Talk:Richard Stallman

Stallman no longer leader of FSF
The vandal wasn't too off, he was removed for some comments defending a colleague associated with epstein. Féinléiriú (talk) 22:07, 1 October 2019 (UTC)
 * He isn't removed. As he became too old and intolerant, he left himself. --Comrade-yutyo (talk) 21:10, 29 April 2020 (UTC)

Correcting/expanding on BLP issues in lead
Specifically, as it stands right now, the lead claims that "[Stallman] is a defender of pedophilia and persons who have organized pedophile-sex rings.[3]". This specifically reductivizes a much more complicated issue that as a result has caused Stallman to resign from his position at the FSF and to be fired from MIT. Ideally this should be in it's own paragraph, as the entire situation warrants more than just a mere mention in the lead and certainly could use a better source. The email exchange that put Stallman is under fire can be found here. The currently linked article is relying on a specific spin of the situation that is inaccurate.

What occured is that Stallman took slight with the language used in a planned protest by MIT (MIT had gotten tangled up in the Epstein incident since Epstein was one of the biggest donators to MIT). Specifically, Stallman took issue with the term sexual assault. What is important to understand (and yes, this is Crank material since Stallman has a habit of redefining words) is that Stallman defined sexual assault as purely involving violence. Stallman took slight with this definition being applied to his friend and colleague, the late Marvin Minsky (who should be mentioned was the voucher for Stallman getting an office at CSAIL), who was accused in the Epstein case (also this should be clear: Stallman does not defend that Minsky sexually assaulted a girl under our sane definition, he takes issue with his own definition) and went on to claim that he thought the victim would have been instructed by Epstein to present herself as willing.

This sequence of events was eventually posted on Medium by someone who was not involved with CSAIL but got it forwarded to them and subsequently picked up by The Verge who did the initial reductivizing of Stallmans statement.

There is a difference in words here, and whilst it doesn't absolve Stallman of any of the other crankery apparent in his statement and behavior, he does explicitly not defend Minsky and never defended Epsteins behavior in the slightest.

And to make one thing clear here myself: No, I'm not defending Stallman either. For a lot of his other comments and behavior (a number of which include his comments on pedophilia that people dug up as a result of this publicizing, although he has since retracted these views), his resignation is something that should have happened a while ago, but as it stands, the lead uses a poorly defined source for an issue that needs more explanation (probably in it's own paragraph) than just a line in the lead that uses a source that violates Articles on Living People.

All I'm saying is that this issue needs to be expanded upon, and as a new editor here, I do not feel confident to do this myself (particularly because I don't hold a lot of faith in being able to write this from an SPOV).The Crow (talk) 22:17, 7 October 2019 (UTC)
 * I don't see a reason why this needs mentioned in the article lede - some recent edits look like someone with a grudge going too far to smear Stallman. The full case could be discussed later in the article, with appropriate explanations and clarifications, and the above explanation isn't a bad starting point. --Annanoon (talk) 14:52, 14 October 2019 (UTC)
 * I do believe it bears mention in the lede (although I don't think it should be worded as it is right now considering what I mentioned just before), considering it is what caused Stallman to be booted from the Free Software Foundation, which for all intents and purposes is the political end of his end goal.&mdash; Unsigned, by: The Crow / talk / contribs


 * No, what got him booted was his history of harassment finally getting public discussion - David Gerard (talk) 15:01, 17 October 2019 (UTC)


 * I mean, in the end he got the boot either way, but yeah, this was the droplet that overflowed the metaphorical bucket of "shitty RMS behavior". That doesn't mean that the current way that is explained in the article is remotely comprehensive or correctly sourced, which should be changed (I might start a draft on it if someone doesn't beat me to it). The Crow (talk) 08:37, 18 October 2019 (UTC)


 * Do you have a source of that? I have found no source that suggests that is correct. Given the timing and the overwhelming bad press (with demonstrably false titles) I would say it is more likely TheCrow is correct. If you were correct, then it is more likely he would have been voted out at next election. Samvittighed (talk) 06:16, 21 October 2019 (UTC)

Just remove the libel. Also what's with the personal hygiene paragraph? Is this Lurkmore? --87.228.36.116 (talk) 03:12, 8 June 2020 (UTC)
 * I've been working on expanding it in my sandbox, but it's been admittedly slow since my interest for his page right now is kinda low. His personal hygiene bears mention since he's by all accounts the PR representative for the GNU project and the way he chooses to display that PR in a public space includes his personal hygiene since he made it a visible thing and that reflects back on the GNU project ergo it bears mention on this page. 21:28, 8 June 2020 (UTC)

Proposing some changes
Over the past few months, I've been working on some suggested changes to the article in User:The Crow/Sandbox. Notably, I included and expanded on the documentation we have of Stallmans crankery, as well as given a detail of his firing from the Free Software Foundation. Unless anyone objects in the next 24 hours, I'll merge my suggested changes into the main article. (Doing it like this since the article has been subjected to a few BONs warring over the contents of it). 10:33, 21 June 2020 (UTC)
 * His earlier take on GMOs: https://www.stallman.org/archives/2011-may-aug.html#01_June_2011_(Belgian_Protesters_Potatoes) The issues he cited are patents and the possibility of the developer of the GMOs to prevent their testing. See GMO (you did), Monsanto and the Wikipedia articles on Monsanto legal cases and herbicide issues (also the sections below that one).  --87.228.21.50 (talk) 22:25, 26 June 2020 (UTC)
 * As someone mentioned elsewhere, the name "pleasure cards" is a joke based on the business and leisure distinction. Wiktionary even has a word for that: bleisure. So it's not just a business card. "Tender embraces" doesn't sound nice, but in case of "dance" it's probably a misunderstanding (see the next item). --87.228.21.50 (talk) 22:25, 26 June 2020 (UTC)
 * He does seem to hate plants. Nuclear power plants. But who hates the green plants?. Must have been an intentional invention for that anti-Stallman propaganda; should be removed. --87.228.21.50 (talk) 21:58, 26 June 2020 (UTC)
 * If you read the ex-student's post closely, you'll see that she was first to remove pieces of the text and (maybe mistakenly) claimed he said Giuffre was willing. The media continued the distortion.
 * Joi Ito was the director of the MIT Media Lab, not of MIT. Not just Epstein himself, but also Stallman's strongest competitor, Bill Gates, donated millions to the lab - allegedly directed to do so by Epstein. Shit hit the fan just a little too late for the media to skip reporting on Bill Gates' involvement. When the mentioned ex-student was still a MIT student, she worked at the same lab (which could mean several different things). --87.228.21.50 (talk) 17:21, 28 June 2020 (UTC)
 * GMOs -> This one existed in the article as a claim before, but fair point, I'll give them a look through and see what should be changed.
 * The fact that it's a joke doesn't really make it much better in my eyes (and I think I mentioned this in the changes to the article)? Like, it doesn't change that content wise, they're pretty much the equivalent of a personal ad combined with a business card, which is rather inappropriate in a professional environment, which business cards are meant for.
 * The plant claim isn't super strongly sourced, I'll grant you that. It was something I read somewhere, I'll take it out when I get to editing this (should be tomorrow).
 * I read the original medium article again for this, and no, she doesn't really quote Stallman out of context. The quotes she uses are completey accurate and cited in context (she opens with his complete email that would cause the uproar). That one purely lies at the hand of Vice. What the source in question does seem to get wrong (likely out of anger, as the poster expresses at the start) is the same mistake that Vice would end up making (namely stating that Stallman claimed that Giuffre was willing, in spite of the slight bit of more nuance). That said, I lay the grounds for the mistake still on Vice here, as unlike the Medium poster, who is just a student with no real duty to uphold the facts, Vice is a news outlet that does have a duty to fact check their claims (and they have less excuses since they have the full email exchange in their article, whereas the student kept that to themselves).
 * Small change on Joi, I'll fix that in the article when I get to editing this (again, tomorrow, its a bit late here). Gates' involvement here feels a bit uh... tangential? The problem folks were having was with Epsteins donations and the allegations against Minsky, not with the donations of Gates from what I can find.
 * In any case, thanks for your comments, I'll be frank (and you can read my user sandbox page history if you care), I wrote the majority of these changes fairly shortly after it happened, then sat on it for a while and because I have a different thing I want to sandbox, I quickly wrote out the bits I still had to work on and propose my changes. I'll implement some of your suggestions as soon as possible (tomorrow since it's getting late here and I need some sleep). 20:27, 30 June 2020 (UTC)

Stallman wasn't fired from the FSF
He resigned. Also the media made the following observation about epstein that plutocow is edit warring over

"But while 14-year-olds are considered children in this country, that does not mean that Epstein is a "pedophile." He may well be one—we'll know for sure when all the evidence against him comes out—but pedophilia isn't just a colloquial term for anyone attracted to people under the age of 18, even if that is how it's commonly used. It's a diagnosable psychiatric disorder, and according to experts, when media outlets conflate Epstein's alleged crimes with the clinical definition of pedophilia, it isn't just incorrect. It's also a serious disservice to those working to reduce or prevent child abuse in the first place."

- KATIE HERZOG 2600:4040:403C:F300:2D1D:52FB:9C8F:5E1C (talk) 19:51, 27 November 2022 (UTC)
 * I've corrected the firing vs resigning error, but you're not going to convince anyone to call Epstein an ebophile instead of a paedophile. You could maybe say "sex trafficking ring" if you really wanted to avoid saying paedophile, but I see no reason to make the change. Christopher (talk) 19:55, 27 November 2022 (UTC)
 * Right, because teenagers cannot consent to sex with adults who offer them money 2600:4040:403C:F300:2D1D:52FB:9C8F:5E1C (talk) 20:05, 27 November 2022 (UTC)

Don't see the reason for removing what Christopher just removed
That section isn't defending Stallman or Epstein, but simply pointing out the deplatforming campaign against Stallman was presenting stuff widely known about Stallman, and on his official blog for years, as some sort of skeleton closet, which is incorrect. It's offensive and immoral, but not a skeleton closet, given he never hid his opinions. Stable-and-sane (talk) 21:07, 27 November 2022 (UTC)
 * It’s possible I reacted too harshly because of other comments made by the BoN who added it, perhaps it could’ve been kept with some rephrasing. If you want to add it back in, feel free. Christopher (talk) 21:13, 27 November 2022 (UTC)
 * You were overreacting to a katie herzog quote pointing out it wasn't a pedophile ring? Epstein isn't a good example of a pedophile ring, that's a term reserved for actual pedophile rings.  Stable-and-sane (talk) 21:23, 27 November 2022 (UTC)