I will try to summarize why I am SO upset about this.
Kahli was suspended because he said he will continue to react when people criticize his opinions instead of just flagging the post. Ok, it is a moderators’ decision.
Since I believe the moderation is imparcial, they must warned that the people hijacking threads and criticizing the work of others must also stop or they will be suspended. Those people continue to criticize posts and hijack threads and no one was suspended…
I’ve read about Kahli’s packages with interest of the last few months as I’ve tried to keep up with what seem like very useful tools that I haven’t yet used.
That said, I feel like the moderators have been pretty impartial here.
As described by the moderator, Kahli asked for the suspension. And the moderators moderated the AI critical comments before moderating his comments in every instance.
Kahli indicated to the moderator that is exactly what he wouldn’t do and hence Kahli asked for a “ban”.
As related below,
he didn’t say we would just react, he would escalate.
This could be a general helpful moderation change; more aggressive flagging/etc for hijacking threads and more aggressive topic forking if digression is reasonable.
I am a user, not a developer, and I am a moderate and occasional consumer of Claude services. I do not believe that the schizophrenic use of AI will produce an unstoppable increase in productivity and the welfare of humanity, nor do I hypocritically proclaim that humanity would be better off without the regular use of LLMs (but use them behind closed doors). Some use them with wisdom and prudence; some abuse them. It is up to us at an individual level to make those choices, and to the collective enterprise to regulate those uses. And we have to live with this and accept it. In this forum, what is needed is common wisdom, prudence, and tolerance. That is what seems to be missing here, on all sides.
I was aware of the two main packages developed by @kahliburke (Tachikoma.jl and Kaimon.jl), but I have never used them. I did not need them. I interacted with Kahli over the last week for the first time because I raised an issue associated with his new package KaimonSlate.jl, and he replied promptly. This package is the only one that can currently render a Wasm-type document in Julia, which I desperately need in a couple of months; otherwise, I will have to look elsewhere to produce them (Python). Kahli was attentive, helpful, and supportive in every possible detail. I publicly thank him for the time and effort he put into that task, for which I did not pay him a penny.
Kahli seemed a good person (and I do not need to recall how involved he is in the Julia camp). If we are surprised by the fact that humans (he and others) sometimes react more colorfully to the social interactions we are all exposed to here, and in life in general, it is because we do not know the circumstances and constraints that we are subject to. As Ortega y Gasset marvelously put it: “Yo soy yo y mi circunstancia”.
Can we all go back to where we were before Ronan posted that offer?
Moderator asked to stop escalating, Kahli said that he will not stop if people continue with this behavior (reaction to a provocation), Kahli is suspended.
Other people criticize a lot AI use in packages, criticize authors of packages, criticize someone who earned a Claude subscription due to open source work for Julia community, hijack threads (the provocation I mentioned), moderator hides the post, people continue making this, nothing happens besides hidden posts.
Are you sure this is fair?
No, this is wrong and it is just playing with words! (the reason listed in the suspension rationale)
Kahli was suspended because he said that he will not stop escalating if people continue to be aggressive as I explained here many, many times. This means that if people stopping being aggressive, he will do nothing. The moderator said that if this continues (escalation), he will be suspended, then Kahli said then ban me.
Saying that Kahli just asked to be banned is wrong.
Don’t you think this is playground behavior?
There are more mature responses to harassment than “escalating”… like, flagging the comments for moderation.
Do you think saying to someone to slow down its open source development just because he uses a tool you do not like, in a thread he is advertising the project, is the correct behavior? What about saying nothing and just moving to the next thread?
Do you think saying to someone that earned a Claude subscription that I just made a pact with the devil is a good behavior? What about saying nothing and just moving to the next thread?
This is not complicated and is easily fixed. Kahli is suspended because when I asked him to flag comments instead of escalating, he said “No” and “Please, ban me” instead.
Follow our community standards. Don’t tell me you’ll break them. I’d happily lift the suspension if he reaches out to me or any other moderator.
In any case, we’re done re-litigating this here.