If comments as benign as "thin blue line" causes fragile entryist/activists to flee, I say Ted and the kernel team are doing the right thing. Projects as critical as the Linux kernel shouldn't be battlegrounds for the grievance of the week, nor should they be platforms for proselytizing. Marcan and others like him leave long paths of destruction in their wake. Lots of projects have been turned upsidedown by the drama they seem to bring with them everywhere. The salient point is contributors need to be more than "drive by" submitters for their pet projects. This isn't specific to Rust in the kernel, look at how much of an uphill battle bcachefs was/is.
I didn't even know what the whole issue with the "thin blue line" comment was until I read this thread. I was never under the impression "thin blue line" was about corruption or brutality, I think people are conflating "thin blue line" with "blue lives matter", which is an entirely different subject.
Quite wild to see this being downvoted, because by downvoting, surely one implies the inverse of your post to be the truth, such that projects such as the Linux kernel should be battlegrounds for the grievance of the week, should be platforms for proselytizing, and so forth.
Very strange to see little to no empathy for kernel maintainers in this situation.
Look, I don't know what to say without just assuming you're approaching this discussion in bad faith.
Saying people "compulsively downvote" the stuff above is already a strong claim that you have no way to substantiate. I think more broadly what you're claiming is that the people downvoting you and anonfordays are emotional and doing so out of political zealotry, and... again, that a pretty strong claim.
People can downvote a post not because they strongly disagree with its claims, but because they strongly dislike its inflammatory tone ("fragile entryist", "Marcan and others like him leave long paths of destruction in their wake", etc).
People who strongly disagree with a post don't necessary believe the exact opposite of its claims. They can disagree with some of the claims and agree with others, or disagree with the very framing of the post.
If I say "we should outlaw all guns because gun crimes are awful" and you disagree, that doesn't mean you think gun crimes are great.
