Who is welcome to participate in the FAIR community?

[jessuppi]

Hello,

I'm asking this question because several of your project "leaders" have blocked me on social media, or other GitHub repos in the past, for unclear reasons that appear to be personal in nature.

For example, @Ipstenu, @cdils, @sarah-savage, and @mor10 have all blocked me on Twitter and/or GitHub.

Interestingly, all of these individuals appear to share far-left political views, which seems to be at least part of the reason they blocked me on social media, even when I hadn't interacted with them in some cases.

FAIR is a fascinating concept. I love the idea of decentralization, and empowering small teams and individuals. At the same time, I find it glaringly hypocritical and illustrative that at the first opportunity to differentiate your project from the favoritism, censorship, and harassment that WordPress.org became known for, you appear to be heading down a similar, if not worse, path.

To be specific:

• Will you be banning, censoring, or excluding people from your community or platforms for political or personal reasons, even when your stated Code of Conduct claims otherwise?
• Is your Code of Conduct merely a way to intimidate or silence people you do not like?
• Will the Code of Conduct be applied to behavior, discussions, or events that do not take place on FAIR’s platforms or at FAIR’s official events?

Ultimately, the problem is that even a "decentralized" project still requires centralized meeting places and websites, and my concern is that you have already displayed a tendency towards knee-jerk exclusivism before things have even gotten off the ground.

It's also extremely disappointing that a project claiming to support the "open web" has conducted nearly all of its discussions on private Slack servers and otherwise, with almost no announcements on social media, etc.

I believe a large part of the "open web" is free speech. And a large part of "free speech" is disagreement and debate. I would hope and encourage this project to reconsider how it has approached these issues thus far, and to avoid "leftist coding" this opportunity for genuine decentralization of WordPress by refusing to engage with people or social media platforms outside of Bluesky, Mastodon, private Slack servers, and/or blocking and banning people for political or personal reasons.

Kind regards, and I do sincerely wish the best for FAIR.

[cdils]

@jessuppi Thank you for sharing your concerns and for your interest in FAIR. I want to respond directly while keeping the focus on the project itself.

Personal social media interactions, such as blocking or muting accounts on platforms like X or GitHub, are individual choices made by people in their personal capacity. These decisions are not made on behalf of FAIR and do not reflect project policy or governance. Additionally, one of the individuals you mention, @mor10, is not affiliated with FAIR.

Regarding moderation and conduct: FAIR does not exclude people for political views. Our Code of Conduct applies to behavior, not ideology, and is enforced only within FAIR’s official platforms and events. Its purpose is to support respectful, productive collaboration—not to silence disagreement or debate.

FAIR’s Slack workspace is not closed. It is open to anyone who wishes to participate and agrees to follow the Code of Conduct, and it serves as the primary space for project coordination and discussion.

We appreciate good-faith engagement and wish you the best as well.

-Carrie