There's a lot of shit flying in the #Fediverse lately and a lot of times perspective seems to get lost. Yes, there are things we need to talk about, and yes there are things we will not agree on. And that's okay.
But leave the pitchforks and torches out of this.
Fedi admins put in the hours and effort and emotion into making fedi happen. Sometimes they make decisions we might not agree with. We should criticize, but we should not pile-on.
I feel embarrassed and bad about my role in this latest kerfuffle. A question was asked, I responded strongly as I often do, and that got its own life.
I am disappointed in myself (because I should have been more careful with words, with the platform I have around here), but also in fedi (because we all should know to be excellent to each other).
No, nobody is trying to "sell out" fedi. Nobody is being "paid off" by some corpo. There is no need for digging trenches and laying barbed wire.
There is a need for a longer conversation about the stuff that the kerfuffle relates to.
But it has to be a conversation, not a shouting match. People are throwing accusations and making conjectures that have nothing to do with reality!
And we need to be able to have this conversation without pushing out people most engaged in maintaining the infrastructure we use to have this conversation.
There is a way to do all that, but for that we need to take a step back, and take a deep breath.
And to make this abundantly clear… regardless of how much you disagree with a person and how much you feel their decisions might be wrong:
👉 harassment is harassment, and is unacceptable
👉 calling for harm is calling for harm, and is unacceptable
👉 pile-ons are pile-ons, and are unacceptable
People who engage in that sort of thing are like locusts. They join a community, destroy it, and move on.
If you care about fedi, push back against that, even if it targets someone you disagree with.
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