[OSM-talk] Enough is enough: disinfecting OSM from poisonous people

[Dave F.]

  On 11/08/2010 12:24, Peter Körner wrote:
> Am 10.08.2010 23:04, schrieb Liz:
>> On Wed, 11 Aug 2010, Ian Dees wrote:
>> 'Poison' is opinion.
>> I regard these efforts as attempted censorship
>>
>> "take this back to legal-talk where it belongs"
>> "don't reply to poisonous posts"
> censorship would it be if posts were deleted (or not filtered on the 
> ML server). Not Answering to posts is a decision that everyone can 
> make for himself. If only 2 people are talking instead of 20, the 
> noise generated is much smaller.
>
>> Discussion needs to be free and widespread.
> And follow some rules.
>
> En exampl would be: "here is not the place to talk about recipes, go 
> to chefkoch.de for that". Its absolute ok to say "please don't talk 
> about technical details on the newbies@ list, please go to dev@". And 
> the same way it's ok to say "talk@ is not the place for license 
> discussion, go to legal@". I can't see any censorship in that.

But Steve C. is going on about banning people purely for posting more 
messages than others, *even* if they're are on topic. This is unacceptable.

He also mentions having to "deal with malcontents."  Either he doesn't 
understand the meaning of the word or he really does want to get rid of 
those that disagree with him.

Looking at the list that he sent, I have to say I've learnt more about 
OSM from those at the top than *any* of the "key" members.

It's disappointing that he considers the "key" people to be "write code, 
build things, maintain things and run our working groups". I thought 
this was a 'crowd' project where we all contributed.
I consider the key element to the success of OSM to be the actual 
collection, collation & uploading of data.

For those that feel "sucked, emotionally drained, distracted, paralysed 
& defocused" then the solution is simple - get over yourselves & don't 
read the forums!

Points from Steve C's summary:

"- slow you down" - the forums only do that if you let them. Solution - 
don't read the threads!

"- do not let people reopen old discussions"   Why not? if there been no 
agreed solution to a problem it *should* be re-discussed, especially if 
there's new info or there's been time to think things through.

" - don't reply to _every_ message in a thread, summarise"    This is 
impossible if the thread is occurring in real time; and even when it's 
not you need to reply to each spur & individuals otherwise it leads to 
complete confusion.


Dave F.