“I'm basically giving myself a permanent vacation from being BDFL”

How long do you stay on the list? And doesn't this assume that every idea that person has is bad? What happens when some good ideas are caught in the net? (And what happens when someone goes off and grabs help to implement the bad idea, because you weren't there anymore to tell them again not to do it that way? Or worse, what if they come around to your point of view, but can no longer reach you?)

Wouldn't it be better to just say no, emphatically, and in a way that is clearly and unambiguously no? (I don't think it absolutely has to be a personal attack, but at least it's not passive-aggressively putting your ideas into a blackhole echo chamber...)

In the case you talk about, I think it's easy and effective to put forward one's thoughts with simple, clear language that's formal enough for the public mailing list of one of the most important open source projects on the world, in all of computing history.

We tend to think in extremes: either be "PC with sugar-coated words" or insult people for their defects in public. No, there's a middleground where one can be an effective maintainer and still possess some humane virtues. Simple: you bring me some code, I find it dumb, idiotic, or what not; I have two options: I can tell you that the code is buggy/mistaken/&c and either reject it or request improvements (remembering also nobody, including me, is born an expert, and lives without mistakes); or I can tell you that you're dumb, tell you to fuck off, to shut the fuck up, and maybe insult your family. I'd guess you'd rather want to face the first way of communication.

If a person can not communicate, they should not be a core developer of anything anyways. Teamwork is 80% communication and 20% actual technical work.

Sure, maybe egos are bruised, but nobody's contribution or community standing is actually harmed by "fuck off and die."

A person who is banned, on the other hand, has no choice but to basically "fuck off and die." You think you're making the board more polite, but actually you just told that guy overtly through a policy enforcement action that his ideas or person are so bad that the ideas are not worth reviewing anymore.

OK, I agree with you too, in principle at least, I would rather not be on the receiving end of the "fuck off and die" and I wholeheartedly agree there's a nicer way to say it. But I hope I'm being clear, that personally, I'd really have rather you just told me to fuck off and die.

The block list was your idea now, and I think I want to dwell on it, because I don't agree with the premise that there are toxic people to merit the existence of a block list.

> And then people keep wasting his time insisting on a bad idea

You said it yourself, "one of the most important open source projects in the world" – Linus is much more successful than you or I, so we can afford to be charitable with our words and our time. I'll defer to reserve judgement on Linus because right now we're still talking about how you handle people with bad ideas. I want to say my feeling that you must not do it with a block list.

The banned person is no longer able to provide any further benefit to the group. Maybe you have an actual toxic person and you find yourself in a position to ban them, ok go ahead and do it. I hope you won't misuse this authority to ban someone unfairly whose ideas are simply very bad.

But let's say you ban someone and actually misjudged, and it wasn't really the person that was toxic, just the idea; the contributor with bad personality or ideas can probably still be rehabilitated in the group! But first they must admit their mistake, or at least receive a stern admonishment.

So let's assume, charitably for Linus again, that it was actually a toxic idea that provoked the "fuck off and die." I prefer not to admit that there can be any toxic people until it's absolutely necessary. Maybe he is toxic. I am not in a position to ban, block, or kick him, (or anyone else,) from anything. So I'm not sure it could matter if I was to come to the conclusion that he was toxic personally, obviously you're free to argue that or not.

All I'm saying is that once you admit that both people and ideas can be toxic, it's very easy to make this mistake. So I'd prefer to grant that people are not toxic as a rule until it's a proven fact that simply can't be discarded.

I don't agree that we were ever talking about bad people until you introduced the notion, and the conversation does not need to be about Linus, but if it was... he is not accused of chastising bad people, he's chastising people with bad ideas. You suggested that he filter them out if they persist, and I basically equated that kind of filtering as like a ban, that I would never use as a community leader.

I'm sorry internet stranger, but I don't feel confident in (your or my) ability to effectively distinguish objectively between a contributor who is (trollish, insistent, selfish etc)... vs one who is being (persistent, uncompromising, a bit stubborn, maybe snarky once in a while, or playing devil's advocate for argumentative purposes, etc.)

Those adjectives can convey opposite subjective opinions in the same objective reality, and the side you choose to be on may depend on simply whether you like the person or not. Is it a ban-worthy offense or is it exhibiting decisive leadership qualities? Well I think that probably depends on whether or not you'd be the one laughing if I said "fuck off and die" just one more time in this thread. You're arguing in good faith but I still disagree with your conclusion.

We're arguing a hypothetical so I'm not sure either of us will convince the other of anything, but here's my piece.

Five comments ago, you suggested filtering people who annoy you with their persistent bad ideas in a professional setting, and I've done all I can to argue that it's not a strategy that will ever work for Linus, and it's not a good strategy for either me or you, you should not consider it.

"Go to HR" is the strategy for dealing with bad people in a professional setting.

If someone's ideas are bad, you should not exile them from the community for it, obviously. If you're serious about leading in a community, ask yourself if you'd be willing to "walk this person down to HR" before you consider waving around a ban hammer or filtering them out and ghosting, because that's exactly like what you're doing.

Linus is not leaving LKML, and that's another topic. You'll have to filter his mails if you find him offensive and you're on the LKML, let me know how that goes for you.

You could also try to read past the insult, and divine the point that was intended to be heard, and take it to heart.

An insult from Linus is like a blessing. He just doesn't give them to anyone. But I'm not here defending Linus.

I'm not on the LKML and most probably won't ever be. But I generally say a word or two about Torvalds' behaviour because he is a "role model" for upcoming (and current) F/OSS maintainers, and I doubt he is a good one for these growing communities to be healthy places. If he is fine, and his peers are fine, I don't actually care about them as long as they are pushing bugfixes to the kernel.