D mentioned on Rust discussions site

[Timon Gehr]

On 21.05.20 14:14, Joseph Rushton Wakeling wrote:
> On Wednesday, 20 May 2020 at 20:10:27 UTC, Timon Gehr wrote:
>> Personally I prefer the atmosphere of the D forums -- generally 
>> respectful and professional, but being respectful is not subordinate 
>> to being able to make technical points, passionate debate is allowed 
>> and you don't have to spend time deciphering criticism that is 
>> disguised as a compliment or wondering whether your point has been taken.
> 
> I've never seen folks on the Rust forums shy away from detailed debate 
> of technical points.
> ...

My expectation would be that technical points are ignored or deleted if 
someone feels they are are phrased the wrong way. I might be wrong, but 
currently I have no desire to post on the Rust forums as it does not 
appear to be welcoming to all perspectives.

> I do get that it's not nice to feel there are people looking over your 
> shoulder policing your tone, but in general, all the rules come down to 
> is "don't be a [TECHNICAL TERM]".  Which isn't _that_ hard, and is 
> something we all ought to aim for.
>

There is a difference between a rule being something to strive for and 
being something that makes sense to enforce formally, especially based 
on a very vague formalization that everyone agrees with (but nobody 
agrees with anyone else on what it means).

Arguably, the moderator is being a [TECHNICAL TERM]. I think it's 
ridiculous to reprimand someone for calling a change log entry a "PR 
stunt", especially if you are not even interested enough in the subject 
matter to have an opinion on whether it's true or not and therefore add 
nothing of substance to the topic at hand. I doubt that this opinion 
would be welcome on the Rust forums.

> At the end of the day we're in a lucky position, because our community 
> is smaller and closer-knit, that we can get away without much 
> moderation.

I.e., we respect each other more, therefore we don't get offended so easily.

> Rust's forum rules are an inevitable consequence of growth, 
> and to a degree some of their growth may have been made easier because 
> they pro-actively enforced standards of community behaviour from early on.

The enforcement is necessarily superficial, inconsistent, biased and 
will tend to be overzealous. Anyway, I don't claim my opinion on this is 
universal or shared by the majority. It's possible that this is a 
contributor to Rust's popularity. Maybe upvoting generic moderation 
comments feels nice to some people. (It's the comment with the largest 
number of hearts in the thread even though it is essentially without 
merit and completely off-topic.)