EDIT: I want to make one thing absolutely clear. I am a committed antifascist, because of my personal history, my family history, and my country's history. Nazis and fascists are not welcome here, and they never have been.
Being accused of fascism or Nazism, or of defending either of them, hurts me personally. Part of the point of this post was precisely this: if we disagree, let's not immediately start shouting "fascism". Let's talk, look at what was actually said and done, and try to understand the situation. Sometimes there is more to it than it first appears.
After 30 years of commitment to open source, openness and collaboration, I honestly don't know how else to make my position clearer. I am deeply saddened by how this whole situation has unfolded.
Periodic official communication, just to clarify a few things.
The BSD Cafe is an open, inclusive and friendly community. A community of people who try to be *“pro, not against”* and *“supporters, not haters”*: enthusiasts, friends, people who come here to share, to learn, to discuss. Not to hate each other.
This does not mean that we all have to think in the same way. Quite the opposite: it means that we can have different opinions, discuss them, defend them strongly, and question each other’s ideas.
What it does not mean is that it is acceptable to insult, threaten, attack people, or pretend that there can only be one morally acceptable position on every possible subject.
Calling the BSD Cafe a "Nazi Bar" from the outside simply because we do not automatically censor people who have an opinion different from yours is offensive towards the hundreds of people who are part of this community. Unless you're a Nazi or a fascist. In that case, you're not welcome here.
People are, of course, free to criticise what happens here. But expecting us to attack, ban or silence someone because you believe they deserve it, and then accusing the whole Cafe because we do not, is something different.
And I have seen something even worse lately: actual calls for hate. The equivalent of *“hey, everyone, go and attack this person”*, simply because that person does not share your position.
No. This is not acceptable.
And, dear friends, declaring yourself anti-Nazi while organising a crowd against somebody, intimidating them and treating them as an enemy who deserves to be attacked means using exactly the kind of methods you claim to oppose.
I do not say this lightly. I come from a family, and from a country, with a very real history of fascism and of the antifascism that immediately followed it. These are not just abstract words to me.
Hate is not tolerated, at any level, inside or outside the Cafe. The same is true for threats, intimidation and aggression. Believing that our cause is right does not make those behaviours more acceptable.
You disagree with someone? Say it. Explain why. Argue against their ideas. Support yours with all the conviction you want. But do not aggressively attack. This is not tolerated.
And expecting everyone else to attack that person too, or considering them somehow complicit because they do not, is something different. And it is not what I want for this community.
On any subject.
Even pineapple on pizza (!!!).
The Fediverse is a non-place, but it is made of real people. Wonderful people, very often. Let’s not turn it into version 2.0 of traditional social media, where every discussion becomes a war and anyone who does not think exactly like us automatically becomes the enemy.
In the last few weeks I have seen people stepping away exactly because of this. On different subjects, people accused of the worst things not because of something they had done, but because they had not said what someone expected them to say. Some of them, for their own wellbeing, simply decided to take a step back.
We all lost something because of that. Nobody gained anything.
So let’s keep supporting what we believe in. Let’s do it with conviction, and with firmness when needed. But let’s discuss ideas without turning people into targets.
From experience, I have learnt that real change also requires discussion, organisation, patience and concrete actions. We can disagree deeply without stopping considering each other as people.
This is the kind of place I want the BSD Cafe to continue to be.
https://journal.bsd.cafe/2026/03/31/im-just-the-barista/
#BSDCafe #Fediverse #SupportersNotHaters
), which are recognized by some small but loud group of radicals as "bad" and they are able to gather an angry mob to make some attacks. Or have some power, so the "doorman syndrome" (синдром вахтёра) (it is a Russian idiom: when the someone without a power, got some power and then exploiting it just to feel the power over people) is manifesting. So, I considered that it is better to form my own opinion about some subject, remembering that I'm not from USA/Western Europe and I'm not a radical in any way 
