As our political betters are always there to remind us, civility is important, the key to getting things done -- that's why Gerning Joe was so pallsy wallsy with segregationists -- you wouldn't want to offend the eugenics movement, because there's good people on both sides. Read the rest

Richard Stallman's new GNU Kind Communications Guidelines are a brief set of guidelines for being "kind" in your interactions in free software communities, with the explicit goals of ensuring participation from "anyone who wishes to advance the development of the GNU system, regardless of gender, race, religion, cultural background, and any other demographic characteristics, as well as personal political views." Read the rest

Conservatives have been dealing with the horrors of "incivility" in the good old U.S. of A. for a long time. It's an American tradition to refuse service to fascists and their enablers. From a December 1, 1938 United Press article: Read the rest

The Perspective API (previously) is a tool from Google spinoff Jigsaw (previously) that automatically rates comments for their "toxicity" -- a fraught business that catches a lot of dolphins in its tuna net. Read the rest

J.Nathan Matias takes a clear-eyed look at The Real Name Fallacy, the belief that forcing users to communicate using real names will improve online conduct. In my experience, the biggest problems come on platforms like Twitter where it's a mix of real and pseudonymous users. Read the rest

The cops in Tasmania, Australia have informed the general public that it's not illegal to call people nasty names on Facebook, and that they don't want any more complaints on those lines: "If this behavior occurred in a public place it would not be a reportable offence. It is not the role of Tasmania Police to censor internet content." Read the rest