Proposal for ML conduct

[Paul W. Frields]

On Mon, May 18, 2009 at 09:23:23AM -0400, Lyos Gemini Norezel wrote:
> Christopher Aillon wrote:
> 
>     On 05/15/2009 09:52 AM, Lyos Gemini Norezel wrote:
> 
>     If the free speech pie is made with good ingredients, everyone will want
>     it.  If the free speech pie is made with rusty nails, cyanide, motor oil
>     and battery acid, I'm sure as hell not going to eat it.
> 
> 
> 
> So all you want is the good and not the bad?
> 
> "They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety,
> deserve neither liberty nor safety." - Benjamin Franklin
> 
> If you would give up your free speech pie, because of vitriol and offensive
> people, then you do not deserve free speech.
> 
> 
>     There are people who feel violated to the very core of their being which
>     seriously hurts their feelings.  Several people have taken great offense
>     recently at ML discussions when they have been personally attacked.  A
>     friend was looking for information on Fedora for some reason, google
>     pointed her to a thread, and she now has a sour impression of Fedora based
>     solely on the ML being so vile.  It's one thing to say what you want, it's
>     another thing to intentionally hurt others and even more so to
>     intentionally hurt people while the whole world watches.
> 
> 
> Here in the US, at least, you do not have a right not to be offended. If you
> cannot (or your friend cannot) handle this... then perhaps you (or your friend)
> do not deserve free speech.

Let me see if I can clarify a bit here.  Your rights in the USA are
meant to be guarantees against the *government* stopping you from
speaking.  Not private entities.

Imagine the Fedora Project as more like a bar.  Sometimes conversation
at the bar does get a little boisterous.  But if a patron really gets
obnoxious, the bar may ask her to cool it, and if she doesn't, throw
her out.  Neither of those remedies is encroaching on the patron's
rights.  The bar is not abridging the patron's right to free speech by
refusing to allow her to exercise it on their premises.  The same
situation goes for Fedora.

-- 
Paul W. Frields                                http://paul.frields.org/
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