I am certain that I don't speak for you, not directly. You speak for yourself quite clearly. I speak as best I can for the community in aggregate. The consensus, which is no individual.

The place where I might speak for you is in rejecting demands that your opinions be ignored in deciding on what the community consensus is. There is nothing about what you say that should make that true. You represent an individual solidly in the mainstream of the Perl community, and your ideas need to be integrated into what is called "consensus". Sometimes, that consensus will not agree with your opinions even if those opinions are part of how it is arrived at.

The project of articulating a consensus is fraught with difficulties. It is, nonetheless, important from the larger perspective. I don't enjoy appearing to be an intruder, and I don't enjoy being accused of acting from ulterior motives. I am not here to speak for you. I am here to speak for the overlapping communities of which PerlMonks is a highly visible and important member.

If it was possible to do something simple like take a survey, or hold a vote to determine the consensus of the community on civility in discourse, I would be overjoyed and immediately set out to do it. Unfortunately, that is untenable. Consensus is a complex thing not amenable to something so binary as yes or no voting.

I am fully aware that PerlMonks, as a community will do as it sees best. My goal here is to provide a voice for people who don't normally speak or aren't here, directly, yet are still affected by what happens here. Even if I could change the rules here by fiat, I wouldn't see any value in doing that. It wouldn't change anything important, just appearance, and even that wouldn't last.

Please consider my appeal here sincere, because it is. I don't think I know better than people here, I think I might have some more information about things outside the community, and I know I have a different viewpoint than has been generally expressed.

In reply to Re^4: Additions to the FAQ and a Community Statement by Ya'akov
in thread Additions to the FAQ and a Community Statement by Co-Rion

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