It's their house and we abide by their rules.
If we break a rule and it's pointed out, then we apologise and goto 10: read and follow the rules. We do not throw tantrums, we do not cry "censorship! suppression!".
We act in good faith: if we post a thread, open an issue, submit a PR, and it is closed, then we do not simply repeat our action. Whether we agree with the closure or not, repeating is an attempt at evasion and a smack in the face of those running the place. Either of these two behaviours then invite us to be banned, because we have acted in bad faith.
We do not immediately and vocally assume that an act we don't like is a personal attack against ourselves or our values. If our post is "hidden by the community", this does does not mean "the leadership of the project is orchestrating an agenda against us". It means our peers have found our conduct distasteful and is a very loud alarm that we must heed: that we have behaved outside of the expected conduct and our peers found it distasteful, unhelpful, insulting. If a web site algorithm has prevented us from posting a link, an image because our account is new or it has triggered anti-spam measures, we do not post elsewhere about how we're being persecuted.
We invite like-minded people to join the discussion when they have innovative ideas, when they can add material to a discussion that has not yet been supplied, an angle that has not been addressed, or a concept that has been misunderstood. We never ping our friends to jump on our bandwagon, shouting the same things over and over again. Perhaps if a concern is dismissed as an outside, then more voices can be constructive, but they must conduct themselves with civility and be particularly aware that they need to add to the discussion, not to add pressure.
If a counterpoint is given to something we passionately believe in, then to discuss is to use logic and data to refute it. In the ideal, we ask ourselves to fight for this counterpoint: perhaps it is entirely valid? What we must refrain from is reading a fair and polite counterpoint and immediately treating it as an attack, a dismissal. This prompts a counter-attack and we are no longer discussing - we are now detracting from the point. When we make our issue or improvement a negative it reflects back upon us. Who wishes to discuss with a party that cannot cope with rational disagreement? In addition, we must resist the urge to simply exaggerate our cause: to state an incorrect point more loudly does not make it correct, it just antagonises those who disagree. Those who we are trying to see our reasons, our solutions, or problems.
Once we have broken the rules, assumed and publicised bad faith, breached expected conduct, ignored the ire of our peers, evaded bans, repeated actions which were turned down, called on our friends to flame and troll, replied to constructive criticism with louder voices, manipulated the conversation with hyperbole and outright refused to listen to the possibility we may be wrong...then we hold a beacon above our heads, advertising that we are incapable of joining a rational debate and seek not to improve anything but only be told we are right and righteous.
I say this not to you, but to answer your question: if anyone reads what has transpired in this matter, and then asks your question, they need to very deeply analyse their behaviour because it is unacceptable in any civilised society.
Having made rules is not sufficient for those rules to be just. Rules are not themselves authority bearing - nor can one side be upset when they make obnoxious rules and get push back. When you respond to criticism of those rules by deleting the criticisms... well it's clear you are no longer hosting an open forum and instead trying to shut down speech you don't like.
The posters did not use insults, they did not attack the people behind signal - they pointed out that the statement regarding the proxies was false (which it factually was) and that the circumvention that Signal gave was likely insufficient for most users. Shutting down a potentially serious security bug because it's in the wrong spot or because you don't like the tone is bullshit - it tell me you as a person care more about tone policing then keeping your users safe. When you're doing battle against nation-states who like to jail their dissidents, you don't get to reap half-successes.
This isn't a child's baseball game, this is a situation where lives are at risk. "Sorry, we really tried to put out the fire, but your yard sign made me upset and I had to go write in my journal instead of doing my job."
Quite. And if one doesn't think the rules are just, then simply don't play the game. However, rules such as "don't spam an issue", "don't spam a PR", "don't insult others", "please use the forum for this discussion" strike me as being simple, sensible and just rules. Which rules are unjust, in this context?
> Rules are not themselves authority bearing - nor can one side be upset when they make obnoxious rules and get push back.
In a dictatorship - such as a web site forum - the rules are, in fact, authority bearing. Since a user or their content can be removed at the whim of an operator, that authority is proven. This entire dramatic performance has been because the entirety of one "side" is upset when they've been subjected to pushback because they have broken the rules, and the authority of those rules has been effected.
> When you respond to criticism of those rules by deleting the criticisms... well it's clear you are no longer hosting an open forum and instead trying to shut down speech you don't like.
You are conflating what happened here. A user committed malconduct (of the sort that most projects would react badly to) and their offending material was deleted because it was an unhelpful duplicate placed in the wrong forum. Such content can only be deleted because it is...unhelpful, duplicate and in the wrong forum. All that was needed was the discussion moved to where it was expected. GitHub projects are not open forums and the PR was not speech.
> The posters did not use insults, they did not attack the people behind signal
I refute this statement with the following: https://github.com/signalapp/Signal-TLS-Proxy/pull/15#issuec... https://github.com/signalapp/Signal-TLS-Proxy/pull/15#issuec... https://github.com/signalapp/Signal-TLS-Proxy/pull/15#issuec... https://github.com/signalapp/Signal-TLS-Proxy/pull/15#issuec... https://community.signalusers.org/t/why-signal-blocked-me-fr... (more a threat than insult, I guess) https://community.signalusers.org/t/why-signal-blocked-me-fr... https://community.signalusers.org/t/why-signal-blocked-me-fr...
> Shutting down a potentially serious security bug
They were not shut down to begin with - they were simply asked to post in the correct forum. Once they started their abusive behaviour they had to be shut down because they couldn't behave themselves.
> This isn't a child's baseball game, this is a situation where lives are at risk. "Sorry, we really tried to put out the fire, but your yard sign made me upset and I had to go write in my journal instead of doing my job."
I'm not sure what you're trying to achieve here, other than proving one of my latter points.