@AvSchroeder Ah, I see the WMF have adopted the Mozilla playbook. That's just lovely.

@Athena @clarfonthey 'hol up, sorry for intruding here, but I kinda want to check something:

The anti-LLM folk working on this can't afford to take an anti-LLM stance in that thread, or it risks their jobs.

But now that the thread has been locked, the anti-LLM folk can't post in the thread anymore.

Is that not somewhat analogous to the status quo? If folk couldn't post their honest positions freely in the thread without risking their position, the thread being locked changes nothing.

Posting "diplomatically coached" responses to avoid outing yourself is not going to measurably affect the outcome of a policy discussion that is there for appearances only.

If Athena's extremely-mild post was enough to get it locked... then they were just looking for an excuse, and they were absolutely not interested in having a discussion. In case that wasn't already startlingly obvious from the preconditions.

You don't beat fascism by playing according to fascism's rules.

@Athena

I understand you're frustrated, but I don't think this kind of language helps anyone.

Tell me you're not used to having to face the people your actions have harmed without etc. etc.

That "I don't think this kind of language is helpful" phrase is a fairly solid litmus test for if someone is just trying to shut down an inconvenient line of debate.

Which, in fairness, hardly needs much testing when they admit it in the OP, but nonetheless, it's a cowardly way to address it.