Hi Steve, hi Simon, hi.

Steve Litt - 04.07.24, 08:27:46 CEST:
> Simon Walter said on Wed, 3 Jul 2024 22:47:51 +0200
>
> >https://lunduke.locals.com/post/5819317/nixos-commits-a-purge-of-nazi-c
> >ontributors-forces-abdication-of-founder
> >
> >https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KsDYul3J3Dc&t=1069
>
> I did web searches on nixos+nazi, nixos+trans, and nixos+purge. Except
> for the writings of this Lunduke guy, all I found was that Nixos
> created a new purge command for their package manager,

Thanks.

I just read the article but did not watch the video. I am not interested
in trying out NixOS currently. Should have researched the credibility
myself before commenting it seems. There is some boards.4chan.org thread
referring to the Lunduke stuff, but as far as I looked no evidence there
either.

Regarding posts allegedly having been deleted, one could try archive.org.

However I did follow a link to Mastodon posts from the Lunduke article
and those posts are actually there as shown in the screenshots:

https://chaos.social/@hexa/112661968657636449

Also some other sources appear to be legit, like:

https://github.com/NixOS/moderation/blob/a872fae1e6dc35b5005e65373e0bbb33a4849568/moderation-log.md?plain=1#L1-L35

Which for example links to:

https://discourse.nixos.org/t/why-was-jon-ringer-banned-from-github/44114/23

And in there the is mentioned the thread regarding providing one seat
for gender-minority group:

https://discourse.nixos.org/t/objection-to-minority-representation-by-a-single-class-in-nixos-sponsorship-policy/42968

Did none of this appear in your search results? None of this appeared at
least one the first page of my search results either. But that does not
mean much. It has been proven, repeatedly, that most search engines or
likely even (almost) all search engines are biased. Also "nazi" and "purge"
are quite strong words which may not have been used in all of those
sources.

> Unless he can produce irrefutable evidence, this guy Lunduke is the one
> who should be purged, for telling big whopper lies.

I think it is important to be careful before demanding to purge someone.
And actually from NixOS community Bryan Lunduke has been purged already:

https://github.com/NixOS/moderation/commit/6a01786c54c52f4747bde337994e4692750235c1

Whether that is justified or rather silencing a critic… I bet I need do to
more research for a clear assessment. But at least some purging has
happened in NixOS, so far Bryan's assessment is correct. And the
Discourse posts above mentions gender related issues. I feel a bit
reminded of the case with Norbert Preining. Debian Account Managers
removed canceled his developer status and removed his developer account.
Based on my research I had enough information to at least question this
decision. I had private mail contact with Norbert and really thought he
is a nice chap. And the allegedly offending posts really did not look all
that bad to me.

Given that sources Lunduke mentions actually exist and do contain what he
made a screenshot of, I'd also be careful about accusing him to lie.

Whether Lunduke's interpretation of all of this is correct… I don't know. And
I bet I can easily spend a day researching all of this and probably still
don't know for sure. However… evidence for purging *is* there.

I have been initially jumping to a – preliminary – conclusion too quickly,
at least without doing any research myself. It is all to easy to do when
a topic is emotionally heated. But my observation is that your post,
Steve, was mainly guided by strong emotions as well. You did some
research, however it apparently did not include actually following the
links from the article.

I first thought I would be agreeing with your assessment, Steve, again
jumping to a conclusion too quickly. But now I took some time to actually
review the links Lunduke has given. And I agree with him in so far that
the moderation team of NixOS did purge some people from the community.
I even go as far to say that I do have question marks about the reasoning
behind this. It reminds me too much of that similar story in Debian
community. And my preliminary gut feeling about this is: The reasons
given may not justify any purging.

Concluding this: for me it is important to have a free community here. And
so far I have the feeling we have. So I agree with others… no need to
discuss this any further here. Anyway it was important for me to take the
time to really do some research instead of ping-ponging from one extreme
viewpoint to another regarding the topic Simon brought up.

Best,
--
Martin