Dori Smith brought the case of Merkey vs Everyone to my attention and for some reason, despite the fact that I have 4 days worth of reading to catch up on I thought I’d read it.  I don’t see this as a case that should be dismissed entirely without thought as Dori’s quotes from the complaint would make out.  Certainly there’s a lot of rhetoric that should just be dismissed and the complaint is biased in favor of Merkey (isn’t a complaint supposed to be?) but it does point out quite accurately that there is a very distasteful undercurrent within open source communities that does cause harm to people and should be actively discouraged.  Often we’re too caught up in the belief that every forum must allow anyone to say anything they want and don’t focus on building positive communities, encouraging professional behavior and generally behaving like adults.

Browse slashdot with comment filters set to -1 and look at the huge amount of crap that is posted, usually discrimanatory in a range of ways, encouraging violence and drawing down the tone of the community.  When was the last time you saw slashdot held up as an example of a strong, positive community?  When was the last time you heard someone saying how pathetic the comments on slashdot articles are?  Even though the worst of the comments are hidden from most users, the entire culture of slashdot is pretty immature, negative and unprofessional.  As a result, there are few really engaging conversations that occur on Slashdot and those that do occur struggle to be noticed over the noise.

On the other hand, there are positive, friendly online communities out there where engaging discussions regularly happen because they focus on getting rid of the crap and really encouraging people to be friendly.  See Kathy Sierra’s Building a Successful Online Community and Clay Shirky’s A Group Is Its Own Worst Enemy.

The right to swing your fist ends at the other man’s nose, and the right to free speech ends at a lot of places, including when you’re using other people’s resources, when you are being discriminatory and when you are being slanderous/libelous.  It’s definitely something to keep in mind when you are planning to build a community.