abstract
| - A person posing as a new open source contributor, Nils Dagsson Moskopp aka erlehmann,introduced himself on the mailing list debian-devel-games. Further discussions introduced the idea that a particular work of interactive fiction, "Unteralterbach" should be included in Debian. Some list members played the game, which has content and plotlines which reportedly include disturbing in-game actions and graphic representations of sex with children. More discussion of this spread to debian-women and debian-legal. It seems that there was no serious push to include the offensive game. But quite a few people wasted their time and energy having to argue about artistic representations of child abuse on a large open source project, since some list members defended the idea. In some cases, swayed by arguments about free speech, anti-censorship, artistic merit, and attempting to prove they were not prudish, people became co-opted into being participants in a disgusting joke, perpetrators of a needlessly hostile environment to a disturbing degree. The original troll was laying the trail for a long performative mailing list flame war. It is important to note the patterns here in order to recognize them in future.
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