Comment by RigelKentaurus
20 hours ago
Man, this was hard to read. Irrespective of what actually happened, this found-guilty-by-popular-opinion mentality is a corrosive evil, and it's been worsened by social media. Hard to believe that this community just ignored "innocent until proven guilty" so casually.
I used to naively believe that people are generally good. I still believe that but with a major qualifier. There are some truly toxic people out there who are seriously mentally fucked up and don't hesitate to screw with others' lives. They seem normal and nice at first, but if you look closely enough, you see the trail they have left behind.
I think one of the reasons communities like Scala's are susceptible to this pattern is that they have some characteristics of a movement and compete for attention with other movements, so there's a knee-jerk response to protect the movement and all the effort put into it from being associated with bad stuff. Most signatories to this letter were likely erring on the side of protecting their community, at the risk of an individuals' fate.
(I'm also discussing this neutral to the actual issue, which I don't know much about and haven't made my mind up on.)