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People using Mastodon to promote pile-ons or brigading?

No, never! That's actually one reason I don't use Mastodon, it's extremely common. Isn't this the guy that blocked HackerNews links to the Asahi Linux homepage because the moderators wouldn't do his bidding?




>Isn't this the guy that blocked HackerNews links to the Asahi Linux homepage because the moderators wouldn't do his bidding?

Yup, that was Hector Martin (marcan) as well.


I don't know anything about him, but it seems like he has a pretty negative view of Reddit users as well:

> Added some clarifications in bold, because Reddit users having enough reading comprehension to understand what Christoph said and why it's exactly* what I described with other words is apparently a Lv.100 impossible challenge boss.*

https://web.archive.org/web/20250206022420/https://social.tr...


An Intel employee in a reply makes a extremely good point that I think everyone these days needs to follow

> And if you're wondering why you didn't realize this: It's impossible to change people by telling them they're wrong. What does tend to work is explaining different perspectives, so that they can figure it out themselves. And sometimes that's just way too subtle to ever register.


Said Intel employee needs to follow their own advice.

https://chaos.social/@sima/113961285815637787

> when you're that harmful with your calling out, eventually I'm going to be fed up, and you get a live round shot across your bow and if that then causes you to ragequit, because you can't actually deal with the heat you've been dishing out coming back around the corner: fuck off

>or as Dave put it "Being toxic on the right side of an argument is still toxic, [...]"

(that second comment made apparently without any sense of irony re: the first)


This seems like a perfectly reasonable response given Hector's prior comments. Pushing someones buttons until they explode and then pointing out they exploded isn't the indictment people think it is.


No, not really.

The meaning of

> "Being toxic on the right side of an argument is still toxic, [...]"

Is very straightforwards. Toxic behavior is toxic behavior. Sima shouldn't lash out in "toxic" ways even if she thinks she's right.

Otherwise shouldn't Hector be given grace because "his buttons were pushed until he exploded"?

Like, you fundamentally can't have it both ways. Excuses for Sima's comments work for Hector. Condemnations of Hector's comments apply to Sima. Anything else is a double standard.


I fail to see anything in Sima's post that you linked that could be interpreted as toxic, rather than a perfectly normal human response. It's absolutely unreasonable to expect everyone to be perfect, always take the high road, or otherwise shrug off personal attacks.

Sima's responses can be excused. Even Hector's initial frustrations and his reactions to it can be excused. Hector's continued public reactions and escalations, however, are a different story and the reason folks are piling on him.


[flagged]


I have paid special attention to these threads, and I have not seen this. And [flagged] comments don't count: any asshole can create an account and post any ol' bollocks. These posts are not "the community": these are posts "the community" has explicitly flagged and rejected.


So moving to effectively censor criticism that you can't control is justified?

Maybe the problem IS marcan, as Linus suggested.

If you do things that are in the public interest, people are going to have opinions about what you do and on a wide spectrum. If you can't handle that, you probably shouldn't be doing work that's so public and visible. Especially something like maintainer work that is inherently social.


[flagged]


I remember that HN thread[0] and don't think Asahi's version is a good-faith, accurate summary of the contents. IMO they are inaccurately viewing a small number of flagged/dead comments as representative of HN in general.

[0] probably: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33789940 , though you could look at any of the big 2022-2023 asahilinux.org discussions and find something flagged/dead


Do you have a source for this with proof?

Or is it just cause someone said so.


Basically he has to avoid any community with significant numbers of people. Not liking HN, reddit, twitter and so on, its just a numbers game.

To respond to that by trying to cut of access to any place where many people exists is a questionable approach.

And judging people simply by from where they arrived in a place is also questionable tactic one that we should not tolerate in real live.


I call bullshit on that. The Asahi Linux intiative got a lot of respect and praise on this site whenever I looked at those threads. It's very very unlikely that this negative depiction is accurate. Please show a specific example of a thread that got out of hand like that, otherwise this is completely unbelievable.

Otherwise I would suggest that it says a lot when downvoting of comments is not understood as disapproval. And that it is a big warning sign when public devs/maintainers hallucinate hostile intentions to other communities as a whole.


I said opinions on a spectrum. Yes, an extreme end of that spectrum is an extreme response.

This is something you have to put up with some amount of if you do work in public, just like if you were a public figure or celebrity. Being a kernel or even package maintainer is like being a politician.

It sucks, but if your response is to cut off that channel of opinion _entirely_, that says more about you than the people you're silencing.

If something violates HN Guidelines, flag it and dang will see it. If there's anything that should be blatantly obvious by now it's that HN's moderation staff does not have the kind of alt-right bias suggested by your quote.


[flagged]


To think that you can control opinions people have of you in public forums is kind of insane.

Also denying links to their site isn't equivalent to "leaving the room". It's more like demolishing the room entirely, given the way that HN works. If your site can't be linked to it can't be the topic of discussion.


[flagged]


No, to your first two points. 100% of the discussion was happening on HN. The blocking of links from HN was 100% about silencing discussion _happening on HN_.

It has nothing to with "not letting assholes in". Asahi Linux doesn't have a discussion board.

To your third point, also no. HN guidelines keep the content of our posts relevant to the topics they are in. They also guide us to link to original sources, not archive links. Both of these mean that if you can't link to Asahi Linux content, it can't be the topic of discussion unless for some reason it's otherwise newsworthy and was posted elsewhere.


> The blocking of links from HN was 100% about silencing discussion _happening on HN_.

How does blocking HN from linking to a site silence discussion on HN? Because, as you say, "100% of the discussion was happening on HN" which seems to imply that blocking HN from linking didn't actually silence the discussion.

> Both of these mean that if you can't link to Asahi Linux content, it can't be the topic of discussion

You can link to it - you just get the "HN referer" block page just as other people get other block pages (eg. [0], [1]. Haven't noticed people moaning about how those sites are silencing discussion on HN, mind.)

Copy and paste the URL and you can read the link perfectly happily[2].

[0] Much like many of us in Europe get block pages for sites in the US who can't be bothered with GDPR or the cookie law.

[1] Or those of us who aren't subscribed to the various news sites which show a paragraph before putting up a blocker.

[2] Or someone pastes an archive.ph link.


> Haven't noticed people moaning about how those sites are silencing discussion on HN, mind.

People whine about GDPR blocks and paywalls all the time. But also, clearly, those sites are not specifically targeting HN. It's not the same thing.


Your argument is valid. But the person you are supporting is in favour of "social media brigading". So, there is a fundamental dichotomy here, since by your argument he should be kicked and banned.


>doxxing content

Gonna go out on a limb here and guess that he means there are people in the thread pointing out that the VTuber Asahi Lina is blatantly obviously Hector with a voice changer and that it's really weird that he vehemently insists that it isn't him.

That's not doxxing if so.


It's extra weird to me that people try to live a very public life but then accuse anyone with the slightest amount of criticism of behaving criminally...


Who has made accusations of behaving criminally?..


doxxing. harassment.

And to answer your question of "who?", marcan themselves based on marcan being the one to block HN links.

But more generally, the majority of people posting online (especially streamers, content creators, even just twitter posters) these days seem to be very thin-skinned and will claim that any amount of pushback that they get for their words or actions is an organized harassment campaign.


I think you are generally correct. I think also the personality types who become public makers, etc. tend to also be controlling, so any negative comments / discussion, etc. that they can’t suppress really irks them and often they go to great lengths to try to get rid of it


Yeah it's really weird. Why push your weird subculture into the spotlight and then cry foul when people are weirded out. Kind of feels like it's all about fishing for even more attention.


[flagged]


[flagged]


Holy false equivalence, how is keeping a pseudonimous vtuber identity comparable to verbal abuse, adultery or social media brigading? See, I'm ok with discussing his mistakes as well, but exposing Lina despite being irrelevant, which happens in every thread about her, feels like bigotry. "Heads up, they're one of those!"




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