I know that there's no barrier to entry on CPAN. And I see that as a great feature.
But do we really have to put up with offensive crap like Time::Cubic? If you don't see the problem, try looking at the source code.
Update: The module seems to have vanished from CPAN.
Perhaps a set of clear Terms and Conditions for CPAN Authors is needed to ensure that anyone who uploads this kind of hatred fully expects it to be removed and not even hit BackPAN. His LICENSE agreement pretty much means no-one can use it, not that I can imagine anyone even wanting to.
Plus, last time I looked a cube has 6 sides not 4. Flamebait or just ignorant? I suspect both.
Re:T&Cs
Aristotle on 2007-02-08T14:06:26
The CPAN is a service provided for free where you are not entitled to expect anything, anyway. No policy is required to justify an unceremonious canning of that piece of trash. How many times has this sort of thing happened that we’d need to make mandates about it? If they’re made, is anyone going to invest the ongoing effort required to enforce them? If so, is that a good use of their time?
I don’t think we need any kind of explicit policy at this time.
Re:T&Cs
phaylon on 2007-02-08T15:07:56
You're right, we're not entitled to anything. But I expect a certain amount of professional community ethics on CPAN and it's administration. So far I've always been very happy with their decisions. And if someone decides that there are cases where things are deleted off CPAN, I would expect a policy of what is acceptable and what is not. And having stated this, I indeed think there should be a policy needed to remove any kind of "trash."
(Especially if emotional reactions and calls for removal seem to go hand in hand.)Re:T&Cs
Aristotle on 2007-02-08T18:11:58
Well OK then, here’s a simple policy that merely codifies existing community expectation and would suffice to catch this one case: any upload must be under a Free licence.
Now who is going to comb through everything ever uploaded and every new upload to ensure it complies with this policy?
Because if you don’t enforce the policy consistently, then all it is is pretence. Removals can be justified by pointing to the policy, but whether you exercise it is every bit as arbitrary as before. All you have created are the trappings of ethics, without an effective difference.
Re:T&Cs
phaylon on 2007-02-08T20:20:36
Sure it's hard work, but that's not what I was talking about. Also, this doesn't seem to have to do something with the actual problem. Would you accept the module if it was under GPL2/Artistic?Re:T&Cs
Aristotle on 2007-02-09T06:02:09
No, I wouldn’t, but I don’t care about hypothetical situations. We have exactly one problem to deal with right now; there is no flood of hate speech modules to rein in. Until and when that happens, I do not see the value of making policies to deal with hate speech modules, just because we had one black sheep. It is, to put it in Bruce Schneier’s terms, a bad security tradeoff. It will cost a lot of effort to actually implement, and it’s more likely than not that the policy itself will be flawed in some minor non-obvious way, leading to problems in the future.
I find it annoying that people today have a tendency to want legislative fixes for everything when judicial precedent is a much more appropriate tool for dealing with many situations. But of course that requires that someone make a judgement; scary…
Re:T&Cs
phaylon on 2007-02-09T11:49:00
Well, then we just simply disagree.
And who in hell's name is talking about "legislative fixes"? Please try not to exaggerate what I am saying, even if it fuels your annoyance. If people have complaints, I find it rather logical to phrase those and state what the actual problem is.
I find it rather scary, that the only policy you could think of seems to be "No non-free licenses." IMO that is not the large problem causing complaints in this case.
If one wants to make and execute a judgment about someone else, shouldn't he be _at least_ able to phrase it? You won't be able to find 100% matching rules anyway, so someone _will_ have to judge.
So what's so bad about stating "CPAN will not tolerate hate speech. Please refer to the Acme:: namespace for controversial humor."? Sure, "hate speech" and "controversial humor" are relative, so someone will have to decide if a module falls into those categories or not. But then, that's the same right now too, just without any phrased words or policies, which will lead the discussions to a morale point. And I'd much rather have discussions in the community about a module bein acceptable according to the policies or not, than discussing the morale issues of the module.Re:T&Cs
Aristotle on 2007-02-09T13:04:07
Sure, “hate speech” and “controversial humor” are relative, so someone will have to decide if a module falls into those categories or not. But then, that’s the same right now too, just without any phrased words or policies, which will lead the discussions to a morale point.
Ah. I think we agree more than we disagree; I just disagree on the last point that not having policy will necessarily mire us in a pointless debate over morale.
Oh, and I did not say the module should be removed due to licence because the licence is the real problem. It is not, and I am very well capable of articulating my real problem with the module, but that wasn’t what I was going for. You said you expected there to be policy to back up a decision, so I was looking at the issue pragmatically: how to get rid of this one piece of trash by invoking policy, where the policy is a minimal change to established practice. We already have a guideline for licences which could easily be turned into clear policy, so that is what I latched onto.
Personally, I simply trust the admins to excercise their power responsibly and make good judgements without policies regulating them. As long as problems remain rare, fairness and consistency in such matters are easily defined.
Re:T&Cs
phaylon on 2007-02-09T13:15:36
I feel that we partly are already in such a morale, emotional debate. 80% of comments about this module contain the words "crap", "trash", "shit" and other such terms. Not that I want to say it isn't (personally though, I just think it's strange humor), but saying "it's just crap, delete it" is not so far for me from full morale discussions.Ah. I think we agree more than we disagree; I just disagree on the last point that not having policy will necessarily mire us in a pointless debate over morale.I just find it a bit pointless to try to use a policy-workaround instead of nailing the actual problem.Oh, and I did not say the module should be removed due to licence because the licence is the real problem. It is not, and I am very well capable of articulating my real problem with the module, but that wasn’t what I was going for. You said you expected there to be policy to back up a decision, so I was looking at the issue pragmatically: how to get rid of this one piece of trash by invoking policy, where the policy is a minimal change to established practice. We already have a guideline for licences which could easily be turned into clear policy, so that is what I latched onto.:) Re:T&Cs
DAxelrod on 2007-02-08T22:18:03
Well OK then, here’s a simple policy that merely codifies existing community expectation and would suffice to catch this one case: any upload must be under a Free licence.
I was under the impression that this was already a requirement. Upon further research it appears this was not set out as straightforward as I thought.
The CPAN FAQ specifically fobids software which requires a fee to use, and says that if the license is not included you should ask the author for clarification. That same section does however talk about the OSI approved licenses, although it puts "approved" in quotes.
Re:timecube
jdavidb on 2007-02-08T15:21:29
I'm very surprised, myself. The only hatred I see genuinely expressed in this joke would be hatred of Gene Ray. The rest is caricatures of his statements, and direct quotes.
If you can't lampoon the loony, batty, anti-semites, who can you lampoon? Although I agree CPAN probably isn't the place for such a joke, unless maybe you want to put it in Acme::.
Re:timecube
Mr. Muskrat on 2007-02-08T16:17:23
Had it been put in Acme then maybe I'd believe it was joke but since he didn't, I tend to think that he's trying to push his nutty beliefs on others. After all, there are tons of kooks out there that believe crazier things than this.I also can't help but wonder if this is the same Joseph Evers who was banned from Digg.
Re:timecube
rjbs on 2007-02-08T16:45:48
Of course it's a joke! Good grief. Did you read the license? Also, notice the number of links to Encyclopedia Dramatica, catalog of internet memes and jokes -- Joseph Evers runs it.Re:timecube
Mr. Muskrat on 2007-02-08T16:59:05
No, I hadn't read the license until now because I was distracted by all of the racist/anti-semetic crap. Now that I have I can see that it is the same Joseph Evers that Digg has banned multiple times (under different logins). These types of "jokes" don't belong in a Perl repository.Re:timecube
jdavidb on 2007-02-09T15:33:32
I tend to think that he's trying to push his nutty beliefs on others.
This may be a little late, but I think the point was that those who knew about Gene Ray and "Time Cube" would know immediately it was a joke (unless they had reason to believe it was Gene Ray himself). The fact that the person who uploaded the "joke" was as ignorant of Acme:: as he was tasteless in his humor doesn't alter his intent.
Re:Shhh
brian_d_foy on 2007-02-09T00:22:28
Bad behavior isn't discouraged by ignoring it, and community standards aren't established unless people speak up against bad behavior. I'd rather have a community with a reputation for policing itself instead on one that tolerates everything.
Re:Shhh
DAxelrod on 2007-02-09T17:57:25
Bad behavior isn't discouraged by ignoring itDoesn't that depend on whether the goal of the bad behavior is to get attention?standards aren't established unless people speak up against bad behavior. I'd rather have a community with a reputation for policing itself instead on one that tolerates everything.Here we agree wholeheartedly. I feel that the benefits to discussing how we, as a community, should deal with a challenging situation outweigh the costs of publicizing somebody who might just want attention.Re:Shhh
brian_d_foy on 2007-02-09T18:10:33
>> Bad behavior isn't discouraged by ignoring it
> Doesn't that depend on whether the goal of the bad behavior is to get attention?
Not at all. It's not attention they are after, but a certain sort of attention. If your kids do something bad to get attention, are you going to ignore it because they are doing it to get attention, or are you going to give them the sort of attention they don't want?
Letting people do bad things just because they want attention only encourages people to do more bad things because they know they can get away with it.
Re:Not the best namespace?
Alias on 2007-02-09T00:58:50
Not really.
We mostly recommend or hint about better names, and most of the time people do what we suggest.
If the code does actually implement the the cubic time, as bizarre as it is, the module is named correctly.
If it doesn't, and it's a joke, then it probably should be moved to Acme::
So far, it's not really been the job of CPAN to censor what goes up there, if it isn't damaging (in a technical sense, not in people's perceptions) to the CPAN.
I think you could be fairly sure we'd pull down something related to kiddie porn, but beyond that, I dunno.
Personally, I'm obliged to approve of the module itself, but ask them to use an open source license or pull it themselves.Re:Not the best namespace?
chromatic on 2007-02-09T07:20:12
Personally, I'm obliged to approve of the module itself, but ask them to use an open source license or pull it themselves.That seems like the most reasonable and practical approach to me as well.
You said:
The module seems to have vanished from CPAN.
Andreas König on the module-authors list said:
Thanks, Joshua and all others in this thread for their heads up. Please continue to be that wake and watchful.
I’ve removed account and directory.
And now we have Joseph Evers himself weighing in. Joy.
