Re: Mailing list moderation

Tony, you have a point in the sense that a proposed Code of Conduct -- which would have been binding on posts to lists @php.net -- provoked a fiery debate (to put it mildly) and was eventually withdrawn (http://news.php.net/php.internals/90726). The dominant objections to the CoC did not focus on relatively apolitical cases like calling someone a habitual liar or implying non-augmented humans can write bug-free code. Yet the point remains that there is no doc whose letter or spirit can be debated, AFAIK. As Stas points out, having a CoC for the list would not be a free speech issue in the wider sense. But in the *absence* of such a yardstick, I do agree with you that there's nothing to justify ejecting you from the list. You obviously love using PHP and do not come here simply to bash the language (to me, that would be grounds for ejection because one would not legitimately be joining the community, in essence a spam signup). While I don't agree with your technical viewpoint in the recent flame war, perhaps you do still have the right to express it here without fear of suspension/ejection. But consider this takeaway: while you may not realize it since you're in too deep at present, the (scalar-pseudo-type-related) war you're currently in with the other fellow has devolved into silliness. Neither of you are in my killfile; more the reverse, as it's become so over-the-top that it's funny. I know, though, that you take this topic seriously -- but the way things are going are entirely comedic, with accusations of fabulism (I don't know where that's from) met by accusations of lack of coding skill (just as unlikely for a longtime Internals participant). Assuming you'd rather we take the technical aspects of the debate seriously, for that reason alone it's worth a reset and a rethink. —— S.