On Forum Moderation

[Dan]

On Saturday, 19 October 2019 at 12:59:40 UTC, Mike Parker wrote:
>
> In my own opinion, what we should not start doing is banning 
> people simply for expressing displeasure with the language or 
> disagreement with its leadership. Yes, I understand that there 
> are a handful of people who seem to do nothing but spread 
> negativity and be contrarian. I disagree with almost everything 
> those guys post. But that *is not* a bannable offense, nor 
> should it be.
>
> I also don't want to be deleting negative posts just because 
> they're negative. Then we get into the business of deleting 
> replies that quote them, and maybe even losing some actual 
> useful signal in all the noise.
>

It was Machiavelli, I believe, who argued that one should kill 
his detractors to stay in power. I tend to agree with him. If you 
want to get shit done, naysayers in the least will erode your own 
will and you'll end up like in a paradox like Andrei Alexandrescu 
who stated on those forums in past that, and I paraphrase, "My 
dream job is the worst job I ever had".

But also, pay attention to what you label trolling and 
negativity, even if sometimes will be very hard to walk the line. 
  Because if you do not, you risk bathing every day in your own 
intellectual cesspool and that's the last thing you want. It's 
not funny being there.

Also, changing the rules of the forums in itself will do nothing 
for D language by itself.Too many times when shit hits the fan 
people change leaders, invent new rules, codes of conduct only to 
find themselves in the same precarious position as before. Cause 
changing leaders without changing  the culture of the 
organization generally results in the same old song. D needs to 
find it's culture, it's identity, both as programming language 
and organization .

D needs strong leadership, more action and less talk, if it is to 
raise to any prominence. Get shit done should be the new mantra 
of D leadership. If you want D to succeed, you need direct 
leadership, not leadership from shadows and immeasurable delays 
to DIPs and other requests to D project management. Maybe the 
leadership should also read "Extreme Ownership" by Jocko Willink 
and "The mission, the man and me" by Peter Blaber to help them 
negotiate the extremely complex dynamic of an open source project 
of this scale. Yes, books written by military man. Books on 
getting the shit done. Today, not in 2 years from now.