You missed the reports where he called developers simians, shouted "screw you" and said he'd like to cut off a specific developers hands so he couldn't code any more. (by the way, bugzilla is totally searchable, so if you want, you can see this stuff for yourself before you step up to defend a bully.)

Then why not announce the ban after those blatant transgressions, or the next blatant one if they arrive reliably, rather than after a mild one?

BTW, a simple Bugzilla search for [Richard Mlynarik] returns "Zarro Boogs found". Similarly, a Google search for [site:bugzilla.mozilla.org Mlynarik simian] returns nothing.

I'm sure I'll find the right kind of search eventually – I did find a Mlynarik 'screw you' comment via Google – but if the action is justified by examples with exact quotes, you might as well supply links rather than leave many people searching.

And why personalize this by accusing me of "stepping up to defend a bully"? I've addressed the exact action and manner of action taken in the above-referenced report, with the caveat that other examples would change the analysis. I've defended the precise comment in the 'compact dialog' report, not the person's history.

He was given a warning and a second chance after the awful behavior in other bugs. When he failed to heed that warning he was banned. If you had read the report, you'd have seen that he had been given a previous warning. That's key information. Weren't you curious about the previous warning? Didn't it occur to you that he might have already been treading on really thin ice and continued misbehavior, even minor might be enough to tip the balance? It doesn't seem to me that you were. It seemed to me you were stepping up to his defense without all the facts. That's a dangerous thing to do because you might find that you're defending someone that's you'd rather not be.

"if you had read the report"? "weren't you curious"?

It should have been clear from my conditionals ("If this report is representative…"; "If other reports are worse…") that I was curious about the alluded-to prior history, and my analysis was contingent upon the (at the time unlinked) specifics.

The concern I still have is that this latest comment was so mild and non-insulting that one possible interpretation is that the previous warning(s) were working. He depersonalized his criticisms into the zone where, if judged dispassionately, they could be more more helpful than hurtful.

Now, you've also been quoting other incidents ("simians", "die die die") that might be more recent and salient. I can't find the context for those. (Searches only turn up this thread.)

But I am only opining on the exact comments and actions referenced here. I'm not defending any particular person (who I don't know), but one most recent comment. And I'm not criticizing a general policy of exiling recidivist assholes, only the act of pulling the trigger after a comment that, standing alone, is innocuous.

If someone else over the years posted a thousand comments with the same level of sarcasm and exasperation, but also the same level of actual useful info (and no insults), as in Mlynarik's most recent comment, would they get a ban? Or even a warning? I suspect not. They'd just be considered a cranky but useful bug reporter.

This, exactly. I don't know Richard but this thread has triggered my curiosity, so I've looked at a few of his bug comments and the pattern is that they are funny and strongly worded, but the strong language isn't directed at a person - it's squarely aimed at the problem.

Morendil, his comments are often very much directed at individuals and not at features or bugs.

Calling a developer a "simian" and shouting "screw you" and actually saying "You know, every time I see a comment from [a specific Thunderbird developer] I just want to reach out through the intertubes and cut off his damned fingers to prevent him ever writing any code" are all direct and personal attacks that should not be tolerated in any forum.

There's nothing "funny" about that. It's the behavior of a bully and someone who thinks that because he's big bad programmer with a long history that he can verbally abuse other programmers when ever he feels like it.

There's nothing funny about bullying.

I'm quite sensitive to bullying, having often been a victim, online and off.

Part of me wants to agree with you. Richard does "name names" and directly voice an opinion of another person's abilities and a judgement of their actions.

One of the comments in this HN thread reads: "Get off your high horse you fucking moron". That is abusive. Never mind that this comment is in response to someone I happen to disagree with.

On the other hand I did not find the "cutting off his fingers" comment abusive. It comes across an elaborate, possibly overwrought, way of saying "This guy is making me angry". It is OK in my book to give people feedback on how their actions are making you feel. The imagery is violent, the tone is not.

What I do find abusive is the phrase "people like you" which Richard uses in the same comment. So my considered opinion of these comments would be yes, they are somewhat abusive. But I would stop well short of "bullying".

Richard's attacks have a clear object-level target, which is not a person: he is clearly making legitimate (not necessarily true, but legitimate) claims about the TB development process - that it breaks features that worked, that the concerns of some users are being summarily dismissed, and that there is a pattern of these things happening over and over again.

Yes, the tone he uses for saying those things sometimes crosses a line. But on balance, the impression I'm taking away from this dispute is that Richard is being banned not so much for his tone, but more for saying things that are true and that the people wielding the power to censor him are unwilling to hear.

That aspect of the whole mess, the way the power asymmetry plays out, is what I suspect has people coming out in Richard's defense. People with ban buttons should usually err on the side of tolerance.

The success of open source rests on participation, and participation is a two-way street. When you open a bug reporting system, the intended message is "we care about your concerns". Marking a bug as "won't fix" sends the exact opposite message. That makes it, too, a power not to be used lightly: someone wielding that power indiscriminately can easily turn into what I'd not hesitate to call a "bully".

At some point these tensions stopped being about mere civility, and started being about the power politics of open source. At least, that's how it looks to this outside observer.

"the impression I'm taking away from this dispute is that Richard is being banned not so much for his tone, but more for saying things that are true and that the people wielding the power to censor him are unwilling to hear."

I'm saddened that you have this impression, given that most of the things he complains about are duplicates of bugs that other people were able to report in a civil manner. As a developer, I know my software has bugs, and am appreciative when users let me know what they are. As a person, I don't feel I should have to put up with sarcastic, snarky bullshit when finding out about the bugs, or when trying to fix them.

"The success of open source rests on participation, and participation is a two-way street."

I know of at least one Thunderbird developer who quit because the atmosphere in Bugzilla was hostile. I don't know how many people decided not to participate because of comments like Richard's. Participation isn't the same as welcoming everybody, no matter what their effect on the community.

Also, I would totally read a blog post about the power politics of open source. :)

No, if there's a track record of obscene bug reports, then the person involved shouldn't be given even the slightest bit of slack.

edit: if I were dmose, I'd have banned him a year ago for https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=579372#c2.

If they need to punish obscene reports, punish for those, specifically. When they happen. Don't punish a mild, non-obscene report some other time.

edit for your edit: Thanks for finding an earlier clearer example. That comment was unnecessarily personal and abusive. It deserved reprimand or censure. And if the reprimand(s) are responsible for the less-personal tone of the 2011-06-30 comment, compared to the 2010-07-21 comment, they're working to increase the signal-to-emotional-noise ratio. But the controversy of a hard ban for a lesser transgression now introduces new emotional noise.

While we might disagree on the exact mechanics, I think we can agree that any open-source community would be better without such people.

I couldn't agree with that. Imagine what the landscape of software would look like without all those abrasive "bullies" that Mozilla is wringing their hands about: no Theo, no Zed, no Steve, no Richard ... hell, no Linus, for that matter.

So any open-source community would be better without them, eh?

I don't know about other open source communities. Perhaps they thrive on toxic environments full of bullies. But I do know quite a bit about the Mozilla community and I'm quite certain that we are better off without him.

I expect my users to be thirteen-year-old immature brats with no concept of the effort required to write code nor the time constraints which adults generally have to work within, but I think I'm a special case. :3

Open-source community would surely be better without people being bullies. It's not like anyone's creative ability or technical excellence comes from bullying other people.

I prefer rehabilitation to exile, if at all possible.

Quip's like that don't help matters. I prefer peace to war, but it's meaningless.

How do you propose rehabilitating someone who has demonstrated no desire to be rehabilitated within this context?

Also, is it really the job of the developers to fix the bugs in a user rather than focus on the bugs in the product the user is using?

The worst thus-far-linked example of Mlynarik's Bugzilla comments is from July 2010, after which one or more warnings were made. The June 2011 example that got him banned shows him as sarcastic and excessively dramatic, but he refrains from personal insults.

So the idea that he is rehabilitating, after warnings, is one interpretation of the linked reports.

Asa Dotzler has mentioned other quotes, but without dates/links for ontext. Perhaps they were in-person incidents? If so, that would change the calculus a lot (in favor of hair-trigger banning).

But part of a fair "next strike and you're gone" policy is being clear about what a 'strike' is. Was he warned not to use sarcasm, CAPS-YELLING, and excessive emotion? If so, he had fair warning. If instead he was warned not to be uncivil and insulting, then this latest comment didn't prove his incorrigibility.

I understand what you are saying, and it sounds reasonable, but I disagree. Your basically suggesting that in every case of a banning, they need to publicly shine the light on every infraction. They also need to spell out an exhaustive list of "strikes," and beware if they forget to include CAPS-YELLING in the list.

No. This is an adult we are referring to here. We can reasonably expect that he knew exactly what he was doing, and was merely pushing the line as far as he could go, and just happened to cross it. This wasn't the first time; he was a repeated offender. This wasn't the start of the problem. It was the final straw (which, in my experience, is usually a minor straw when compared to the haystack beneath it).

Edit: Thank you for responding with a more clear comment than you original, btw. =)