@FaheemMitha Regarding the whole RMS thing, I think this best sums it up. RMS said:

> We can imagine many scenarios, but the most plausible scenario is that she presented herself to him as entirely willing. Assuming she was being coerced by Epstein, he would have had every reason to tell her to conceal that from most of his associates.

But the Medium article reported it as:

> …and then he says that an enslaved child could, somehow, be “entirely willing”.

The very definition of contextomy.

please stop

@MichaelHomer This is twice you mentioned that you disliked this topic. What problem do you have with it?

Is a controversial topic important to FOSS not relevant to a *nix chat?

@MichaelHomer If you aren't willing to engage in a discussion, or aren't interested in a discussion, you can ignore it instead of interjecting because you don't like it. I can only see there being a problem if the discussion is beat to death, but that doesn't appear to be the case. So please stop interjecting yourself when someone mentions something you don't wish to discuss.

That is all.

On an unrelated and potentially less controversial note, this is great: contrachrome.com

please take it somewhere that isn't the main room of the site instead of insisting on repeatedly discussing child sexual abuse in here where anyone may come in

What? This is the first time I mentioned that topic or linked any quotes. A topic relevant to FOSS is relevant to this chat room.

I'd appreciate it if you didn't mischaracterize the situation.

@prosody-GabeVereableContext You know, I've seen you in almost every room but I've never seen you talk.

Why do you join so many rooms?

thingsquare.com/blog/articles/rand-may-call-malloc

lol IoT

@forest Yo, I remember you, we talked b4:), you might remember from chat.stackexchange.com/transcript/784?m=57204812#57204812 in Crypto room. You asked me a question, but gave me the silent treatment;), did I stun you? There are so many empty rooms, by joining lots I can at least try to be sociable. (I mean, listen/read=quiet/shy behavior. If I'm too talkative, mod judgements get mean, so some self-censorship helps I guess.) Requires eery skill to just find/remember our past chats...

@forest It seems that is the same Scott McCloud that wrote "The Sculptor". Adam Cadre, whose blog I follow, wrote an approving essay about it.

adamcadre.ac/calendar/17/17405.html

I've not read it myself. It sounds interesting, though dark.

Though I may be drawing more conclusions than are warranted from your comment. Here's Adam's review - adamcadre.ac/calendar/17/17405.html

Quote:

> Because, to me, it seemed clear that McCloud was simply observing that this is an interesting thing that humans do even though it does nothing to change our bleak circumstances.

"this" being art, of course.

I've only read about McCloud in Adam's blog.

(Sorry, I see I linked to Adam's review twice.)

@FaheemMitha you and I need longer edit times. Why "All edits under 5 min", sheesh... I want technology regulations of/for edit_time_limit. 0:) Advocacy from time.com/6164702/twitter-edit-button-elon-musk is too late, I mean why are govs/laws not just coding Specifications? (Well, I should have "Replied.." function in the chat to at that other user, instead of just @ sign, otherwise not all users can see what is replied to. Just realized, for the record, I did not edit that formally.)

@forest That is the wrong question. If someone tells you a subject makes them uncomfortable, you stop discussing that subject. The reasons why it makes the other person uncomfortable are completely irrelevant. As is the specific subject. If you're discussing tomatoes and someone asks you to stop, you stop, and you don't ask the other person to justify their dislike for tomatoes.

@forest And this is also unacceptable. Again, if someone asks you to stop, you stop. You don't tell them to not engage in a conversation. Everyone has the right to ask for a conversation to stop. Nobody has the right to insist on continuing a conversation that makes someone else uncomfortable. That's the only way to maintain a civil conversation across different cultural and personal norms.

@prosody-GabeVereableContext Hi. Did you mean to address me here? If so, I'm not sure what the context is. Though I agree that the edit times are on the short time, though I understand the rationale for them.

@terdon By your logic, anyone could stop anyone else from engaging in a conversation about anything. Including, perhaps, topics that are actually on topic here, since your "someone asks you to stop, you stop" doesn't actually specify.

If you don't take the point, perhaps I should (though I probably won't because it's insane) ask the next people who engage in an off-topic conversation here, or even an on-topic one, to stop to talking about what they are talking about "because it makes me feel uncomfortable".

@FaheemMitha Yes. Precisely.

I mean, if you really want to take it to extremes. And yes, this is a flawed system, but it's the best we've been able to come up with. So yes, if someone tells you a conversation is making them uncomfortable, you stop.

@terdon Wow. I'll like to see any Stack Exchange policy documentation for that. At all.

The most I've heard is something about "be nice". Which is itself pretty vague. But at least it's a criterion, of sorts.

@FaheemMitha Do I really need to justify common courtesy now? If someone asks you to stop discussing something that is clearly innocuous, we can deal with that then. But seeing as this was triggered by a discussion that was at least tangentially related to the broader subject of child abuse, I really don't see why an explanation would be needed.

@terdon In case it's not completely obvious, I totally disagree with this. Random people who enter the chat don't get to arbitrarily censor what people are talking about.

@terdon Child abuse? We were talking about the abuse and vilification of the founder of the Free Software Movement.

@terdon What you describe isn't common courtesy, no.

@FaheemMitha The request to stop was made when the subject veered to the specific statements RMS had made about child abuse. That seems like a text book example of the sort of subject that should immediately be dropped if someone objects. You do not know what traumas people may be carrying and how uncomfortable any such discussion could make them. And neither you, nor I, not anyone else gets to tell them they should suck it up.

@FaheemMitha Agreeing to stop discussing a subject when one of the people present asks for the subject to be changed is absolutely common courtesy.

@terdon Statements about child abuse? He was defending his friend. Did you read the same discussion I did?

@FaheemMitha Yes. Please read it again.

@terdon Except that anyone in the whole world could be present. This is basically a public forum.

@FaheemMitha Precisely.

@terdon Well, maybe you could tell me what I need to read again.

It is not "our" room versus "random people entering the chat".

It is a public forum where everyone has equal right to be here.

@terdon So a random person entering the chat could stop any conversation any time, by your logic?

@FaheemMitha The block of messages here: chat.stackexchange.com/transcript/message/60854759#60854759

@terdon OK. Stallman says nothing about child abuse. The quoted message from the Medium article does, yes. But @forest mentioned that as an example of how what Stallman wrote was distorted.

@FaheemMitha Yes. If they feel uncomfortable with the subject being discussed, and ask nicely for it to stop, we should stop. If it ever happens that the person asking is clearly being irrational, we can cross that bridge when we get to it. However, the vast majority of cases are going to be valid so as a rule of thumb: you stop when asked to stop. Just like any decent person would do when someone in the room tells them they are uncomfortable.

To quote @forest, "The very definition of contextomy."

@terdon Well, I think @MichaelHomer was being irrational. But clearly you would disagree.

@FaheemMitha That is not for either of us to judge on a subject as sensitive as this one.

But I don't think there is much point continuing this further. If I had the energy, I might bring this up in Meta, but I doubt I have the energy.

Please do.

@terdon Sigh.

@FaheemMitha Sigh or not, that's the point: I don't get to tell you that you're being irrational because I don't have the same experiences you have so subjectX does not affect me in the way it affects you. If you feel so strongly about continuing a discussion that makes someone else uncomfortable, just take it to a different room. Again, just like any half way decent human being would do in real life.

@terdon I don't feel "so strongly" about this discussion, which in any case was over when you appeared and decided to start pontificating about your ideas of courtesy. I just object to the idea what anybody could choose to derail a discussion about any topic because it make them uncomfortable. You designate "child sexual abuse", which we were clearly not talking about, as a sensitive subject.

Tell me, do you have a list of "sensitive subjects" which you should share with me and/or the room, or even the site? That way we would have some notice whether we could expect such a discussion to be abruptly shut down for no reason.

Ignoring your tone, I will just repeat that the rule is quite simple: if you are asked to stop, stop.

If you feel the request is out of line, flag.

But really, all I am saying is "don't be a jerk", don't ignore people if they tell you something makes them uncomfortable. I am surprised I need to explain this to you, this is not something that should be hard. You have always been kind and polite to others.

@FaheemMitha @FaheemMitha Oh (darn again, why did I not use the reply_arrow), that was just a reply to chat.stackexchange.com/transcript/message/60857306#60857306 ...that's why in my writing for that part, I changed to parenthesis, as you said parenthetically too, in said chat entry. I mean, you were talking about missing the duplicate entry, correct, when you wrote "(Sorry,"? I think you were apologizing for your grammar in a sense, missing the repeat links/repeat words in first proof.