Communities – by definition – are made up of different people, who will act differently even though they have a common interest. However when the actions of one reflect on the community as a whole, they need to be called out.
Within the Ubuntu community we have the Code of Conduct to define acceptable behaviour, and – in my opinion – the community is better for it. Recently there was a ‘joke’ posted to the Ubuntu-UK mailing list, which one member responded to describing it as breaching the Code of Conduct. Unfortunately Caroline did not explain her reasoning, but nonetheless a minor flame war heated discussion was triggered.
Jump forward a good few days, and some anonymous coward – who presumably was involved in the aforementioned discussion – decided to target Caroline for swearing on her blog. Following this she has removed herself from both the planet and mailing list.
The departure of any member from a community should be reflected on. In this case I don’t blame Caroline for leaving as she was not made to feel particularly welcome recently, but I hope she will reconsider her position. The actions of this one anonymous coward however are inexcusable, and by remaining anonymous make the rest of Ubuntu-UK look bad.