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Be the anti-venom

Story: Free, Open, Eating Its YoungTotal Replies: 0
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dthacker

Apr 28, 2007
6:53 AM EDT 		I have a wife. I have daughters. The images and posts that Kathy has shown chill me to the bone. I've read the joint statement that she and Chris Locke posted at the time of their CNN appearance. If Chris Locke did not participate in the posts, fine. He may have enabled them, though. In other responses to this nightmare, Locke cites one of the oldest BBS doctrines around: "You own your own words" (YOYOW). Yes, I do. And abuse has no place in them. When someone attacks me instead of my ideas, they have crossed that line. I work very hard never to cross it myself. To me, name calling and threats demonstrate a lack of imagination, an inability to deal with the idea being discussed. That is not where I want to be. So I encourage you to be the anti-venom. Don't feed the trolls. Don't participate in forums where trolling is encouraged. Don't tolerate personal abuse online. It's no different than personal abuse in the real world. Those are real people behind those posts, and you should *never* forget that. They are precious, their ideas are precious. You may not agree with them, you may not like them or their ideas. That is not a reason to hurt them. One of the biggest reasons I participate in Ubuntu rather than Debian is the Ubuntu's Code of Conduct. You may find that silly, but I know that a reminder of that code has cooled off more than one shouting match on IRC or mailing lists, and returned them to a productive discussion. If you're in a position to gently make that reminder, you should.

I've been told that ignoring trolls is an effective way to get them to stop, but sometimes that seems like I'm tolerating an abusive situation. I don't have an easy answer for that. You'll have to make your own choice. Just don't be one of them.

Dave

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