Please remove Hexstream's access to Quicklisp and all repositories

[phoe]

Hello,

I would like to bring your attention to the behavior of @Hexstream that, I assume, might be already well-known to you.

I regret to inform you that his most recent GitHub conversation, in which I have once more attempted to convince him to change his behavior and publish actual data that shows his real amount and quality of involvement in the Common Lisp community, I have been announced the main threat to the whole Common Lisp community, declared impossible to directly and indirectly fund in an ethical manner, and then proclaimed that require immediate medical attention of psychiatric nature.

Hexstream has been ranting on Twitter and derailing many [1] various[2] GitHub[3] discussions[4] at least since 2015. In this time, he has not been stopped by anyone or anything, and this lack of action caused concrete and direct harm to the Common Lisp community.

• He has repeatedly defamed various honored and respected members of the Common Lisp community, including Rainer Joswig, Michael Fiano, Daniel Kochmański, Stas Boukarev, Zach Beane, and me. This list is not exhaustive and includes various other Common Lisp programmers on GitHub who have not approved of his behavior.
• He has published a public service announcement detailing his delusion about Zach Beane being a sociopath and a member of the Common Lisp Mafia, and made it available under a custom-purchased domain, https://xach.exposed.
• He fraudulently claims that he is a Common Lisp expert, while a simple glance at his "extensive contributions" reveals that they are void, baseless, lack any concrete merit, and completely do not suit the image that he tries to create around himself, which is one of a Common Lisp expert with five years of commercial experience and fifteen years of general Lisp experience.
• He published an online list of Lisp programmers from which he refuses to remove people, because of his made-up policies that he invents and modifies on the spot as appropriate and refuses to consult with anyone.

He is extremely antisocial and abrasive, which further stresses the part of the Common Lisp community that attempts to have fruitful and civil discussion on GitHub.

• He always approaches other people with his arrogant, egocentric point of view, in which his opinion is law, and points of view of others are fully and completely ignorable, and also valid targets for unwinding his aggression.
• Whenever the above arrogance is not respected in any way, he becomes vulgar, aggressive, offensive, obscene, ironic, and derogatory towards his conversation partners.
• When this aggression is pointed out to him and he is pushed to make an answer, he plays the victim card and considers himself to be silenced, censored, and tortured by a so-called "Common Lisp Mafia" that is an invention of his own deluded mind in order to avoid taking responsibility for his actions.
• This behavior of his has been pointed out to him hundreds of times throughout these years, and has not changed, which brings me to the unfortunate but required conclusion, that he is impossible to reason with and must instead be removed from the Common Lisp community by force for the good of our community.
• This kind of behavior directly threatens the healthy future of the Common Lisp community by driving away newcomers to the language, who seek a friendly, inclusive, and non-aggressive environment in which they may learn the language and the programmers.

I can provide more evidence and logs of this behavior on request.

I have written a blogpost about this most recent meltdown of his that contains more details and further links.

This kind of behavior has been going on for years with multiple members of the Lisp community being targeted. Because of this, it is no longer tolerable in any way. This kind of continuous behavior has been repeated without any hints of change from Hexstream's side require immediate and solid attention in order to protect the Common Lisp community from his influence.

Therefore, I request immediate revocation of Hexstream's access to the Quicklisp group on GitHub and removal of all of his systems in the next Quicklisp dist. Hexstream's ASDF systems have no non-Hexstream dependents in the current dist, which makes them trivial to remove as a whole. (Edit: crossed-out the removal of systems.)

Such action is highly desired and required for the good of the Common Lisp community, as shown by extensive commentary of my discussion with Hexstream on Reddit, Freenode IRC, Lisp Discord, and Fediverse.

Those discussions in these places mean that the issue with Hexstream is widely known, my means of dealing with him in the main GitHub issue have been appropriate, and the problem has been noticed and acknowledged by tens of members of the Common Lisp community. These people, I assume, would also enjoy a Common Lisp community that is not based upon the pseudo-"ethics" of verbal violence, vulgarity, pretentious meritlessness, paranoidal conspiracy theories, and absolute lack of respect towards other people.

---

A matching removal request has been submitted to the Ultralisp repository given the high importance of this issue.

[vindarel]

removal of all of his systems in the next Quicklisp dist.

I don't see the logical step that leads to this. I find this request weird, violent, illegitimate, inappropriate and counter-productive (he can now claim to be censored).

[phoe]

I don't see the logical step that leads to this.

This is to make a very strong point that indulging aggressive and defamatory behavior towards members of the Common Lisp community for five years straight, as listed above, is not acceptable in any way and has direct consequences. Hexstream's merit is non-zero when it comes to source code, but it is also massively shadowed by the obnoxious behavior that he is infamous for in the Common Lisp community.

(he can now claim to be censored)

The only censorship that is currently happening is the protection of the Common Lisp community against Hexstream's influence and breaking the continuous streak of five years of his constant obnoxious behavior, as listed above.

If he considers this to be censorship, then so be it; I have run out of any more chances to give him and have decided to instead act to protect the Lisp community from continuous aggression and deluded paranoia of Hexstream's making, since he has proven completely unable to contain it on his own.

[kanubacode]

While I haven't made contact with him in a couple years, I see that he is still targeting myself and others when things don't go his way. I support this request, not because he bothers me, but because it bothers me that the Lisp community is suffering from his volatile behavior.

[thephoeron]

It is such a gross disappointment to find a thread like this appear in my GitHub notification feed. The behavior I'm witnessing serves no one's interests, whether they are directed back at themselves, or for others.

I'm not going to single anyone out, or take sides, but I'm also not going to dignify persecution with a point-by-point rebuttal. I can't believe I even have to say this much: it is unethical to request community-wide sanctions be imposed against a peer, for any reason.

It was not long ago I reminded us all, that we Lisp Hackers are meant to have each other's backs. We are also meant to be examples to the greater Lisp community. We don't take the title of Lisp Hacker for ourselves, it is an honorific awarded to those who have given something of significant value to the Lisp community, freely, no matter the cost to themselves. After all, as Lisp Hackers, we are expected to live by the Hacker Ethos: "You're only as good as what you give."

Let us all now ask ourselves, "What have we given to our community, and how much has this dispute taken away from it?"

[anlsh]

It is unethical to request community-wide sanctions be imposed against a peer, for any reason

I've yet to make up my own mind on this matter, and maybe I'll give my own thoughts later if I have anything worth saying. I can't help but react with incredulity to @thephoeron's statement above though. Any reason? Do you mean what you say here? Indeed, do you think community-wide sanctions are ever justified?

[thephoeron]

@anlsh: Yes, I mean precisely what I say.

For comparison:

• Quicklisp is maintained by @xach, who is astute, reasonable, fair, forgiving, and informed; he's not a pushover, or off in an ivory tower. So you can count on him to know for himself when someone is violating the code of conduct, and ensure that it is handled correctly.
• @phoe can block anyone he wants from his own GitHub profile. He doesn't even need a reason.
• A comprehensive removal, block, ban, and denial of access from the major quicklisp distributions is far too extreme for one person to request against a peer. That's what makes it unethical, it's a threat of excessive force by someone who has no authority to wield any in the given context.

[xbrq]

[lonjil]

A comprehensive removal, block, ban, and denial of access from the major quicklisp distributions is far too extreme for one person to request against a peer.

Well, that one person doesn't have any power over it. It is after all just a request, and I don't see anything extreme about a person requesting something, since the final decision rests in the hands of everyone else. Xach will see this thread, and come to his own conclusion based on the presented evidence and his own standards.

[parjanya]

Never have I seen anything good come from Hexstream dealings in the CL community. On the contrary, the amount of hate and vitriol generated far exceeds any benefit it might have. Banning him might seem a little radical, but I fail to see how would he be missed. What a talent to spread strife, good heavens!

[thephoeron]

@lonjil: it's not "just a request", is it? I was being polite and diplomatic above, because we won't help this situation by calling it out for what it is, only fan the flames.

@parjanya: Not that it's anyone's business, but Hexstream is Aspergers, and his reactions to bullying are both normal for Aspergers and perfectly rational.

[phoe]

Let us all now ask ourselves, "What have we given to our community, and how much has this dispute taken away from it?"

I think that the latter part of my blogpost might be an answer to the first part of that question; as for the latter, I think it has taken away the possibly false idea that Hexstream's behavior is tolerable or doesn't affect members of the Lisp community that end up meeting him. But, yes, there are obvious other costs associated with discussions like that: time costs spent thinking and writing replies, emotional costs of reading the original posts and rants and then responding on GitHub, et al.

A comprehensive removal, block, ban, and denial of access from the major quicklisp distributions is far too extreme for one person to request against a peer.

I do not think that the point that my whole post is trying to make is going to change whatsoever when I rewrite "Hexstream" to "all people who currently have years' worth of notorious defaming, thread-derailing, arrogance, and conspiracy theories involving other Lisp hackers". This is because I can see only one person behaving this way at this moment.

I can agree that in case of only a single case of such extreme behavior it might be troublesome to tell apart witch-hunting and boundary-setting; this is why in the original post of this thread I have first and foremost attempted to list behaviors unacceptable to me and push my issue based on Hexstream being in violation of these behaviors.

That's what makes it unethical, it's a threat of excessive force by someone who has no authority to wield any in the given context.

Yes, I have no authority here. That is why I have submitted a series of posts to voice my concerns and ask for feedback; finally, I've submit this proposal that I think would solve the issue.

For instance, I have received many comments that my proposal is too wide since it also requires the removal of code; after a night's sleep I consider code to be the most controversial and at the same time the least important and changing part of my proposal. So, sure, let it stay; I have edited the original post.

Not that it's anyone's business, but Hexstream is Aspergers, and his reactions to bullying are both normal for Aspergers and perfectly rational.

I understand that he has Asperger's and feel deeply sorry for that reason. Still, for the example that started it all I would never call Hexstream's years of ranting against Xach rational, nor would I call Xach's reaction to him bullying in any way. Something that started off as delays in publishing Hexstream's stuff from Xach's side has escalated into something that I cannot rationalize despite my best intentions and lots of effort I've put into it.

For instance, please show me where and how Xach actually bullied him. I can list a single blogpost from him and a single tweet after Hexstream has proclaimed to be Xach of the Common Lisp Mafia; afterwards, it was complete radio silence that Xach likely employed in order to protect his mental health, possibly along with social media ignores to not even be aware of Hexstream's rants. To count in additional fallout afterwards, the now-mafioso Xach was seemingly capable of influencing Robert Strandh's opinions about Hexstream's MOP rendition[1] [2]; I won't dive further into Twitter tweets. Seriously, how is the original reaction from Xach bullying, how is this whole reaction from Hexstream rational at all, and how is this whole reaction from Hexstream not a massive, years-long, aggressive attack in order to smear feces all over Xach's name due to Hexstream's delusions?

I say delusions because Hexstream seems to fill in the blanks in his thoughts with a lot of false assumptions about other people's intentions and proceed with his line of thinking without ever paying any attention or care to verifying them. Seriously, I have never seen him seriously ask for rationale about why someone behaved this way or that way. For instance, he knows better than me why I have written all of this content about him; I am mentally ill and require immediate psychiatric help.

To me, this is delusion in its purest form, which injects pure irrationality into the otherwise strictly rational process that I was able to observe in Hexstream from outside. If I understand Asperger's correctly, then reading other people's intentions is seriously impaired in this way; but, instead of generating conspiracy theories based on fear, one can instead ask why other people behave in some way, and seriously, they'll almost always respond in honesty, without ill intentions, and also with an apology if they notice that they have screwed up somewhere along the way.

It is going to be different now with Hexstream since other people can, and will, assume ill intentions on his side based on all the behavior I have listed in the original issue and the blogpost, but still, with a little bit of work and an apology that he was blind to the fact that he was blind, even he, in his current moment, can get a constant, reliable source of information about other people's intentions that will work much, much better than what seems to be a pseudorandom malicious intention generator.

Seriously, despite all that I've seen and read from him and despite already written on the topic, I feel myself unable to demonize Hexstream altogether and still consider him to be capable of change. IMO, the first and most important change that would also give the greatest benefit would be to feed his otherwise working and rational mind with better sources of information. Sure, this requires trust in other people that he does not seem to have to overcome fear that is one of the emotions that bind the strongest, but he is not required to work on this purely on his own and can instead reach for support. (Saying this as a veteran of seven years of psychotherapy.)

Frankly, at this moment, other people do not seem to trust Hexstream much either, but this will change when and if they see a basis for change. I don't think members of the Lisp community who've voiced their concerns here or in Reddit fail to understand that minds are complex beasts, can and will play tricks and work in varying ways, and that they can be very tough to tame in general; I think they are tired of the rants and abrasions that Hexstream is currently infamous for.

It was not long ago I reminded us all, that we Lisp Hackers are meant to have each other's backs. We are also meant to be examples to the greater Lisp community.

As I have mentioned in one of the earlier posts somewhere in the threads that have popped up, I cannot have the back of anyone who repeatedly attempts to smack the backs of other people.

But, you know, I'm still having Hexstream's back. This block of text above is mostly how I understand his current problems and what I think, with my best intentions, would be the way forwards and out of them.

And, at the same time, I'm still having the backs of other Lisp hackers, which is why I still strongly vote for isolating Hexstream in his current state of behavior to avoid further harm from becoming possible.

[mohe2015]

Considering that it came up now https://mobile.twitter.com/HexstreamSoft/status/1154310860199931906 is the original source which also mentions OCPD aside from Asperger's. It may be an interesting read for everyone but I don't want to say anything more to this as I don't know the severeness and I think he can talk for himself if he wants to. I can also remove this message if you don't want this to get more publicity.

I'm quite an outsider but to me it's unclear how this all started. I read a few threads from GitHub and most of them don't seem to match with other threads and the tweets (I also realized I had a short conversation with him in the past). It seems like there is some intermediate piece missing.

[tfeb]

Please don't do this, or at least not because of this issue (or this comment). The CL community has a very long history of difficult people, including me. The solution to those people is to not engage with them: just walk away. If some difficult person thinks they are being persecuted by some mythical Common Lisp Mafia then when a bunch of Common Lisp people get together and persecute them this is not going to help.

Instead, well, all these new-fangled things have killfiles: you can block users on GitHub, you can I am sure block people on Twitter, you can ignore people on IRC. Just walk away.

(Incidentally, I can state with some certainty that the Common Lisp Mafia has not, in fact, persecuted this person, as I have not authorised such action. Our recent activities have been directed elsewhere.)

[thephoeron]

@mohe2015: it's not about avoiding publicity, or keeping secrets, or even the right to privacy in this case because as you pointed out, Hexstream has publicly shared that he is on the spectrum, with the complication of OCPD. My concern is the importance of avoiding discrimination, whether intentional or unintentional.

The fact is, there is no intrinsic problem or deficiency in individuals on the Autism spectrum; the behavioral problems and severity associated with the Autism spectrum are the result of abuse, neglect, isolation, bullying, and a life of constant communication blocks and misunderstandings, to say nothing of the nearly complete failure to provide for their needs during critical phases of early childhood development. The Autism spectrum is nothing more than evolution presenting our species with a new, and fundamentally different neurological model. Unfortunately, humans are primates, and primates are xenophobic. Human psychology even has built-in safeguards to protect and reinforce xenophobia. Luckily, human psychology is adaptable, so with patience, humility, discipline, and reinforcement, we can learn to listen to our better angels instead of the beast within.

As an aside of general interest, the principal construct responsible for protecting xenophobia is the Ego.

@phoe: your treatment of Hexstream is vicious and cruel, however, I am aware that it is a projection of your own feelings of self-worth, so you have my deepest sympathy for the struggle you have to live with. These extensive posts you've been writing, their length, tone, meter, as well as the structure of your reasoning process appear to be early manifestations of an impending psychotic break, however, the persecutory fixation and demonization of one of your closest friends in the community are mostly still sub-delusional and not paranoid. I hope it is not too late for you to hear me when I say: you need professional help, and there's no shame in admitting it or seeking it. Please see a psychiatrist immediately, and let them help you take care of yourself. The mind is all you've got.