no one has the right to force others to hear their speech

There's a difference between forcing others to hear your speech and others actively seeking out speech the don't want to hear. You can find people who will be, literally (not in the figurative sense), be offended by everything. You can't protect everyone, all the time and creating a "safe space" for them, literally, means creating a hostile environment for others. Again if you look at the Opal incident, the original complaint accused the dev of being transphobic. If you trace that back to where it started he was having a twitter conversation with a friend and some random troll turned it into a conversation about hating trans people. The dev was like, "wut?", and that was all it took.

In other news, people in charge of a project/community set the rules. The...

This isn't the case, again going back to the Opal incident non-community members attacked a dev, then went to twitter to drum up others to join in. No one even had an opportunity to discuss and if they had there were so many trolls and gender worriers jumping in there was no way to even have a reasonable discussion before someone just merged the proposed CoC in. What's worse is the CoC didn't originally have anything in it to handle the incident anyway, it was modified after the fact.

Even without ill intent, people often don't even realise that something they're used to doing is, in fact, un-excellent.

So tell them, but even still some people consider using the word "guys" to be "un-excellent" so there's a point where you just start nitpicking. I'm sure you can take just about anyone and find someone that doesn't like something they say. It shouldn't be left up to individual people to decided what's offensive to them is offensive to everyone and therefor boot people with no actual ill intent.

TL;DR - People on both sides, overly offensive and overly offended, are a menaces and justify then feed each others existence.

Yeah, neither overly offensive nor overly offended are good.

I'm glad we can at least agree on this much, and I hope you realize my ire isn't aimed at people in between those extremes. If someone is intentionally being an asshole, they deserve what they get, but the flip side of that are the people who are specifically looking to bully and police others by using things most reasonable people wouldn't find offensive, and they tend to not even be parts of the communities they're string shit up in.

Words are one thing, but any form of intended unwanted physical contact should be taken seriously. And that goes just as much for women touching men as men touching women. I don't like being touched, especially by strangers. You have a right to say what you want in a public place, you don't have a right to purposely invade anyone else's personal physical space. That said, yes equating someone pinching your bum to rape is also an extreme and shouldn't be taken lightly. Rape is a very serious crime and I hate the fact that it gets watered down by people that use it to describe any unwanted action.

I fully support equal air time. For starters, the best way to out bigots is to just let them speak. The other major reason is it seems to me people only advocate for no-platforming when one side might make a better argument and sway more people.

Otherwise, If someone wants to claim we lived with dinosaurs or the earth is flat, let them, we'll all have a good laugh. If someone wants to be racists and go around screaming the N word at black people or how dumb they think women are, let them, they'll be the ones unemployable. The only thing to be afraid if is they'll actually make a good argument and convince people they're not wrong, or they'll completely crash and burn their own cause and no one will take them seriously.

But not giving equal air time to all sides of an issue, it's just too easy to no-platform someone with a "controversial" (re: different or not politically correct, but not hateful) view. All you have to do is call them sexists, racists, homophobic, say they associate with stormfront, the KKK or random internet trolls, petition venues where they're suppose to speak and post continually about how ignorant they are while pointing to things that specific person has never actually said or supported. No one will ever hear their side, or at least won't admit to it, for fear of being lumped in with all the evils of the world. By the time anyone is will to speak on their behalf the damage is done.

The problem is actually two fold, I agree with you that people confuse free speech with it being ok to be intentionally offensive. But the other side of the coin is people feel they have a right to a "safe space" and should never have to see/hear anything that's only offensive to them personally, then going after people that fall somewhere in between for not complying 100%.

The issue with the CoCs that have been being forced lately is a result of people wanting tools in place to go after those that disagree ideologically and/or politically with issues that aren't even part of a dev project. See the Opal disaster the AC below linked. It's incredibly underhanded because the communities don't even get a chance to have a say. The CoC is introduced, discussed and merged into a project in less than a day before anyone, that doesn't know it's being talked about, can have any input.

This plays into fears the "SJWs" are coming, which fuels the the freeze peachers into asserting they still have support. Us moderates in the middle are just like, "why do I have to pick one or the other?"

I fully support people's right to say what they want, but also agree that needs to be tempered with some common sense. If you act like an asshole people aren't going to want to deal with you, and you can't force them too.

I have no issue with a CoC, but why are they even necessary? Can't we just look at someone that's being an ass on a project and all agree they're being an ass and we don't want to work with them? Or if you're an individual that doesn't get along with someone, just don't work with them? It feels like people are only pushing CoCs so they, as an individual, can personally decide who to oust. Even if no one else sees an issue with the person being attacked. The CoC just puts tools on the table so the first one to accuse wins, that's kind of the opposite of a safe space. What's worse is when you look at the people proposing the CoCs THEY ARE THE ABUSERS! They're the worse people to be arguing for tools to hold people responsible for actions outside of dev projects. Hell just look up "Coraline Ada" who after pushing the CoC for the Opal project went to twitter to drum up a mob of people to attack the project to force them into accepting her CoC or "Randi Harper" (FreeBSD) who harassed Roberto Rosario out his board position with the IGDA and then proceeded to harass members of the FreeBSD community after pushing to have a CoC along with many other people. She harasses ANNE QUEEN OF VAMPIRES RICE for god's sake.

TL;DR - People on both sides, overly offensive and overly offended, are a menaces and justify then feed each others existence.

I have no obligation to apologize for made up offenses I wouldn't be responsible for even if they were true. And this response is why people down mod you so hard.

No one is responsible for internet trolls who were around looooooooong before GamerGate. You gave them a free pass no one else. You hold up some of the worst people as "victims" when they're some of the most abusive deceptive people on the internet, then dismiss anyone with relevant criticism while holding up the actions of individual trolls and blaming anyone with legitimate issues for the actions of those trolls.

Instead of allowing people to discuss actual issues with the press you forced in your own pet issues and insist everyone must talk about them or they're misogynists, then you wonder why people down mod you and act like you're not doing anything wrong.

On top of very few people actually agreeing with you on your GamerGate stance, you've sabotaged your own cause by tossing away any credibility you have on easily debunked claims and strawmen. And you still obsess over it.

A lot of people thought that the Ask Slashdot with Brianna Wu was a troll story

Give it up already. Everyone knows Wu is a con and a troll and GamerGate had legit beefs, which you did your best demonize, cover up, minimize and dismiss, but you're clearly in a minority. This is exactly what TopSpin is talking about. The issue is over, it was dealt with, but morons like you just won't let it die. GamerGate, as an controversy, continues to burn because there continues to be "opposition" that blames, literally, EVERYTHING on it. What are you even opposed to? Opposed to better standards in reporting? Opposed to doing away with clickbait? Opposed to people voicing concerns or being lied about? Opposed to people ACTUALLY pointing out trolls and their bull? Opposed to dealing with collusion and corruption?

As someone who's support dealing with the issues that caused and perpetuated GamerGate, for over a year and a half now, **I** am sick and tired of hearing about it. But now that my eyes have been opened to all the crap that was going on, and people like you that live outside reality and spread deception, misinformation and outright lies, I'm not going to let you pretend you're fighting unopposed for some just cause by promoting a damaged abusive ideology and the people that go along with it.

So let's make a deal. You stop bring lying and pretending and I'll stop correcting your bullshit lies. And that will make this a better site for everyone.

I'd give them the benefit. I use Ubuntu as well and have been looking forward to Ubuntu Phone or Ubuntu on a mobile device for awhile, two to three years at least. I'm looking forward to the day my phone can literally be everything for me. Get a docking station at home and work, use it as a phone/camera/video cam/calculator/mobile browser on the go, snap it into the docking station and have a full blown PC with a full OS I can work on.

Ideally, the docking station could be shaped like a laptop with a full keyboard and attached full size monitor so I could move from room to room or take it to meetings easily.

It's coming, I know it's coming, but it doesn't change the fact I've been having that dream for several years.

ah, balrogs! My cousin summoned one of those once. Completely melted his igloo. Poor guy. He was a couple weeks from paying it off.

isn't that illegal under current laws?

Probably, but I doubt a little thing like "the law" would prevent them from finding some work around.

Actually Netflix originated from how shitty Blockbuster was. The creator of Netflix rented movies from Blockbuster frequently, and was often charged late fees. Even after Blockbuster "did away" with late fees. I think the anecdote goes, he returned a movie and was charged a late fee. Upon complaining to the employee, the employee said, "You can always start your own video rental store", so he did.

He created Netflix, which started as a mail order rental business with no late fees. It got popular because Blockbuster was shit and was really the only major chain renting movies at the time. Once Netflix went online, along with the rising popularity of pirated movies, it was all down hill for Blockbuster.

I for one was glad to see Blockbuster die, and I'm even happier to see cable die. Netflix is doing good with their original content and has a good selection of overall (and I'm Canadian using the Canadian Netflix). The wife and I cut our cords over a year ago now. We get a lot of content from Netflix now (mostly for our 4 yr old) and use Kodi for a few cable programs Netflix doesn't have that we enjoy. Being on the East coast I got tired of paying cable fees for the three or four shows a season we watch that were always on so late it was a struggle to decide if we stay up to watch them and be exhausted the next day or go to bed early and skip watching TV. Sleeping often won and we eventually just got rid of cable since it was expensive and we didn't use it.

The problem now is our cable provider is also our internet provider (There's only two ISPs in our area) and they're just jacking up internet prices to compensate for the drop in cable subscriptions. They'll get their money one way or the other. Eventually they'll probably charge Netflix, on top of us, to deliver their content so they'll get paid on both ends as the middle man.

Same thing happened with Opal and with FreeBSD. It seems to always be the worst, most abusive people pushing for these updates.

They're using "harassment" or "politically correct" as an excuse to harass and be assholes to people they see as assholes, and aren't really considering they're far worse than anyone they're accusing. The FreeBSD thing is interesting because it's someone advocating the newly adopted CoC be used to boot Randi Harper, who hasn't contributed to the project in years, but feels fine harassing male contributors and also pushed for the CoC in the first place to control other peoples behaviour.

A lot of this is he-said-she-said BS hysteria made up by the people that didn't agree with him. Instead of engaging, discussing or debating they went right for "HE'S TRANSHOMOMISOGYNYPHOBIC!!!"

It's far to easy for a few people to level accusations that, "group XXX is a hate group because ... they just are. Stop attacking the wymons asshole, if anyone disagrees they're obviously part of that hate group, support raping women and skinning children alive and should be thrown in jail."

It's called Kafkatrapping, simply denying an accusation makes you guilty or guilty by associating with someone or defending someone else's moderate position that's been taken out of context and/or misrepresented at hysterical levels.

I would have fallen for that when this whole thing went down, now I know better. Seeing it done over and over is part of the reason I've distance myself from overly politically correct culture. There are just too many people pushing for liberal views by destroying their oppositions reputations using shaming tactics. I still have socially liberal views. I support gay marriage, social assistance, accessible health care, pro-choice and equality in general, but I don't support slandering people that don't agree with my views or how some of the tea-partiers on the left take it to an extreme.

The conversation is hard to follow because one of the participants Elia responds to deleted his tweet, but here's where it starts
https://twitter.com/elia/statu...

It was apparently a disagreement over this article
http://www.worldmag.com/2015/0...

The deleted comment was about the suicide rate for transpersons which Elia responded to as

This douche jumped in to the convo earlier putting words in people mouths

Which Elia responds

I 100% agree with you transpersons need access to treatment, but gender reassignment surgery is dangerous and I think someone should have to at least be a consenting adult before they make that decision. It's a huge decision that children shouldn't just make on a whim as it's a lifelong commitment. On top of that, the suicide rate of people that HAVE had gender reassignment doesn't look that much better to me than those that haven't had it. On the flip side, the ones that survive are more satisfied with their lives.

That said, Elia's issue was with Italian schools using some controversial teaching methods and encouraging children to have reassignment surgery, which was all done without parents knowing about it.

Which apparently made him a transphobic bigot. His opinion, IMHO, is not that hateful or off the wall.

This krainboltgreene guy though https://twitter.com/krainboltg..., I started looking at when I was trying to understand what was going on. Guy is a major asshole troll, he uses the same name and image on several platforms (G+, Twitter, GitHub) and is consonantly starting shit with people.

He shows up in the branching issue a few times to basically pick fights with anyone that's arguing against accepting the suggested CoC.

https://github.com/opal/opal/i...
https://github.com/opal/opal/i...
https://github.com/opal/opal/i...
https://github.com/opal/opal/i...
https://github.com/opal/opal/i...
https://github.com/opal/opal/i...

The conversation just continues to degrade with him. He spends a lot of time accusing people of not contributing to the Opal project, but he doesn't contribute either so I'm not sure why that should matter. One of his main projects seems to be a library that analyzes twitter conversations and determines how toxic it is https://github.com/socialkardi...

I almost think this guy is a parody account, because he fits exactly the type of person someone would say is an "SJW". White guy, acts like an asshole to other white guys, assumes anyone disagreeing with him is a white guy, obsessed with gender politics and incredibly quick to accuse people of being misogynists, transphobic and/or GamerGaters.

Quite honestly when the curfluffal kicked up, before he resigned, I laughed at it because I knew if he was donating, he was wasting his money. We all knew, even at that time, gay marriage was an eventuality. I had the mind set that the law was actually going to be a good thing because it meant someone would be able to challenge it in court. Challenging it in court would have eventually resulted in it being a precedent setting ruling. I'm Canadian, we've had gay marriage for a few years now, but my gay uncle lives in Texas, with his new husband who he's been with for over ten years. I'm pretty sure these days everyone has a friend or family member who's gay, and for most of us it was hurtful they don't / didn't have the same rights. It's a tiny minority that don't support gay marriage, and that ranges from actual bigots to people that just don't like what they see as a "corruption" of a religious word. Nuts to them in either case, but I still don't think someone should lose their job or be threatened for their opinions.

Well, with the exception of cases like Kim Davis, where she's refusing to do her job because she doesn't agree with the law. If your opinion is preventing you from complying with the law, doing your job and/or affecting how you treat customers / co-workers / employees, you should find another job. If you can separate your opinion and personal actions from your professional duties there shouldn't be any reason you can't continue to work. Even if your personal opinion is hurting other peoples feelings.

I know you saw his a him donating as an attack, but it was something everyone else laughed at. We all knew how it was going to turn out. The way he was attacked though didn't make people fighting for gay rights look good, or rather it made people more sympathetic to him, but it's likely to be as an example of "SJW" (I hate the term) behaviour going forward. There are real social issues that need to be dealt with. The people who fall into this "SJW" category hurt those causes for everyone because they act exactly like the bigots they pretend to be fighting. They shut down discussion and attack people on personal levels to make sure there is no opposing opinion or a voice, and normal people see that as hypocritical and bullying, which is why there's more and more of this "SJW" this "SJW" that. Progress doesn't happen by censoring the opposition. Debating them and demonstrating they're wrong is the only way, censoring them just means they have something relevant to say and makes people more sympathetic to what could be a very nasty cause.

Anyway, sorry, I had no intention of ranting at you.

So?

Even if he did donate, it's a moot issue. He was slandered, threatened, had his family threatened and resigned from his position because of people speculating his motives rather than knowing him and having a conversation.

We might not agree with him donating for that cause regardless of his reasons, but keep in mind, some day you might be on the receiving end of having a "wrong opinion", or at least what some nutter on the internet perceives as a "wrong opinion" and it'll be your job and your family under the spotlight. Trust me, I've already been through it, and it's unpleasant to say the least.