Useful Lessons for any Community

Much has been said about the recent events in the Tor camp and I don’t think its relevant or useful to discuss specific individuals. Opinions about this topic have no place here. However there is much to be learned from them and they serve as warnings for any community.

It is every member’s duty to call out and confront people who are hostile to others and shun them if they refuse to improve their ways. Abusive and anti-social behavior might stem from personal inferiority-complexes or have more sinister motives like informants sent to sow discord. You can turn a blind eye now, but like a wound left to fester, it can become septic and much harder to contain later on. Open communities live or die based on how inclusive they are to newcomers and participants. We must create a friendly atmosphere conducive to cooperation and encouragement for everyone.

Do not mythicize or deify members no matter how skilled they appear to be. They are humans just like you - united by the same goals and ideals but not inherently any more special. We all play a part in this no matter the differences in our technical ability. Inflating egos will inevitably corrupt a person even if they were not proud to begin with. For the ego-maniacal types its just an invitation for more trouble. There are some who resist tyranny because they want to end oppression and others who fight it only because they seek the tyrant’s throne. Hierarchies have no place here and we should not enable nor encourage them.

(I have disabled comments because I don’t want to encourage the shit vortex to reach our project. If you feel you must comment about what happened, please direct yourself to tor-talk where there are plenty of sock-puppets, markov bots and trolls)

/Over and Out

1 Like