Kicking a genius out of p5p and off blogs.perl.org for technical criticism of other people's work is shameful and deeply offends my understanding of freedom of speech.

That's not what happened.

We would be better off if p5p was a ferocious sharktank of adult concepts rather than a kindergarten of childish hurt feelings.

I don't understand this hypothetical, because that's not what happened.

I don't know enough to take a side

But you did.

Let's go through a handful of Reini's claims. For example, from Overview of Current Maintainer Fails:

p5p refuses to take bug and security reports

That's nonsense. Easily refuted.

the toolchain is typically the gathering place for all the important people too incompetent to do core

That's an attack, backed up by... what exactly?

I've looked over all my >100 distroprefs patches, and in the end problems are only with ether and schmorp. schmorp at least knows what he is doing and eventually comes up with fixes by himself.

This is inconsistent with the previous approach, but clearly an attack on Karen. It's also backed up by... nothing.

The maintainer doesn't have an idea how compile-time vs run-time works

Same.

It's pretty hard to have faith in someone who decides 90% on the wrong side and only by luck sometimes makes a right decision.

Clearly an attack.

the p5p principles of ruling by incompetence, power and abuse are not tolerated

Same.

I could go on.

maybe some snowflakes need to stop melting when light hits them

I think it's more likely that volunteers don't want to take abuse from someone who refuses to communicate with anything other than abuse. There are only so many patches I'm likely to review if every comment is answered with "you're too stupid and incompetent to ask questions, just merge the patch or you're deliberately destroying something".

But what do I know, I'm only (as you say) far better informed on these matters.

I could go on.

Of course you could; but what for?

IMHO the best attitude ist to filter out abuse by keeping in mind that they are talking to their own anger, and keep the bits that matter.

I think it's more likely that volunteers don't want to take abuse from someone who refuses to communicate with anything other than abuse.

Granted, but even somebody with Tourette syndrome might have something useful to say. As the linked article tells, it doesn't adversely affect intelligence.

edit: I'm not saying nor believing anybody has tourette or any other disorder; I'm not skilled to diagnose nor could I do anything about it, if that where the case. Talking only about my attitude wrt abusive remarks.

perl -le'print map{pack c,($-++?1:13)+ord}split//,ESEL'

IMHO the best attitude ist to filter out abuse by keeping in mind that they are talking to their own anger, and keep the bits that matter.

p5p's goal isn't to build the finest, most technically excellent, most advanced piece of software at any point in time.

p5p's goal is to build something that lasts.

A handful of features have been delayed or backed out before being released in stable form or even removed because they threatened the stability of the language, the integrity of the CPAN, or the stability of enough code in the wild that they presented an untenable risk to the future of Perl.

Technically good patches have been rejected because they don't have sufficient documentation or tests or comments such that they risk maintenance problems for the future of the codebase.

In much the same way, allowing abuse and vitriol that is completely unnecessary and completely optional and completely controllable threatens the integrity of the project itself. Multiple contributors have walked away from p5p for short and long periods of time because of abuse from Reini and Marc.

p5p is optimizing for something that lasts, and requiring contributors to avoid personal attacks is part of that process.

Why charcterize criticism as an "attack"? Naming and shaming subjects of criticism is a venerable intellectual tradition. An attack implies something quite violent, or unreasonable, but these are merely critiques. He's like the Yelp of p5p.

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the toolchain is typically the gathering place for all the important people too incompetent to do core

That's an attack, backed up by... what exactly?

That's an attack? It sounds like truth to me. When I first read that statement it was like looking in a mirror, because I would definitely be gathering on the toolchain with my fellow incompetents wrt the core.

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p5p refuses to take bug and security reports
That's nonsense. Easily refuted.

But that's not the only fork of Perl done for the same reasons:

"Here it finally is, stableperl, an attempt to restore perl stability and compatibility to the level mentioned in the official perl policy."

"It is also an attempt to fix some of the more obvious bugs that affect many programs and which the perl 5 porters refuse to fix, foremost hash performance and data corruption during global destruction."

"Lastly, and most theoretically, it is a safeguard against perl 5 porters breaking perl 5 to the point where it is no longer usable - when or if that happens, stableperl can be use to achieve independence."

blog.schmorp.de/2015-06-06-a-stable-perl.html

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I think it's more likely that volunteers don't want to take abuse from someone who refuses to communicate with anything other than abuse. There are only so many patches I'm likely to review if every comment is answered with "you're too stupid and incompetent to ask questions, just merge the patch or you're deliberately destroying something".

If that was indeed the case then we're on the same page. I just find it odd that "the bad guys" who left p5p to fork Perl are fixing bugs and innovating far beyond what p5p offers, if their critique is completely untrue. I curse p5p every time I have to fix something they broke, and Larry's own son had to roll his own too: github.com/quietfanatic/notebook/blob/master/lib/cgi.pm

Thank you for taking the time to fill in some of the blanks.

Why charcterize criticism as an "attack"? Naming and shaming subjects of criticism is a venerable intellectual tradition. An attack implies something quite violent, or unreasonable, but these are merely critiques.

Wrong.

if their critique is completely untrue

That's not what I wrote.

The lesson I learned in many years of participation in various fields of "voluntary work" is that it's often not the quality of the minds, nor their good intention, nor the amount of sacrifice they are willing to make which determines the outcome of group dynamics.

Sometimes the system is just broken.

Just compare how Chromatic is nowadays spreading much vitriol on Perl 6 personal, after being one of their poster boys.

Nevertheless I'm trying to judge his posts here on a technical level. I'm assuming that he is somehow desperate about how the system failed.

So maybe we should try judging cPerl without going ad hominem?

Chromatic is nowadays spreading much vitriol on Perl 6 personal

Who am I personally attacking? Give me a link and I'll redact and retract any and all personal attacks.

From my recent memory, for instance this thread

Re^8: The Future of Perl 5

the discussion was getting constantly more bitter with accusations of "smearing" each other.

You will probably reply your posts were not "personal", but I still see parallels.

Cheers Rolf
_{(addicted to the Perl Programming Language :)
Wikisyntax for the Monastery FootballPerl is like chess, only without the dice}

update

to avoid misunderstandings:

• google says "vitriol" means "bitter criticism"
• wiktionary says "Bitterly abusive language"

I didn't intend to say you are abusive.