Hi.
> Posts about Richard Stallman are off-topic and will not be allowed.
This is... plain out wrong. Off topic means off topic.
The purpose of the mailing list is to provide a place for non-technical information and discussions which are relevant to the KDE community as a whole. All people who consider themselves to be part of the KDE community are invited to join. Conversations on the mailing list are respectful, considerate, polite and constructive following our KDE Code of Conduct.
The list collects announcements, information and results from discussions in other places and offers a place to get feedback on non-technical questions or plans of relevance for the whole KDE community.
Anything else is off-topic.
A RMS reply to a thread about RMS is NOT off topic.
The original post was about the FSF and their governance. Unfortunately "RMS pro/con" hijacked that thread and caused this list to be moderated.
If you want to shutdown the discussion, just say so.
I did so.
The fact that RMS is not "the issue" (he's surely _an_ issue...) does not change that
the kde community email was about RMS. I sent an email 10 hours before this apology.
It was rejected just now. As offtopic.
I live in the US; most of the other mods live in Europe. If they had wanted to act on your email they could have done so, but I believe I was the one to reject your post. There was nothing time-sensitive in it.
I did not like that thread, but this handling of the situation is plain out bad. This apology
mail only made things worse. If I did not know about KDE, I'd say that they are censoring
the discussion. Instead I'm just embarrassed.
Requiring lists to be on-topic is not censorship, which *governments* do. We're volunteers trying to keep lists "respectful, considerate, polite and constructive." Had the discussion kept to that, even though off-topic, it probably could have been solved by a warning.
Even the original motivation for putting the ML under moderation could've been worded better,
it raised complaints from some people I know.
Yes, I should have followed my own advice and removed my personal thoughts. That was not constructive.
Putting an email under manual moderation requires that manual moderation to happen much,
much faster than 10 hours. If help is needed in moderating, please say so.
If you want to shutdown the discussion about RMS, say it was getting too aggressive, not that
it's "offtopic".
Niccolò
We're all volunteers. Help is always welcome! List administration is not the most interesting job, but it is not usually difficult either. If you are interested, write to "$
listname-owner@kde.org" (in this case, kde-community-owner at
kde.org) and volunteer your services.
Valorie
Hello my friends,
When I put this list on emergency moderation, I felt that this was necessary. It still seems so, but I want to lift moderation as soon as possible.
I may have played a part in continuing the negative thread that "wouldn't die" by expressing my own opinion. I should have followed my own advice and walked away after writing my email and then removed parts which expressed a personal opinion.
While I may disagree with others about the value of RMS to Free Software, he is not the issue. The more organizations I've been involved with, the more I realize the value of good governance. The FSF has been critical to the growth of Free Software, and the recent news about their Board is very worrying.
My statement did not do anything to convey that or to help, and for that I am truly sorry.
Posts about Richard Stallman are off-topic and will not be allowed.
Thanks to those of you who called my attention to my part in all of this.
All the best to each of you, to KDE and all of the Free software communities,
Valorie
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