosmonk

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Iscritto: 07/07/2017

It isn't just number of posts. I can scroll through my Trisquel mailbox and see every thread and subthread that has blown up into a mess. There is only one individual present in every single one of them, and it is the same individual who joined the forum immediately before this became a common occurrence.

It is particularly concerning that users who have joined since then are receiving the impression that such behaviour is normal for this forum.

https://trisquel.info/en/forum/free-software-foundations-problems?page=1#comment-128506

"And although I am a new user, but I think that I learned from user's conversation that a user can post a off-topic sometimes. I can find those off-topic posts."

This is not to say that heyjoe has not made any valuable contributions. The latest Abrowser update appears to be partially in response to the issues he raised in the web browser thread. Every new tab (not just the first one opened since the update) now contains a set of privacy settings (see screenshot), including all of the ones that result in automatic connections. It is clearly explained why users might choose to enable some of these features to improve privacy or security, but disclosed that they require automatic connections. With the default configuration, tcpdump shows no third party connections upon opening or closing Abrowser. Freedom 3 in action!

However, the frequency with which discussions here have been derailed lately does seem to be a problem. You make a good point that the release of Trisquel 8 will bring in some new members, and it is important that the level of discourse has returned to normal by then so that they can receive support without distractions.

That said, making sure that this happens is the role of a moderator. I'm sure that David is paying attention and will make the right call. I can understand why heyjoe might have gotten under your skin. He has been nastier to you than to anyone else here. However, I think the healthy thing to do is to let it go. Your presence is an important one in this forum. You helped me a great deal when I was migrating to free software, and I have seen you help many others as well. Trying to reason with some people is like trying to decapitate a hydra, and your time is more valuable than that.

Screenshot at 2018-02-25 22:01:29.png
Magic Banana

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Iscritto: 07/24/2010

This is not to say that heyjoe has not made any valuable contributions.

Indeed: that is not what I say.

loldier
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Iscritto: 02/17/2016

Alternative media, alternative truth, alternative FSF, alt-freedom and alt-right.

They hate the liberal left which is FSF in their mind.

To put it in their own parlance: "Fake News". Are we winning yet?

fbit

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Iscritto: 07/07/2013

You have been outed as a dishonest hypocrite. You have no shame. You cannot even accept your dishonesty and remove Google Analytics from your site after it was pointed out to you (something which would take less than 5 minutes to do).

You troll this forum (have pretty much taken it over as can be seen by the statistics presented above) pretending to be concerned about privacy and constantly derail threads, insult and defame others, and decrease the value of the forum for everyone else.

Magic Banana consistently makes this forum a better place, you make it a worse place. Everything he wrote above is accurate.

Magic Banana

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Iscritto: 07/24/2010

Good illustration of what intellectual dishonesty is. Thank you for that.

chaosmonk

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Iscritto: 07/07/2017

Nobody is buying your shit. Your immaturity is a problem whether you're talking to Magic, others on this forum, the Mozilla developers, and probably many situations in your online life. Going through your own posts to demonstrate that you are the one twisting words would be a waste of time, because every sentence anyone says gives you another opportunity to wriggle out of acknowledging when you are obviously wrong about this. However, I don't have to. We can just look at the only common denominator in every conversation here and on bugzilla that has gone off the rails. Do you actually manage to go through your day believing that everyone except you is the problem and their communication skills mysteriously get worse the moment they begin talking to you?

Nobody is twisting your words. You just make a bunch of contradictory statements and deny the obvious interpretation when anyone proves one of them wrong. The real shame is that you are usually right about things, but that gets less attention than the absurd mental gymnastics you go through when you aren't. You could have just said "Whoops. I made that website before I formed my current views on privacy and hadn't revisited the decision to use GA since. I'll go ahead and remove that real quick." and this conversation would have been over. But that would require you to admit you made a mistake, so instead you're seriously trying to defend websites tracking visitors in general with (surprise) a perfect solution fallacy.

Now that Magic has called out your bullshit you are predictably trying to deflect by accusing him of invading your privacy, even though the only information has shared is information you chose to make public (your posts here, your website, the email address with which you joined a forum that you informed while making an account is mirrored to a mailing list).

Grow. Up.

Jodiendo
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Iscritto: 01/09/2013

Magic Banana said:
Good illustration of what intellectual dishonesty is. Thank you for that.

What I'm about to say is directed to the character "heyjoe"

HeyYOYO you talk to much barbarity, you are a personal disgraced and you are a classic "INSIPID" , RETAIN BY YOUR OWN intellectual disorder and dishonesty.

Sorry Magic FOR MY WORDS, i AM ON YOUR SIDE!

strypey
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Iscritto: 05/14/2015

I would go so far as to say that using GoogleAnalytics to spy on users, even after the privacy consequences of doing so have been pointed out, is reasonable grounds for being banned from this forum. I know of no justification for anyone who cares about software freedom using GA, and no reason why we should allow this forum to be flooded by aggressive trolls who clearly don't care about software freedom. To put my clicks where my typing fingers are, I will be down-voting every comment I see by "heyjoe" from now on, unless they make a valuable contribute to the discussion.

chaosmonk

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Iscritto: 07/07/2017

If he recommended or advocated the use of GA that would indeed violate community guidelines, as GA is proprietary software. Using it on his own website is a decision I disagree with, but it is his decision to make.

Personally, I'm not a fan of banning legitimate (as opposed to bots or spam accounts) users except as an absolute last resort. I don't think we're there yet. Ultimately it's the moderator's call, though.

> I will be down-voting every comment I see by "heyjoe" from now on

If you see a post that violates community guidelines,

https://trisquel.info/en/wiki/trisquel-community-guidelines

by all means downvote it. However, downvoting every comment by a particular user is unproductive, and it sometimes angers people and causes things to escalate, which is not what we need right now. I appreciate your intentions, but I think ignoring unhelpful comments is a better idea at this point. I need to be better about taking my own advice on that, but Supertramp is right that the threads only get derailed because I and others have let ourselves be baited into participating in the insanity.

SuperTramp83

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Iscritto: 10/31/2014

I don't like witch hunts. I prefer to ignore the users I deem dishonest, boring or simply dumb, as far as they don't threaten my beef and my values.

>I would go so far as to say that using GoogleAnalytics to spy on users, even after the privacy consequences of doing so have been pointed out, is reasonable grounds for being banned from this forum

No, it is not, they have not broken any forum rule

>It is perfectly ok to see him repeatedly troll at a new member of this forum, starting from day #1 since he joined

He never did that with me or with any other user that has respected the forum rules. Le Bannanna Magique is good folk. nun_shame.png for you!

>troll

You both misuse the word. I guess you don't really know what a troll is. I recommend Jodienda, the benevolent mastertroll, explains it to you right away. Dear Jodienda, can you explain to these gents what a troll is?

>hypocrite

Not really. Maybe Joe or Anchovi or whatever the name of Le Guitarra Jose is doesn't give a fuck about the privacy of others, only his own personal privacy. That doesn't make them a 'hypocrite' but rather a very selfish individual.

BTW, I am not defending Le Jose Guitarra. I think he can defend himself just fine, just as he can derail and bait you into developing neverending threads. That's still not trolling though.

I will now tcpdump all of you in order to find out who can stay and who must be banned! ;-)

SuperTramp83

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Iscritto: 10/31/2014

>Of course. That's why he kept the info about browsers secret and didn't share it. As well as other things (who cares anyway).

Heh.. I was referring to your usage of gooble's anal-ytics..

>I am leaving.

Don't.

>Nice meeting you SuperTramp.

Likewise, Jose le Guitarra. But don't leave. In any case take care and enjoy teh powa of Gahnuu :)

SuperTramp83

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Iscritto: 10/31/2014

I see no contact section on your profile here, nor did I ever visit ur website, so I don't know ur mail address, send me a mail or direct me to ur box of pigeons.

quantumgravity
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Iscritto: 04/22/2013

> I don't like witch hunts.

Witch hunts are cruel and barbarian efforts to kill innocent people for reasons that are even factually wrong.
What happens here has nothing to do with a witch hunt.
heyjoe doesn't get killed, he just gets called out for all the shit he pulled, and rightfully so.
Also there is solid evidence for why people are mad at him.
He just completely fucked up. Seriously, i think this forum was very patient with him. Others would have started to yell at him way earlier...

Calling this a witch hunt is much like calling illegal sharing something like "piracy". It's not.

SuperTramp83

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Iscritto: 10/31/2014

Literal and verbatim much? Don't be so pedantic on words, mate Quanty, I'm pretty sure you get the meaning of the expression I used. There is no reason to ban a user you disagree with/don't like/constantly swallow their bait instead of simply ignoring them.

quantumgravity
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Iscritto: 04/22/2013

No, it's not pedantic at all what I said.
It's not about "literal" and "verbatim". Even in a metaphorical sense, it just isn't right.
You use a word that is deliberately exaggerating and it describes the situation wrong.

Just for the record: I am not a fan of "banning" heyjoe either and I never defended this idea.
I'm just saying that this thread is not evil and heyjoe not a victim.
He just gets called out for the bullshit he wrote, and that's it.

SuperTramp83

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Iscritto: 10/31/2014

>I am not a fan of "banning" heyjoe and I never defended this idea.

Indeed I was not referring to you but to strypey.

>deliberately exaggerating

Just the first expression that came to my mind. Nothing deliberate.

peace

onpon4
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Iscritto: 05/30/2012

Honestly, I haven't seen any particular change with heyjoe coming along. This forum has always been a mess. Heck, there have always been people around spreading disorder.

I think the real question is, what can be done to make the forum more organized and coherent?

Magic Banana

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==================
WEBSITES
==================

I administrate neither http://www.ufmg.br nor http://www.icex.ufmg.br nor http://dcc.ufmg.br, where I am only given a folder to put a website in.

==================
USING NON-FREE SOFTWARE
==================

I had to shorten the quotes. Even like that, the post is huge. Every quote I gave illustrates the claim I made right before it. The link that follows allows to check that the context does not invalidate the claim. Your expansion of the "(...)" in the quote you chose does not invalidate the claim: "heyjoe is not a Trisquel user. He prefers Microsoft's favorite distribution."

SUSE is Microsoft's favorite distribution: https://www.suse.com/partners/alliance/microsoft/

That is a fact. I have never claimed you chose that distribution for that reason. I do not care about what you run on your computer: it is your business. I simply showed that somebody who is not a user of Trisquel is flooding the "Trisquel users" forum.

The free software movement only aims to give us control of our *own* computers. Nothing more. Consequently RMS is not an hypocrite. You are: for distributing proprietary JavaScript (executed in the Web browsers of your visitors) to spy on them, with the help of Google. Not for using proprietary software on your own computers. In the former case, you are the perpetrator. In the latter case, the victim.

==================
ANTI-LOGIC
==================

I do not obey to your injunctions to be quiet about the evil you do. Because it is evil. And because *you* claim that everybody should be able to check, down to the hardware, the servers one communicates with. I was far from doing that (despite your hypocritical advocacy, I still consider it is none of my business what you run on the server side). I only looked at the JavaScript your website sends for execution on the client side, i.e., not on your computers but on those of the visitors. You make them run proprietary JavaScript from Google to spy on them.

The difference I have just made is between "your own computers" and "computers you do not administrate". Exactly like in the post you quote. No "anti-logic".

==================
CODE OF CONDUCT
==================

Again: I see no reason to obey to your injunctions. And again: the link that follows every quote I gave allows to check that the context does not invalidate the claim, written right before. I created this thread in "the troll lounge" (it is indeed off-topic) and I have not violated any community guideline: https://trisquel.info/en/wiki/trisquel-community-guidelines

Abdullah Ramazanoglu
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I wouldn't make a comment here, as this is an ad hominem topic dedicated to mobbing and personal attacks. The very creation of such a topic is against every ethical rule in my book.

But then I thought it is an opportunity to express some of my concerns with the Trisquel forums as a whole. What I will say has nothing to do with heyjoe, but has everything to do with the general code of conduct that dominates Trisquel forums.

Please don't ignore the fact that people are not coming here for random chat. They are coming here because they are somehow attached to the FOSS philosophy, so I think they shouldn't be alienated for not obeying concrete viewpoints of the lot. Actually, freedom itself is inherently antonymous to meekness, and FOSS encourages questioning everything and challenging the status quo. Yet if someone questions Snowden or RMS or Moglen or FSF, he can be singled out as persona non grata - a black sheep. Personally, if one of my beliefs / decisions / sacred values was not challenged, that would make me feel *extremely* uneasy. I would really be glad to see that my ways are challenged hard, and can stand against the challenge. I *need* that challenge to be comfortable with my values and decisions. And I am sure all the prominent figures heyjoe had questioned would not mind it at all. But any newcomer challenging anything sacred to FOSS in these forums can be subjected to mobbing, subtle psychological violence, kind of being shouted down. Yes, it is effectively *shouting down* someone. To some extent, this even goes for old timers.

One needs to walk on eggs in order to discuss something sensitive. For instance I was supposed (actually given my word) to discuss corruptibility of the FOSS movement, but I will not, as this forum is demonstratedly not suitable for unrestricted thinking. You have to keep your "inconvenient" thoughts to yourself, or you risk mobbing at the least. You may call it exaggeration, but this is how I constantly have felt in this forum, from the very start to this day. I can't count how many times I had self-censored myself because of this.

Let me give a striking example. For instance you can't question any possibility of the prominent "saints" being bribed by NSA to shepherd FOSS movement in a certain direction, can you? You see, heyjoe questioned the unquestionables and ended up here (the *real* reason why he ended up here). It is a taboo, unquestionable, ironic in a free world. (Not that I question it at all - I am a good sheep.)

When I first read the GPL, I couldn't believe my eyes and re-read it maybe 10 times in my bed, dreaming, re-reading, re-dreaming, throughout the night. I didn't sleep that night and the next morning I was an instant FOSS proponent. I loved the ethics of GPL, and I recognized and respected the genius of its author. But FOSS, the philosophy, is one thing, the whole lot of organizations and prominent figures leading the movement is another thing. I respect them, but I am not bound by them, nor I regard them as ultimate authorities. Authority and freedom is an oxymoron.

When I first registered here, I had questioned the status of firmware (still an open issue due to "undiscussability of the sensitive") and suggested a novel approach to Trisquel development. I had gotten similar defensive, authoritative, irate and rigid responses, but it didn't escalate because I didn't talk back and didn't press on. I suspect I would have ended up being another "heyabdullah", had I pressed on.

There are certain taboos here, so serious that you can only joke about them. This is not what freedom was supposed to be. And this overly defensive attitude potentially alienates a good deal of potential users.

Frictions particular to heyjoe versus the community are beyond my current scope. My main scope is the general code of conduct overshadowing this forum: Overly defensive and rigid attitude. Undiscussability of the inconvenient. Alienation. Mobbing. Intimidation.

Unfortunately it is more or less the same in most platforms. But Trisquel forum is particularly shining in this regard.

quantumgravity
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Iscritto: 04/22/2013

> I wouldn't make a comment here, as this is an ad hominem topic dedicated to mobbing and personal attacks.

This is just plain wrong. The post of MB only shows quotes of heyjoe and states facts. I didn't see any personal attacks, except maybe "you are a hypocrit" which is a quite justified remark after everything happened.

Putting together quotes of a person and showing contradictions is NOT mobbing. It's not a witch hunt and it's clearly not unethical.

Everybody who uses those words in this context tries to somehow victimize heyjoe unrightfully.
I also consider it disrespectful towards real victims of real witch hunts/mobbing.
Take for instance anita sarkeesian. SHE was a victim of real ad-hominem attacks, mobbing and so on.
Just use your favourite search engine and look up what happened to her. You will see your usage of words is quite off here.

onpon4
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Iscritto: 05/30/2012

Just for the record, I'm not comfortable with this topic either. We have a user who is dishonest and often wrong, but that is no justification for drawing attention to and personally attacking him in this way. I'm especially not comfortable with the idea of ousting members because of their views alone.

Magic Banana

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Iscritto: 07/24/2010

I do not consider heyjoe should be ousted. But I consider there must be a reaction to the forum being flooded with messages that attack the free software movement with sarcasm and fallacies, and that derail many threads. Especially when Trisquel 8 will bring here many new users.

As I have just written to CalmStorm, I think that challenging heyjoe's "ideas" is mainly pointless and time-consuming (do you agree?). That is why I proposed to link that thread (that I should have actually named "What to do about intellectual dishonesty in the Trisquel forum?", I regret) in a short response when one does not have the time to explain, one more time, why heyjoe's attacks to the free software movement do not proceed.

EDIT: thanks to the moderator who changed the title.

GrevenGull
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Iscritto: 12/18/2017

> when one does not have the time to explain

I believe you may be mixing up "time" and "priority"?

GrevenGull
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Iscritto: 12/18/2017

I figure "time" is not something one "has". Time is. But you can prioritize something, or you can not. That is your choice.

Magic Banana

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Iscritto: 07/24/2010

If you have a full-time job, you do not have time to spend hours replying, in details, to many huge posts a day (like heyjoe's). But, sure, I did not want to keep on replying to always the same tune either: "free software does not matter because of proprietary microcode", "because bad guys use it", "because the security/privacy is not perfect", in particular "because Spectre and Meltdown", "because you use the Internet and do not control the cables or the other end of the communication", etc.

GrevenGull
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Iscritto: 12/18/2017

I find it quite ironic how you in many ways behave very similar to heyjoe.

It's like in politics where "far left" and "far right" actually have a lot in common.

fbit

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Iscritto: 07/07/2013

>I wouldn't make a comment here, as this is an ad hominem
>topic dedicated to mobbing and personal attacks. The very
>creation of such a topic is against every ethical rule in
>my book.

But you did. I suppose it is like heyjoe and his extreme concern for privacy, free software and security, until it comes to using GA and Gmail.

>Yet if someone questions Snowden or RMS or Moglen or FSF,
>he can be singled out as persona non grata - a black sheep.

Kindly show me any such questioning based on facts and logic that singled out anybody as persona non grata. Libeling people is not questioning them. Refuting using fallacies is a waste of time and potentially tricks new users to the forum.

>And I am sure all the prominent figures heyjoe had
>questioned would not mind it at all.

He is free to e-mail them if he wants to question them. If he writes about them in a forum with no proof, insinuating they are plants then he is not questioning, he is libeling.

>But any newcomer challenging anything sacred to FOSS in
>these forums can be subjected to mobbing, subtle
>psychological violence, kind of being shouted down.

What is "sacred" about FOSS? Will your next post contain "Gnuleluya's" as heyjoe's disrespectfully and childishly did?

>Let me give a striking example. For instance you can't
>question any possibility of the prominent "saints" being
>bribed by NSA to shepherd FOSS movement in a certain
>direction, can you? You see, heyjoe questioned the
>unquestionables and ended up here (the *real* reason why he
>ended up here). It is a taboo, unquestionable, ironic in a
>free world. (Not that I question it at all - I am a good
>sheep.)

Both you and Joe introduce your doubts about Snowden and show no proof of it. Meanwhile, he risked his life and made many inconvenient secrets public for the NSA and now lives in exile in Russia. It's not that I don't think there's a possibility he is being bribed by the NSA, just as if you told me that a teapot orbits the Sun somewhere in space between the Earth and Mars. Neither of these assertions can be proven wrong, therefore the burden of proof is on you. In the case of Snowden, having absolutely no proof (that you have showed me) and implying he might be a plant is tantamount to libel.

>One needs to walk on eggs in order to discuss something sensitive.

Funny, it doesn't seem to me either heyjoe or yourself walk on eggshells in the past few weeks since you started posting (since he joined and since you became a frequent poster).

>There are certain taboos here, so serious that you can only
>joke about them.

Kindly list what you perceive as "taboos" so we can know what you're talking about.

------

I find it difficult to believe that after reading all of heyjoe's posts anyone did not come to the conclusion that he mainly expresses himself with fallacies and is pointless and time-consuming. It has nothing to do with the strictness of this forum, it has to do with his purposeful use of fallacies, manipulating conversations and keeing them going ad nauseam.

Finally, if you don't want to be singled out, it may be a good idea not to take over a forum within the first few weeks you joined it. Particularly if your posts are going to be full of fallacies and illogically critical of the central topic of said forum. Basic understanding Abdullah.

Edit: Typo.

loldier
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Iscritto: 02/17/2016

I get the impression that he's an agent provocateur hellbound to foment disconcert and doubt.

He's been given enough rope already.

As for Snowden, well, some NRA advocates would have us think that the Florida shooting incident was a false flag and the survivors were actors on a payroll from the Democratic Party.

Mangy Dog

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Iscritto: 03/15/2015

I agree with Opon4, but my analysis is quite different ( i have not read any of the main threads for a few months).

This Forum to my eyes is on a slow slope downhill and that since 1 year in a half, many users have just simply left, partly when certain threads of which none of the people mentioned where responsible of the threads themselves came up and poluted the "ambiance" for over 6 months in the main threadline.

Another factor is that Trisquel 8 has been very (too)slow to be released, thus their is no real "technical" help thread since a while, apart from the "usual" Browser/email or other recurent threads.

Far too many threads get jammed up with a "load" of nonsense, most topics are not respected, and stray off course quite rapidly.

Finally one has the impression of some sort of quarelling in-between users, a general lack of "discipline".This gives a negative image and sorry but my interest has slowly but gradually been eroded.

I'd love to read threads something like
How to reverse SSH, How to do SSH Bouncing..ect.(or whatever)

Maybe some "improvements" to the community guidelines could be proposed.

To conclude, it's often happened to us to make an error in the form, the title, or the spelling of the post and the Forum software does not permit to correct that, this feature would be a great new improvement.

david

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Iscritto: 08/02/2008

As (almost) always, I've been following the recent discussions at the forum that involved some heated arguments between people who mostly weren't wrong but sat on different sides of many issues. As other times, I've seen those threads evolve from their intended original intent into some very time-consuming affairs which at some point or another end up showing the worst of some or all of those involved.

It's not easy to keep track of who's been "worse", who's been more disrespectful or who's ultimately right and hasn't done anything wrong when most of those involved are to me interesting, insightful people who just happen to not necessarily like each other's way of expressing their ideas or just disagree on many aspects of those but still share some common goals and ideals with most of the Trisquel community.

It's also not easy to keep productive a forum that has always been very open to different ideas and which features very vocal advocates of strong ethical, technical and even philosophical positions. Arguments get heated (and frustrating) easily, sometimes by misunderstanding, sometimes because of the varying amounts of knowledge between those arguing and sometimes just because we're humans, we react and we like to "win".

I don't think that anybody likes to write thinking about how each one of their words may be de-constructed, analysed and used to prove a point in another person's post. Many of the themes we talk about here are complex enough to warrant complex (and error-prone) writing and if we add the fear of being subject to nitpicking, some useful ideas will probably remain unwritten. Many of the community members are also very competent arguers and challengers, something which is great for the free software cause but doesn't particularly help with getting conflicting points to rest.

I know that as some other times before, my words may sound too naive and superficial, but I've seen many similar conflicts arise in the past and the best outcomes we've arrived to have come from trying to put ourselves into each others' shoes and finding in our common ideas the strength to remain calm about the ones we don't share.

I'm aware that as many other areas of the project, there is room for improvement in the handling of these forums. We've always taken a particular approach to moderation given our freedom ideals and once we were able to avoid spammers and such, we've tried to limit mod interventions because most of the conflicts end up being resolved by the participation of a strong community. Sometimes I've regretted waiting too long for arguments to get productive but my experience tells me that trying to silence an ongoing discussion does not usually work well here. Also, talking to those involved personally works many times, but it comes with the inconvenience of removing the conversation from the grounds it started in.

I personally take great pride in the community that has formed around these forums and mailing lists with the years, and even if things can (and hopefully will) be improved, I think part of the circumstances of this community have given it a rather unique quality. We've got the best not-actually-Trisquel-users helping newcomers, we've got the most adamant Trisquel users understanding why others would rather use other distros, we're not always so rude when someone doesn't understand or know enough about the free software ideals and I think we even have the best part-time trolls!

We've also got a certain categorizing problem with forcing people to decide whether a new thread fits at the trisquel-users forum or at some place called The Troll Lounge, so I'm (again) at least temporarily renaming this forum as "Miscellanea", to avoid bad connotations when something is just too off-topic to be at trisquel-users. You can still troll a bit in a civil (and ideally isolated) manner and meanwhile I'll think about the best possible categorization for the next iteration of the site that we're working in.

This thread may not have been the best idea, but I think we still can get to a positive outcome overall if we focus on the good things that have come from being critical with each other. It could also be a good idea to rescue some of the best things to come from those derailed threads and try to keep a more productive conversation from now on.

Mangy Dog

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Iscritto: 03/15/2015

heyjoe you can write an email to David in order remove your account if that is your wish.

david

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Iscritto: 08/02/2008

Jesuit... heh.

May I suggest that you sit on this for a bit longer, maybe until tomorrow? I'm pretty sure we could reach a reasonable agreement in which no one has to bitterly leave.

Mangy Dog

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Iscritto: 03/15/2015

Great post David ;-)

loldier
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Iscritto: 02/17/2016

So he’s a victim now and we’re desperately begging him to come back and stay? Unconditionally? Great, we’re winning already.

david

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Iscritto: 08/02/2008

OK, I'm sorry to read that but I understand.

Regarding your account, I'd like to ask you to allow us to keep your posts after deletion of your profile, assigning them to the anonymous user, to prevent the loss of any useful information which could help others in the future. Alternatively I can just remove all of them from the site, although that would also mean that all replies by others to the threads you created would be lost as well.

As for mentions to your name or links to your websites made at other community members' posts, I'm afraid I can only ask them to remove those. You've participated in several public conversations and I think it's reasonable to expect that you can't make any traces disappear unilaterally.

david

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Iscritto: 08/02/2008

OK, I'll review each of the entries on that list, but please have in mind that I was only talking about what to do with the posts you've made, not those made by others. To remove those we would have to arrive to some agreement with their authors.

Jodiendo
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Iscritto: 01/09/2013

heyjoe

there is saying about trolls, they are always looking for weak spots on people.

but to be a dishonest character, defiant. extensively deviating, they lack integrity, fully dishonest, instigator or should i continue trolling you!

just vanished and disappear eternal in the electronic divide of trisquel. No one will miss you.

david

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Iscritto: 08/02/2008

Sorry, I probably didn't explain myself too well. With "the threads you created" I meant the actual threads started by you, https://trisquel.info/en/forum/freedom-security-technology-what-can-we-do and https://trisquel.info/en/forum/thoughts-about-new-type-network . If we remove those first posts, all the replies will disappear as well from the forum.

But that's not the case with any other messages that you've posted in other threads, if we remove those, their replies would still be there (even though it obviously would be difficult to follow conversations that relate to the missing posts). That is, unless someone else (like Calmstorm) wants their replies also to be removed.

You can of course also edit any posts you've made except those two thread-starting posts (because of technical reasons), and if you want to edit those two I can make the changes for you.

I know that it may seem like this is taking too long, but I just want to be transparent about the process. It's not like we're Facebook and don't want to part with your "data", but I think that your particular case warrants this further explanation.

fbit

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Iscritto: 07/07/2013

So passes Denethor, Son of Ecthelion.

david

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Iscritto: 08/02/2008

What I'm doing is trying to get to the best possible outcome with this quite time-consuming unfortunate situation. What I'm not doing is attempting to retain you against your will in any way.

I'll proceed now with the removal of your account and all your posts as you asked. I'll also work harder to avoid similar situations in the future and hopefully we'll all improve as a community and learn some lessons from this.

I wish you the best in your future endeavors.

Abdullah Ramazanoglu
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Iscritto: 12/15/2016

> No, David. It is quite obvious that this won't work. I stick to my last post.

I would suggest you stay, even if you don't write for some time.

The thing is, when the "rebel" leaves the stage, what is left on the stage is the "chorus". Mental fertility depends on stimulation, and stimulation depends on mental rebels. Preaching to the chorus and singing in unison is always good for the mind and soul, but we also need a healthy dose of vocal discord (even if it may be a bit irritating to some) just in order to prevent chorus members from falling asleep in unison while singing. :)

Joke aside, the fact that I restarted writing here recently (afer a long pause) is because I was occasionally skimming the forum, and one of those times I saw your mind stimulating posts. I can speak only for myself, that I found that you have been filling a large void in this forum - mental stimulation.

There is no bruise that time can't heal. After a couple of months have passed, all these problems will most probably be dwarfed to a non-issue. Quit writing for some time, if you like, but keep your account please.

Man, at least put this into the fridge for a week before deciding.

Abdullah Ramazanoglu
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Iscritto: 12/15/2016

It's not that I need stimulation (though I usually decline writing my thoughts in the absence of stimuli) but I think it's the forum that seems to need some stimulation more than I do.

Jodiendo
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Iscritto: 01/09/2013

It's not that I need stimulation (though I usually decline writing my thoughts in the absence of stimuli) but I think it's the forum that seems to need some stimulation more than I do.

There you have a stimuli to think of..

definition of abdullah

Meaning the servant of God in Islam

definition of Ramazanoglu

RAMAZANOĞLU Turkish
Means "son of Ramazan" in Turkish.

respectfully

Abdullah Ramazanoglu
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Iscritto: 12/15/2016

> I am also reluctant to be prevented my opponent from arguing by, e.g. suddenly ignoring.
> I compeletly think I am win in this case, though the opponent seems thinking like "I have not to say anymore to such idiot.". I regard ignoring as insult basically. Therefore, in here, if someone ignored my reasonable question, in my opinion, That is against the guideline. Even if who say what, I regard that as insult from my common sense and experience.

Dear Suzuqi san,

In forums, if your message gets no reply, it is not an insult. It means nothing (not good but also not bad).

In private *written* communications (for example email) it is more personal and it is more important. But even in private communications sometimes you don't reply.

Think about it: If people *always* reply to an email, then the communication will not end. I reply to you, then you reply to me, then I reply to you, then... It would go on forever.

Forum messages are more general than emails. You don't have to reply to everything. Please don't worry if you don't get a reply. I don't worry at all. It is how forums are.

Abdullah Ramazanoglu
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Iscritto: 12/15/2016

> But when we are arguing, and we have yet not some conclusion, suddenly they stop reply is equal with insult.

Oh yes, I understand now.

But it can also mean a checkmate or a deadlock or a 0-0 score or another thing.

Abdullah Ramazanoglu
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Iscritto: 12/15/2016

> So I was thinking that that means trapping. Is that correct?

Yes, that is correct. It is used as a metaphor, from a fishing technique.

The Free On-line Dictionary of Computing (foldoc)
troll
An electronic mail message, Usenet posting or other (electronic) communication which is intentionally incorrect, but not overtly controversial (compare flame bait), or the act of sending such a message. Trolling aims to elicit an emotional reaction from those with a hair-trigger on the reply key. A really subtle troll makes some people lose their minds.

The Free On-line Dictionary of Computing (foldoc)
flame bait
A Usenet posting or other message intended to trigger a flame war, or one that invites flames in reply.

Also see:
https://www.webopedia.com/TERM/T/troll.html
https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Troll
https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Concern_troll
https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Tone_troll

Jodiendo
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Iscritto: 01/09/2013

Something got my attention: the word usage "Witches", surely they are a mental and acute disposition transformed mainly by a wizard of disparity on the mind of the naive.
Has Trisquel forums has become THE OLD Inquisition church? or the modern version of Trolls with intellectualism and persuasive, twisted wording for their own bondage, and persuasive negative usage of purpose.