If you're sufficiently-powerful that your power affects how other people feel they can interact with you, then you should consider reducing your power. If it's important for you to be that powerful, and there's really no way to achieve your goals without it, then that's a sacrifice you're willing to make.
> If someone doesn't want to do something, they say no. If they receive retribution because of that no we then investigate the retribution and as a society we turn the ne'er-do-well into a social pariah until they have better behavior.
This only works if we have accountability. You can't have accountability if there's no evidence that a conversation took place, and if decisions aren't made in open and transparent ways: you can't classify things as "retribution" or "not retribution" without… witch hunts. Oh. So it doesn't solve the witch-hunt problem. (Wearing a body-cam everywhere would, but that kind of mass surveillance has its own problems.)
"Turn the ne'er-do-well into a social pariah" doesn't help the victim of retribution.
If the (alleged) ne'er-do-well has a strong enough support network, no force on earth will turn them into a social pariah, so this becomes an exercise in eroding political support, and… oh. That's also a procedure decoupled from justice.
This is not a simple topic, and it does not have simple solutions. Many of the issues you've identified (such as selective enforcement) are issues, but that doesn't mean your proposed solutions actually work.
> "I was afraid i'd be fired if I denied Stallman." ; did anything resembling this ever occur?
Edit: while waiting for the rate limit to expire, I found some claims of Paul Fisher, quoted in the "Stallman Report" https://stallman-report.org/:
> RMS would often throw tantrums and threaten to fire employees for perceived infractions. FSF staff had to show up to work each day, not knowing if RMS had eliminated their position the night before.
This conflicts with my understanding of Richard Stallman's views and behaviour. I'll have to look into this further. I've left my original answer below.
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I vaguely recall a time he tried to remove authority from someone, in favour of a packed committee, because he disagreed with a technical decision they made. (It didn't really work, because the committee either had no opinion, or agreed with the former authority figure about that technical decision.) Can't find a reference though.
But in this kind of context, I'm not aware of Richard Stallman ever personally retaliating against someone for saying no to him. I don't imagine he'd approve of such behaviour, and he's principled enough that I doubt he'd ever do it. (There are a few anecdotes set in MIT about pressures from other people, but these are not directly Richard Stallman's fault, so I think it's unfair to blame him for them.)
This isn't really the point, though. A community leader should be aware of "people stuff" like this, and act to mitigate it. If he doesn't want the responsibility, he shouldn't have the power. By all accounts, he doesn't want the responsibility.
> If someone doesn't want to do something, they say no. If they receive retribution because of that no we then investigate the retribution and as a society we turn the ne'er-do-well into a social pariah until they have better behavior.
This only works if we have accountability. You can't have accountability if there's no evidence that a conversation took place, and if decisions aren't made in open and transparent ways: you can't classify things as "retribution" or "not retribution" without… witch hunts. Oh. So it doesn't solve the witch-hunt problem. (Wearing a body-cam everywhere would, but that kind of mass surveillance has its own problems.)
"Turn the ne'er-do-well into a social pariah" doesn't help the victim of retribution.
If the (alleged) ne'er-do-well has a strong enough support network, no force on earth will turn them into a social pariah, so this becomes an exercise in eroding political support, and… oh. That's also a procedure decoupled from justice.
This is not a simple topic, and it does not have simple solutions. Many of the issues you've identified (such as selective enforcement) are issues, but that doesn't mean your proposed solutions actually work.
> "I was afraid i'd be fired if I denied Stallman." ; did anything resembling this ever occur?
Edit: while waiting for the rate limit to expire, I found some claims of Paul Fisher, quoted in the "Stallman Report" https://stallman-report.org/:
> RMS would often throw tantrums and threaten to fire employees for perceived infractions. FSF staff had to show up to work each day, not knowing if RMS had eliminated their position the night before.
This conflicts with my understanding of Richard Stallman's views and behaviour. I'll have to look into this further. I've left my original answer below.
---
I vaguely recall a time he tried to remove authority from someone, in favour of a packed committee, because he disagreed with a technical decision they made. (It didn't really work, because the committee either had no opinion, or agreed with the former authority figure about that technical decision.) Can't find a reference though.
But in this kind of context, I'm not aware of Richard Stallman ever personally retaliating against someone for saying no to him. I don't imagine he'd approve of such behaviour, and he's principled enough that I doubt he'd ever do it. (There are a few anecdotes set in MIT about pressures from other people, but these are not directly Richard Stallman's fault, so I think it's unfair to blame him for them.)
This isn't really the point, though. A community leader should be aware of "people stuff" like this, and act to mitigate it. If he doesn't want the responsibility, he shouldn't have the power. By all accounts, he doesn't want the responsibility.