Dear @Codeberg,
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@dpk @aral I can't read his mind, but it seems apparent he's pointing out that you're not above using social media to publicly criticize an association where you're a member, which is what you apparently emailed him to tell him he should have known better than to do, and to threaten his membership on that basis?
@ryanprior @aral There are good reasons we don’t discuss moderation in public, and why the moderation team is anonymous, which should be obvious to anyone who thinks about it for two seconds
(and who maybe takes this whole saga here as an example)
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@dpk @Codeberg I claimed no such thing. I thanked you for making the right decision so people were updated on the outcome.
On the issue of public shaming (which this wasn’t, it was a public call for accountability and raising awareness of someone who is actively harming genocide victims), this you?
Have you received an email from the Scheme steering committee yet?
So I guess in my defence I was trying to protect genocide victims, not my own chair.
Maybe we should take a class together in whatever it is we apparently need to learn.
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RE: https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/117036096486689894
Dear @Codeberg,
According to the anonymous Linux-Is-Best account, I am a scammer and Gaza Verified (https://gaza-verified.org), which I made and help run, is a scam, and every person from Gaza we verified using video calls – all 303 of them, by last count¹ – is also a scammer.
(Please see: https://codeberg.org/Codeberg/Community/issues/2971)
This presents a problem because I am also a part of the Codeberg organisation as an active member with voting rights.
And the Gaza Verified source code is hosted on Codeberg:
https://codeberg.org/small-web/gaza-verified.org(We’re clearly a very transparent scam operation that believes in FOSS, etc.)
So, if Linux-Is-Best is right, you are harbouring a known scammer in your organisation. Furthermore, by allowing the source code of the scam on your site, you could be held liable if you know of the scam but do nothing about it.
So, please:
1. Either remove me as an active member (and give me notice so I can cancel my direct debit and have time to migrate my account and projects elsewhere), or
2. Take down the libellous claims by this anonymous troll who is causing real harm to people facing genocide in Gaza (and who is thus, himself, complicit in genocide).
So I’m either a scammer and I should not be allowed to be part of the Codeberg organisation or the anonymous Linux-Is-Best is a libellous, genocide-complicit troll and should not be welcome at Codeberg. Because both of these cannot be true at the same time.
I’ll leave it to you to decide who you would rather want associated with Codeberg.
It shouldn’t be a very difficult decision to make.
¹ https://gaza-verified.org/people/
#Gaza #GazaVerified #genocide #libel #LinuxIsBest #fediverse #mastodon #Codeberg
@aral I am trying and struggling to understand why things were escalated so intensely and quickly here.
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@aral I am trying and struggling to understand why things were escalated so intensely and quickly here.
@joepie91 An ongoing genocide.
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@joepie91 An ongoing genocide.
@aral well, that would be part of the 'struggling to understand'. I am well aware of the ongoing genocide. it is not clear to me how or why this leads to seemingly immediate escalation of what looks like a trivial moderation issue.
like, surely you understand as well as I do that demanding of arbitrary people (not involved with said genocide) that they immediately drop everything and put *this specific issue* (which is not part of their core competency) at the top of their priority stack at a moment's notice, is not a sustainable way to organize or campaign in the long term?
pressure should absolutely be put on not just those who perpetuate said genocide but also those who choose to (passively or actively) support it. but making such demands of people who have taken no position, while leaving no room for them to figure things out, just makes enemies of allies -
@ryanprior @aral There are good reasons we don’t discuss moderation in public, and why the moderation team is anonymous, which should be obvious to anyone who thinks about it for two seconds
(and who maybe takes this whole saga here as an example)
@dpk @aral I dunno what your history with social media is like but we've discussed moderation in public from the beginning, which we inherited from blogging, (it used to be called "microblogging!") where moderation was also discussed in public, extensively. People entrusted with non public information related to moderation shouldn't breach that trust, so it's a good thing nothing like that is going on in this thread.
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RE: https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/117036096486689894
Dear @Codeberg,
According to the anonymous Linux-Is-Best account, I am a scammer and Gaza Verified (https://gaza-verified.org), which I made and help run, is a scam, and every person from Gaza we verified using video calls – all 303 of them, by last count¹ – is also a scammer.
(Please see: https://codeberg.org/Codeberg/Community/issues/2971)
This presents a problem because I am also a part of the Codeberg organisation as an active member with voting rights.
And the Gaza Verified source code is hosted on Codeberg:
https://codeberg.org/small-web/gaza-verified.org(We’re clearly a very transparent scam operation that believes in FOSS, etc.)
So, if Linux-Is-Best is right, you are harbouring a known scammer in your organisation. Furthermore, by allowing the source code of the scam on your site, you could be held liable if you know of the scam but do nothing about it.
So, please:
1. Either remove me as an active member (and give me notice so I can cancel my direct debit and have time to migrate my account and projects elsewhere), or
2. Take down the libellous claims by this anonymous troll who is causing real harm to people facing genocide in Gaza (and who is thus, himself, complicit in genocide).
So I’m either a scammer and I should not be allowed to be part of the Codeberg organisation or the anonymous Linux-Is-Best is a libellous, genocide-complicit troll and should not be welcome at Codeberg. Because both of these cannot be true at the same time.
I’ll leave it to you to decide who you would rather want associated with Codeberg.
It shouldn’t be a very difficult decision to make.
¹ https://gaza-verified.org/people/
#Gaza #GazaVerified #genocide #libel #LinuxIsBest #fediverse #mastodon #Codeberg
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RE: https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/117036096486689894
Dear @Codeberg,
According to the anonymous Linux-Is-Best account, I am a scammer and Gaza Verified (https://gaza-verified.org), which I made and help run, is a scam, and every person from Gaza we verified using video calls – all 303 of them, by last count¹ – is also a scammer.
(Please see: https://codeberg.org/Codeberg/Community/issues/2971)
This presents a problem because I am also a part of the Codeberg organisation as an active member with voting rights.
And the Gaza Verified source code is hosted on Codeberg:
https://codeberg.org/small-web/gaza-verified.org(We’re clearly a very transparent scam operation that believes in FOSS, etc.)
So, if Linux-Is-Best is right, you are harbouring a known scammer in your organisation. Furthermore, by allowing the source code of the scam on your site, you could be held liable if you know of the scam but do nothing about it.
So, please:
1. Either remove me as an active member (and give me notice so I can cancel my direct debit and have time to migrate my account and projects elsewhere), or
2. Take down the libellous claims by this anonymous troll who is causing real harm to people facing genocide in Gaza (and who is thus, himself, complicit in genocide).
So I’m either a scammer and I should not be allowed to be part of the Codeberg organisation or the anonymous Linux-Is-Best is a libellous, genocide-complicit troll and should not be welcome at Codeberg. Because both of these cannot be true at the same time.
I’ll leave it to you to decide who you would rather want associated with Codeberg.
It shouldn’t be a very difficult decision to make.
¹ https://gaza-verified.org/people/
#Gaza #GazaVerified #genocide #libel #LinuxIsBest #fediverse #mastodon #Codeberg
-
@aral well, that would be part of the 'struggling to understand'. I am well aware of the ongoing genocide. it is not clear to me how or why this leads to seemingly immediate escalation of what looks like a trivial moderation issue.
like, surely you understand as well as I do that demanding of arbitrary people (not involved with said genocide) that they immediately drop everything and put *this specific issue* (which is not part of their core competency) at the top of their priority stack at a moment's notice, is not a sustainable way to organize or campaign in the long term?
pressure should absolutely be put on not just those who perpetuate said genocide but also those who choose to (passively or actively) support it. but making such demands of people who have taken no position, while leaving no room for them to figure things out, just makes enemies of allies@joepie91 Their initial response was to close the issue that was opened and scold those opening it for not following the proper channels.
If I told you that someone was harming hundreds of genocide victims right at this very moment, would that be your reaction?
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@joepie91 Their initial response was to close the issue that was opened and scold those opening it for not following the proper channels.
If I told you that someone was harming hundreds of genocide victims right at this very moment, would that be your reaction?
@aral *I, personally* wouldn't, no, because I have community management experience and experience with moderation work. but the risk of reporting an issue in the wrong place is that it ends up with someone who *doesn't* have that background and so makes a different choice based on what they know.
which is very likely why that issue was closed in the way that it was; the rationale being "I am not a moderator and I am not prepared to deal with this situation, you need to talk to someone who is, and that's what the report button is for". and so *of course* that response is going to be suboptimal; because *this is not their beat*.
the original poster also posted a new issue (incidentally *before* you made your post), which seems to clarify what actually happened here, namely that there was a documentation inaccuracy: https://codeberg.org/Codeberg/Community/issues/2973
so the situation we end up in is that someone reported the issue to someone who is not prepared to deal with that, due to a genuine wording problem in the docs, and they were told to take it to the people who *do* know what to do with that.
and that small bit of human error and misunderstanding then resulted in you escalating the matter into a call-out post here. do you see how that is not a productive way to go about this, and how this should have just been sorted out privately instead? -
@Codeberg I just received this email, titled “Your recent Mastodon post” from @dpk on behalf of the Codeberg “Presidium”:
***
Dear Aral BalkanIn your Mastodon post at <https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/117041803584140945> you publically criticized a repository that was hosted on Codeberg, despite linking to an issue thread in which it was made clear that the content should be reported through our usual internal channels for moderation. The repository in question was reviewed by the moderation team and removed. We understand that you suffered reputational damage as a result of this repository’s content, but this does not justify damaging the reputation of Codeberg e.V. in turn. The moderation team is still a volunteer operation and sometimes it takes a few hours for someone to be available to deal with reports or to ensure that consensus exists.
We therefore warn you not to make posts of this kind that could damage the association’s reputation in future. Acting against the interests of the association can be grounds for exclusion from the membership (§5 (5) of the by-laws). If you have issues with content posted on our site in future, please report it to our moderation team at abuse@codeberg.org. In general, reports sent to that email address will usually receive a reply describing what action was taken once the moderation team has considered how to deal with the reported content.
Kind regards
Presidium
***So, I have a problem with this.
My post in no way damaged the reputation of Codeberg. It publicly asked them to do something about it and to state, publicly, where they stand on an issue. An issue, may I add, that has to do with real people facing actual genocide as we speak. Not to mention I thanked them for making the right decision (https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/117043586669877395). If anything, until this email, it made the organisation look better. Unless, of course, opposing certain genocides is something that damages reputations in Germany.
I do not agree with the public issue being closed either. An issue was reported and the response was not “oh, this is serious, we’ll look into it”. It was, rather, “you reported it wrong. Report the same thing at this other place instead.”
And that other place is an entirely opaque internal system where no one gets to see what decision-making process is employed.
This is not the transparency that should exist in a member-run organisation.
So at the end of the day, I am the one being threatened with being removed from membership while the person who is actively trying to harm genocide victims (https://codeberg.org/Linux-Is-Best/) is still welcome on Codeberg?
This is a very insidious form of bothsidesism and, I can only imagine, is to ensure that I keep quiet in the future and to create a chilling effect where we cannot discuss certain things publicly for fear of reprisals.
Well, that won’t be happening.
I am sick and tired of people who cannot provide a proportional response when we asked to choose between people harming genocide victims on the one hand and those trying to protect them on the other.
If this means I cannot be a member of Codeberg, so be it.
Let me know if I’m not welcome there and I will leave.
And you can show the world that Linux-Is-Best is welcome and I am not. If that’s who you are.
#codeberg #israel #germany #zionism #genocide #ethnicCleansing #apartheid #settlerColonialism #fediverse #mastodon #transparency #ethics #morals
@aral Hello @Codeberg @dpk, I agree with Aral that his comments and your actions until the last email only improved your reputation rather than damage your reputation.
Some Zionist had uploaded some zionist libel to your service. We completely understand that you did not immediately notice that or take action, being a volunteer-run team that also takes weekends off. The opposite would mean you have some surveillance mechanism in place. We don't want mass surveillance either. So no damage was done by Aral's comments.
Then you did the right thing and Aral even publicly highlighted that Codeberg is a forge that does the right things: removing zionists, and also LLM-slop.
Your reputation only improved in my view.
Until you threatened Aral. That was not cool. If anything harmed your reputation, it was that.
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@Hanadi95 Hello Hanadi, I understand that you're desperate and that your life is difficult. But many donors who are able to donate will go to https://gaza-verified.org/donate/ to ensure a fair distribution of donations. And people who are unable or unwillig to donate will unfortunately only feel annoyed by your comments. They will block or report you, which will limit your reach. In order to not decrease your own reach, it's in your own best interest to not insert yourself into unrelated discussions to ask for help. Again, I understand that you're desperate and need help, but there are better ways to achieve that, which don't silence your voice. Much love and solidarity for you.
️🫂
-
@Codeberg I just received this email, titled “Your recent Mastodon post” from @dpk on behalf of the Codeberg “Presidium”:
***
Dear Aral BalkanIn your Mastodon post at <https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/117041803584140945> you publically criticized a repository that was hosted on Codeberg, despite linking to an issue thread in which it was made clear that the content should be reported through our usual internal channels for moderation. The repository in question was reviewed by the moderation team and removed. We understand that you suffered reputational damage as a result of this repository’s content, but this does not justify damaging the reputation of Codeberg e.V. in turn. The moderation team is still a volunteer operation and sometimes it takes a few hours for someone to be available to deal with reports or to ensure that consensus exists.
We therefore warn you not to make posts of this kind that could damage the association’s reputation in future. Acting against the interests of the association can be grounds for exclusion from the membership (§5 (5) of the by-laws). If you have issues with content posted on our site in future, please report it to our moderation team at abuse@codeberg.org. In general, reports sent to that email address will usually receive a reply describing what action was taken once the moderation team has considered how to deal with the reported content.
Kind regards
Presidium
***So, I have a problem with this.
My post in no way damaged the reputation of Codeberg. It publicly asked them to do something about it and to state, publicly, where they stand on an issue. An issue, may I add, that has to do with real people facing actual genocide as we speak. Not to mention I thanked them for making the right decision (https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/117043586669877395). If anything, until this email, it made the organisation look better. Unless, of course, opposing certain genocides is something that damages reputations in Germany.
I do not agree with the public issue being closed either. An issue was reported and the response was not “oh, this is serious, we’ll look into it”. It was, rather, “you reported it wrong. Report the same thing at this other place instead.”
And that other place is an entirely opaque internal system where no one gets to see what decision-making process is employed.
This is not the transparency that should exist in a member-run organisation.
So at the end of the day, I am the one being threatened with being removed from membership while the person who is actively trying to harm genocide victims (https://codeberg.org/Linux-Is-Best/) is still welcome on Codeberg?
This is a very insidious form of bothsidesism and, I can only imagine, is to ensure that I keep quiet in the future and to create a chilling effect where we cannot discuss certain things publicly for fear of reprisals.
Well, that won’t be happening.
I am sick and tired of people who cannot provide a proportional response when we asked to choose between people harming genocide victims on the one hand and those trying to protect them on the other.
If this means I cannot be a member of Codeberg, so be it.
Let me know if I’m not welcome there and I will leave.
And you can show the world that Linux-Is-Best is welcome and I am not. If that’s who you are.
#codeberg #israel #germany #zionism #genocide #ethnicCleansing #apartheid #settlerColonialism #fediverse #mastodon #transparency #ethics #morals
@aral @Codeberg @dpk
Please, I don't know how to verify my account. I'm from Gaza and I want you to promote and share my account. https://chuffed.org/project/178300-esraa-in-gaza -
@Codeberg I just received this email, titled “Your recent Mastodon post” from @dpk on behalf of the Codeberg “Presidium”:
***
Dear Aral BalkanIn your Mastodon post at <https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/117041803584140945> you publically criticized a repository that was hosted on Codeberg, despite linking to an issue thread in which it was made clear that the content should be reported through our usual internal channels for moderation. The repository in question was reviewed by the moderation team and removed. We understand that you suffered reputational damage as a result of this repository’s content, but this does not justify damaging the reputation of Codeberg e.V. in turn. The moderation team is still a volunteer operation and sometimes it takes a few hours for someone to be available to deal with reports or to ensure that consensus exists.
We therefore warn you not to make posts of this kind that could damage the association’s reputation in future. Acting against the interests of the association can be grounds for exclusion from the membership (§5 (5) of the by-laws). If you have issues with content posted on our site in future, please report it to our moderation team at abuse@codeberg.org. In general, reports sent to that email address will usually receive a reply describing what action was taken once the moderation team has considered how to deal with the reported content.
Kind regards
Presidium
***So, I have a problem with this.
My post in no way damaged the reputation of Codeberg. It publicly asked them to do something about it and to state, publicly, where they stand on an issue. An issue, may I add, that has to do with real people facing actual genocide as we speak. Not to mention I thanked them for making the right decision (https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/117043586669877395). If anything, until this email, it made the organisation look better. Unless, of course, opposing certain genocides is something that damages reputations in Germany.
I do not agree with the public issue being closed either. An issue was reported and the response was not “oh, this is serious, we’ll look into it”. It was, rather, “you reported it wrong. Report the same thing at this other place instead.”
And that other place is an entirely opaque internal system where no one gets to see what decision-making process is employed.
This is not the transparency that should exist in a member-run organisation.
So at the end of the day, I am the one being threatened with being removed from membership while the person who is actively trying to harm genocide victims (https://codeberg.org/Linux-Is-Best/) is still welcome on Codeberg?
This is a very insidious form of bothsidesism and, I can only imagine, is to ensure that I keep quiet in the future and to create a chilling effect where we cannot discuss certain things publicly for fear of reprisals.
Well, that won’t be happening.
I am sick and tired of people who cannot provide a proportional response when we asked to choose between people harming genocide victims on the one hand and those trying to protect them on the other.
If this means I cannot be a member of Codeberg, so be it.
Let me know if I’m not welcome there and I will leave.
And you can show the world that Linux-Is-Best is welcome and I am not. If that’s who you are.
#codeberg #israel #germany #zionism #genocide #ethnicCleansing #apartheid #settlerColonialism #fediverse #mastodon #transparency #ethics #morals
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RE: https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/117036096486689894
Dear @Codeberg,
According to the anonymous Linux-Is-Best account, I am a scammer and Gaza Verified (https://gaza-verified.org), which I made and help run, is a scam, and every person from Gaza we verified using video calls – all 303 of them, by last count¹ – is also a scammer.
(Please see: https://codeberg.org/Codeberg/Community/issues/2971)
This presents a problem because I am also a part of the Codeberg organisation as an active member with voting rights.
And the Gaza Verified source code is hosted on Codeberg:
https://codeberg.org/small-web/gaza-verified.org(We’re clearly a very transparent scam operation that believes in FOSS, etc.)
So, if Linux-Is-Best is right, you are harbouring a known scammer in your organisation. Furthermore, by allowing the source code of the scam on your site, you could be held liable if you know of the scam but do nothing about it.
So, please:
1. Either remove me as an active member (and give me notice so I can cancel my direct debit and have time to migrate my account and projects elsewhere), or
2. Take down the libellous claims by this anonymous troll who is causing real harm to people facing genocide in Gaza (and who is thus, himself, complicit in genocide).
So I’m either a scammer and I should not be allowed to be part of the Codeberg organisation or the anonymous Linux-Is-Best is a libellous, genocide-complicit troll and should not be welcome at Codeberg. Because both of these cannot be true at the same time.
I’ll leave it to you to decide who you would rather want associated with Codeberg.
It shouldn’t be a very difficult decision to make.
¹ https://gaza-verified.org/people/
#Gaza #GazaVerified #genocide #libel #LinuxIsBest #fediverse #mastodon #Codeberg
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@aral @Codeberg @dpk
Please, I don't know how to verify my account. I'm from Gaza and I want you to promote and share my account. https://chuffed.org/project/178300-esraa-in-gaza@esraatar Please go to https://gaza-verified.org/join/
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@Malak1999 Hello Malak, I understand that you're desperate and that your life is difficult. But many donors who are able to donate will go to https://gaza-verified.org/donate/ to ensure a fair distribution of donations. And people who are unable or unwillig to donate will unfortunately only feel annoyed by your comments. They will block or report you, which will limit your reach. In order to not decrease your own reach, it's in your own best interest to not insert yourself into unrelated discussions to ask for help. Again, I understand that you're desperate and need help, but there are better ways to achieve that, which don't silence your voice. Much love and solidarity for you.
️🫂 -
@linamahmoud Hello Lina, I understand that you're desperate and that your life is difficult. But many donors who are able to donate will go to https://gaza-verified.org/donate/ to ensure a fair distribution of donations. And people who are unable or unwillig to donate will unfortunately only feel annoyed by your comments. They will block or report you, which will limit your reach. In order to not decrease your own reach, it's in your own best interest to not insert yourself into unrelated discussions to ask for help. Again, I understand that you're desperate and need help, but there are better ways to achieve that, which don't silence your voice. Much love and solidarity for you.
️🫂 -
@linamahmoud Hello Lina, I understand that you're desperate and that your life is difficult. But many donors who are able to donate will go to https://gaza-verified.org/donate/ to ensure a fair distribution of donations. And people who are unable or unwillig to donate will unfortunately only feel annoyed by your comments. They will block or report you, which will limit your reach. In order to not decrease your own reach, it's in your own best interest to not insert yourself into unrelated discussions to ask for help. Again, I understand that you're desperate and need help, but there are better ways to achieve that, which don't silence your voice. Much love and solidarity for you.
️🫂@davidculley Thank you so much for your kind words and thoughtful advice.
️ I truly appreciate you taking the time to explain this to me. I never want to annoy anyone—I am simply a mother trying to keep my children alive in impossible circumstances.I will keep your advice in mind and try to reach people in better ways. My account is also verified, and I always do my best to be honest and transparent with everyone.
Thank you again for your solidarity and support. It truly means a lot to me. 🫂
I know everyone is busy, but I'm reaching out because my family still needs support. If you're able to donate or even share my campaign, it would make a huge difference for us. Thank you from the bottom of my heart for standing with us. 
