On Fri, Jun 3, 2011 at 20:36, Thomas Morton morton.thomas@googlemail.com wrote:
... And the answer is twofold; firstly it is an assertion of independence. But mostly it seems to be due to a lack of clear communication between projects as to what abuse has occurred that merits such strong response. We need to detail that abuse in a dispassionate and public way for all of the projects to note and understand. I doubt anyone would really support the guy were all of the detail revealed in one place.
Thomas, lack of communication wasn't really the issue. Even after the abuse was widely known, the ArbCom unblocked him. The truth is that we had an extreme empathy failure as a community for the people who were being attacked, accompanied by a bending over backwards to assume good faith of the troublemaker. This happens much less than it used to, but it does still happen. Poetlister was extremely good at exploiting that tendency. That's the long and short of it.
The one good thing that could come of it is that we recognize in future when we're doing it again, but that will only happen if we remember and discuss it, and try to heal the divisions he caused or made worse.
Sarah