This is why most organizations take a blind eye when popular people in their community behave badly; if they even so much as give them a three-month ban from the forum, people will keep bringing it up years later.
The argument you are making here is incredibly disingenuous.
The facts matter. Tim Peters did not behave badly. The reasoning given for his suspension misrepresented the apparent evidence, vaguely alluded to unproven private activity, and alleged harm in clearly benign actions.
I claim that I, too, did not behave badly. In particular, in "recommending" my ban, the Code of Conduct Work Group (which is unelected, and has considerable crossover with paid PSF staff; and to my understanding gets paid in some circumstances for code of conduct enforcement work even as the actual core developers are almost all volunteers) made bizarre mischaracterizations of my complaints — going so far as to falsely ascribe to me terminology that I do not use on principle.
You, specifically, should know about these sorts of things because you comment in these discussions all the time. For example, you participated in https://discuss.python.org/t/shedding-light-on-a-three-month... and your posts there demonstrate intimate familiarity with the situation, with quotes like "I suppose I have to point out that “This whole debacle…” wasn’t referring to just Tim personally and not just this one bylaw change but rather referring to, well, gestures to the last two months." (I remember reading that post, not logged in of course, back when you made it.)
You have seen the list of charges in https://discuss.python.org/t/three-month-suspension-for-a-co... so I think you reasonably should understand my position: to the extent that the referents of any of these actions were ever identified, the description is either nonsense or does not point at anything any reasonable person could consider actionable. If you disagree, please be concrete. The entire reason for the "endless litigation" you have repeatedly complained about is the lack of anyone on your side making any clear, understandable argument that anything Tim Peters did at any point was actually wrong. The closest I've seen to such an argument comes from ... Tim Peters (https://tim-one.github.io/psf/meaculpa), and frankly I think it's far too self-effacing.
This is why folks can't take yall seriously when discussing code of conduct. This person has a history of being shitty, and they used the CoC to enforce a (temporary!) ban, citing the rules he violated. If the CoC didn't exist, you'd be screaming "he didn't do anything wrong", but obviously, according to the well posted rules, he did, and they enforced those rules for the good of the community.
The reality of the situation is that yall don't want to be excluded from communities for being racist, misogynistic, or creepy.
If Tim Peters has a "history of being shitty", I'd expect Wikipedia to mention it. But his article is clean, if not golden https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tim_Peters_(software_engineer).
The only thing I've heard is that he's a bit neurodivergent/socially awkward, which I thought we were suppose to be welcoming and inclusive of.
The reality is that you may be confusing a victim with your political enemies.
The reality is that they go after intelligent people and political opponents on specious grounds because they are jealous and want to preserve their own power.
You can dig up any number of posts on anyone, as Richelieu has pointed out pre-Internet.
No, he does not. He has been a pillar of the community since the beginning, and well loved by many. He has also been trusted with various forms of moderation authority in the past, and his decisions were respected at the time.
> and they used the CoC to enforce a (temporary!) ban, citing the rules he violated.
Please read https://discuss.python.org/t/three-month-suspension-for-a-co..., and then https://tim-one.github.io/psf/crimes.html . Mr. Peters is, if anything, overly self-critical here. He quite frankly did nothing wrong. The supposed "rule violations" include things that no reasonable person could actually object to, as well as complete mischaracterizations of the observable facts. In some places, multiple points appear to refer to the same action. In some places it's unclear what is referred to and there has never been any official explanation. In no case is any evidence provided.
> If the CoC didn't exist, you'd be screaming "he didn't do anything wrong"
I am saying it (your use of the word "screaming" here is demeaning, substance-less rhetoric) because it is in fact the case. Many of the cited "violations" don't actually go against the Code of Conduct (https://policies.python.org/python.org/code-of-conduct/), even if they were true and accurate.
> but obviously, according to the well posted rules, he did
It is not obvious, because it is incorrect.
> and they enforced those rules for the good of the community.
No useful purpose was served by this suspension.
> The reality of the situation is that yall don't want to be excluded from communities for being racist, misogynistic, or creepy.
This accusation is baseless, incorrect, and offensive.
Many of the comments here are disappointing. Regardless of your opinion of the PSF or its leadership, you should be opposed to this kind of clawback threat because it nakedly represents an attempt to place a non-profit in a double bind: even attempting to comply with these requirements would allow a politicized IRA to claim that the PSF is failing to uphold its stated mission.
Organizations should avoid funding by the government whenever possible. It creates incentives for the organization to align with the politics of the government. I am all for this outcome, as it’s a net win for PSF and any organization that can fund itself
But if they don't get it from the government, they'll get it somewhere else, and then that will create incentives for the organization to align with the politics of whoever gives them the money. There's no escaping the implicit dependence that comes with accepting money.
I think we just need to reduce the amount of discretion involved in government action of all kinds.
Regardless of how you feel about the nature of government funding, you should be able to cogitate a strong argument for the U.S. government not playing “gotcha” games with its funding.
> you should be opposed to this kind of clawback threat because it nakedly represents an attempt to place a non-profit in a double bind
The clawback is this sentence, yes? "NSF reserves the right to terminate financial assistance awards and recover all funds if
recipients, during the term of this award, operate any program in violation of Federal anti-
discriminatory laws or engage in a prohibited boycott."
How exactly is "you must follow anti-discrimination law" a "naked" attempt at a double-bind?
(And, um, I'd be more worried about that "prohibited boycott" thing. It's mentioned explicitly in the sentence with the clawback, and I don't see where it's defined.)
Boycotting Israel, for example, is a prohibited boycott.
This is a little-known but long-established part of US policy; see https://www.bis.doc.gov/index.php/enforcement/oac for more details. My employer actually has a reminder in the legal trainings of our corporate responsibilities under these policies (and yes, it rubs me the wrong way).
The evidence strongly suggests to me that the PSF knew, or reasonably ought to have known, the terms of the agreement months ago, which makes the current activity read very much like a publicity stunt (after realizing they wouldn't be able to take the money).
We are talking about a grant here. I can't see anything wrong with offering someone money that comes with strings attached, when you don't owe anything in the first place. Especially when the offer is being made generally rather than targeting anyone in particular.
In my assessment, the "stated mission" reflects politics that indirectly resulted in harm to me personally, perpetrated by the PSF's Code of Conduct Work Group. The way that this "mission" is presented is in line with common statements that the administration has identified as discriminatory, and I believe they are justified in coming to that conclusion. The PSF represents it as something simple and agreeable; but while I indeed agree with the idea they represent it as, in practice I have seen it mean something very different, and objectionable. In making this representation I find that they commonly insinuate salacious, untrue things about people with value systems like my own, and I consider that representation to be simply dishonest.
The Work Group in question has a document of "Enforcement Procedures" for the Code of Conduct. I determined that these procedures may lead to making decisions that directly contradict what the Code of Conduct says. When I pointed this out, I was baselessly accused of citing previous (unspecified) moderation action against me as examples of the phenomenon that the Code of Conduct forbids but the Enforcement Procedures require ignoring. In so doing, it was proposed that I characterized these actions in terms that I explicitly reject using. (In fact, the main point of my post was to reject the term — as it is one commonly used in strawman representations of my position.)
> The evidence strongly suggests to me that the PSF knew, or reasonably ought to have known, the terms of the agreement months ago
I have firsthand knowledge of the NSF grant in question, but not the PSF’s participation in it. It would not remotely surprise me that they didn’t know about these terms, because there’s a large amount of paperwork and process involved and much of it predates the current administration.
> which makes the current activity read very much like a publicity stunt (after realizing they wouldn't be able to take the money)
I mean, I think the PSF has very explicitly communicated their intent to use the grant’s withdrawal as a fundraising opportunity. That doesn’t strike me as unreasonable, it’s what I would do in their situation to make the best of things.
(I don’t know about you or what you’ve been through, so I don’t have opinions there. But nothing about the PSF’s behavior here appears facially incorrect or unreasonable to me.)
It’s been disappointing to you for at least a decade and yet you keep using it? Blink twice if the mods have been keeping you imprisoned in the server closet and forcing you to speak to them in Arc
Culture wars are intentionally engineered by the rich to distract everyone else from forming class solidarity against them. And it is amazingly effective.
No, people actually disagree about cultural changes. Not sure what kind of world model you must have in order to believe that ANY society wouldn't suffer from "culture wars" as it evolves. I suppose you believe that the entire prohibition episode in US history was also orchestrated by "the rich"?
Struggling over cultural changes is a real phenomenon and sometimes even worth engaging in.
But ultimately, ideas are secondary to matter. Most people on this planet work for the profits of a very small group. If they weren’t divided, they could easily defeat that small group and organise society for the benefit of the majority.
As Warren Buffet said, class warfare is happening and his class is winning. We should all internalise that and engage in class struggle.
I mean...this thread joins the dozens of others in recent memory that has turned into a war-zone, filled with disposable throwaway accounts and bad faith downvoting that will almost certainly go unpunished.
Considering the kind of money behind YCombinator, they're not exactly beating the rap.
Immediatly though of donating > $1.5M to remove that indentation hell.
What do you mean it's in their values?
More seriously, I can only respect someone (natural or legal) who refuses 7 figures for their values, which ever those might be and whether I share them or not.
Many people here have pointed out in response to flagged comments that the decision was legalistic, bureaucratic and self-preserving. I.e., the PSF did not want to enter a territory where it might be forced to repay the grant.
The money was earmarked for PyPI and the refusal did not impact those who have other positions in the PSF. In 2020, when it was politically safe, the PSF made several BLM support statements. There are no statements about people of color in Gaza or extrajudicial killings off the Venezuelan coast in 2025.
Moreover, they got political capital from this action for an organization that was/is severely damaged by the ruthless and libelous leadership. And they prepare for another pendulum swing that might materialize in the 2026 midterms.
There are two huge problems with these highly intrusive grant requirements that are different than previous Admin's DEI statements (which people sometimes point to, in a "what about ..."):
- they apply to _all_ of the org's activities, whereas previous statements only applied to the grant itself (it had to be used in X way) ; this is what PSF found untenable
- the gov can claw back the money if they deem you were violating the reqs pretty much as their discretion; while this might seem unlikely, the Trump admin is highly aggressive towards universities, withholding funding in a way that has not been done before under a bogus excuse of anti-semitism. It shows they will have their way and there's nothing you will be able to do about it.
Readit News
The facts matter. Tim Peters did not behave badly. The reasoning given for his suspension misrepresented the apparent evidence, vaguely alluded to unproven private activity, and alleged harm in clearly benign actions.
Tim Peters preserved many of his removed posts, along with other relevant information, on a blog (https://tim-one.github.io/) which was largely following my lead in writing about my own prior ban from the forum (https://zahlman.github.io/posts/2024/07/31/an-open-letter-to... ; https://zahlman.github.io/posts/2024/08/10/open-letter-psf-c...) and preserving my own related deleted posts (https://zahlman.github.io/dpo_archive/). It's clear to me, from reading everything (much of which I saw pre-deletion; and also including things that were left up) that at least part of what people objected to in Mr. Peters' "conduct" is that he defended me (despite having many ideological disagreements with me).
I claim that I, too, did not behave badly. In particular, in "recommending" my ban, the Code of Conduct Work Group (which is unelected, and has considerable crossover with paid PSF staff; and to my understanding gets paid in some circumstances for code of conduct enforcement work even as the actual core developers are almost all volunteers) made bizarre mischaracterizations of my complaints — going so far as to falsely ascribe to me terminology that I do not use on principle.
You, specifically, should know about these sorts of things because you comment in these discussions all the time. For example, you participated in https://discuss.python.org/t/shedding-light-on-a-three-month... and your posts there demonstrate intimate familiarity with the situation, with quotes like "I suppose I have to point out that “This whole debacle…” wasn’t referring to just Tim personally and not just this one bylaw change but rather referring to, well, gestures to the last two months." (I remember reading that post, not logged in of course, back when you made it.)
You have seen the list of charges in https://discuss.python.org/t/three-month-suspension-for-a-co... so I think you reasonably should understand my position: to the extent that the referents of any of these actions were ever identified, the description is either nonsense or does not point at anything any reasonable person could consider actionable. If you disagree, please be concrete. The entire reason for the "endless litigation" you have repeatedly complained about is the lack of anyone on your side making any clear, understandable argument that anything Tim Peters did at any point was actually wrong. The closest I've seen to such an argument comes from ... Tim Peters (https://tim-one.github.io/psf/meaculpa), and frankly I think it's far too self-effacing.
Dead Comment
The reality of the situation is that yall don't want to be excluded from communities for being racist, misogynistic, or creepy.
I think moderation and CoCs are needed, but this example looks to be an example of their misuse.
The reality is that you may be confusing a victim with your political enemies.
All evidence I have seen points to the contrary.
> citing the rules he violated
I wish I could have the graciousness of Tim Peters. Those accusations were not made in good faith.
You can dig up any number of posts on anyone, as Richelieu has pointed out pre-Internet.
Deleted Comment
No, he does not. He has been a pillar of the community since the beginning, and well loved by many. He has also been trusted with various forms of moderation authority in the past, and his decisions were respected at the time.
> and they used the CoC to enforce a (temporary!) ban, citing the rules he violated.
Please read https://discuss.python.org/t/three-month-suspension-for-a-co..., and then https://tim-one.github.io/psf/crimes.html . Mr. Peters is, if anything, overly self-critical here. He quite frankly did nothing wrong. The supposed "rule violations" include things that no reasonable person could actually object to, as well as complete mischaracterizations of the observable facts. In some places, multiple points appear to refer to the same action. In some places it's unclear what is referred to and there has never been any official explanation. In no case is any evidence provided.
> If the CoC didn't exist, you'd be screaming "he didn't do anything wrong"
I am saying it (your use of the word "screaming" here is demeaning, substance-less rhetoric) because it is in fact the case. Many of the cited "violations" don't actually go against the Code of Conduct (https://policies.python.org/python.org/code-of-conduct/), even if they were true and accurate.
> but obviously, according to the well posted rules, he did
It is not obvious, because it is incorrect.
> and they enforced those rules for the good of the community.
No useful purpose was served by this suspension.
> The reality of the situation is that yall don't want to be excluded from communities for being racist, misogynistic, or creepy.
This accusation is baseless, incorrect, and offensive.
Dead Comment
I think we just need to reduce the amount of discretion involved in government action of all kinds.
https://www.zdnet.com/article/defense-agency-pulls-openbsd-f...
Maybe that $500k that was earmarked for OpenSSL vulnerability testing would have found Heartbleed.
The clawback is this sentence, yes? "NSF reserves the right to terminate financial assistance awards and recover all funds if recipients, during the term of this award, operate any program in violation of Federal anti- discriminatory laws or engage in a prohibited boycott."
How exactly is "you must follow anti-discrimination law" a "naked" attempt at a double-bind?
(And, um, I'd be more worried about that "prohibited boycott" thing. It's mentioned explicitly in the sentence with the clawback, and I don't see where it's defined.)
This is a little-known but long-established part of US policy; see https://www.bis.doc.gov/index.php/enforcement/oac for more details. My employer actually has a reminder in the legal trainings of our corporate responsibilities under these policies (and yes, it rubs me the wrong way).
We are talking about a grant here. I can't see anything wrong with offering someone money that comes with strings attached, when you don't owe anything in the first place. Especially when the offer is being made generally rather than targeting anyone in particular.
In my assessment, the "stated mission" reflects politics that indirectly resulted in harm to me personally, perpetrated by the PSF's Code of Conduct Work Group. The way that this "mission" is presented is in line with common statements that the administration has identified as discriminatory, and I believe they are justified in coming to that conclusion. The PSF represents it as something simple and agreeable; but while I indeed agree with the idea they represent it as, in practice I have seen it mean something very different, and objectionable. In making this representation I find that they commonly insinuate salacious, untrue things about people with value systems like my own, and I consider that representation to be simply dishonest.
The Work Group in question has a document of "Enforcement Procedures" for the Code of Conduct. I determined that these procedures may lead to making decisions that directly contradict what the Code of Conduct says. When I pointed this out, I was baselessly accused of citing previous (unspecified) moderation action against me as examples of the phenomenon that the Code of Conduct forbids but the Enforcement Procedures require ignoring. In so doing, it was proposed that I characterized these actions in terms that I explicitly reject using. (In fact, the main point of my post was to reject the term — as it is one commonly used in strawman representations of my position.)
I have firsthand knowledge of the NSF grant in question, but not the PSF’s participation in it. It would not remotely surprise me that they didn’t know about these terms, because there’s a large amount of paperwork and process involved and much of it predates the current administration.
> which makes the current activity read very much like a publicity stunt (after realizing they wouldn't be able to take the money)
I mean, I think the PSF has very explicitly communicated their intent to use the grant’s withdrawal as a fundraising opportunity. That doesn’t strike me as unreasonable, it’s what I would do in their situation to make the best of things.
(I don’t know about you or what you’ve been through, so I don’t have opinions there. But nothing about the PSF’s behavior here appears facially incorrect or unreasonable to me.)
Disappointing?
This is what Hacker News has been for at least a decade. Why would you expect any better?
But ultimately, ideas are secondary to matter. Most people on this planet work for the profits of a very small group. If they weren’t divided, they could easily defeat that small group and organise society for the benefit of the majority.
As Warren Buffet said, class warfare is happening and his class is winning. We should all internalise that and engage in class struggle.
There is nothing organic about this, and organizations like the PSF play their role by never veering into economic and class warfare territory.
Considering the kind of money behind YCombinator, they're not exactly beating the rap.
What do you mean it's in their values?
More seriously, I can only respect someone (natural or legal) who refuses 7 figures for their values, which ever those might be and whether I share them or not.
The money was earmarked for PyPI and the refusal did not impact those who have other positions in the PSF. In 2020, when it was politically safe, the PSF made several BLM support statements. There are no statements about people of color in Gaza or extrajudicial killings off the Venezuelan coast in 2025.
Moreover, they got political capital from this action for an organization that was/is severely damaged by the ruthless and libelous leadership. And they prepare for another pendulum swing that might materialize in the 2026 midterms.
All in all, I'm unimpressed.
- they apply to _all_ of the org's activities, whereas previous statements only applied to the grant itself (it had to be used in X way) ; this is what PSF found untenable
- the gov can claw back the money if they deem you were violating the reqs pretty much as their discretion; while this might seem unlikely, the Trump admin is highly aggressive towards universities, withholding funding in a way that has not been done before under a bogus excuse of anti-semitism. It shows they will have their way and there's nothing you will be able to do about it.
Deleted Comment
Dead Comment