> The whole issue around... Peters really shows how difficult it is dealing with certain types of people.

It really isn't. You just have to:

1. Actually have a reasonable course of action. (Peters censored the offensive word, after all.)

2. Be prepared to explain it. (Nobody, to my knowledge, has yet given a clear, concrete argument as to why anything Peters said should actually be taken as offensive in principle.)

3. Communicate directly and specifically. That is: say that specific phrasing in a specific post (or discussing a specific topic in a specific post, etc.) was problematic, and why you believe it to be so.

It seems to me like some people don't think this is a reasonable standard to expect from policy enforcers. I'm baffled as to why that is.

Honestly, I find that Peters goes above and beyond in social graces, for a community of programmers, on average. He has repeatedly shown that he's willing both to edit his posts in response to such feedback (for example, as happened with the OP and title of the "How can we better support neurodivergent newcomers to the community?" thread (https://discuss.python.org/t/_/58724) and to preempt issues by offering praise before criticism, soften tone etc. It seems that he can easily write things that start out like "Good idea! But I have some small concerns about X..." in a situation where it would take my entire wherewithal for the day to resist just starting off with the X part.

> I don’t fault the PSF here, the rule changes were overwhelming accepted.

This happened after the conclusion to the discussion. A discussion in which several key questions posed to the PSF Board were left unanswered, along with a heavy dose of deliberate glomarization (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glomar_response).

It makes no sense to fault someone for not knowing that the change would be accepted. But also, 81% is a low score for these kinds of ballot measures. Normally, essentially nobody has any real reason to oppose any of them. The other ones saw much stronger acceptance. A result like this should warn those in charge that the trust thermocline is within field of view.

> There are people and we all know a couple, who will just argue asinine points to the point that you realise it’s all just a game to them.

Agreed. For example, Peters had to deal with several of them in the "Inclusive communications expectations in Python spaces" thread (https://discuss.python.org/t/_/57950), and then got written up for making too many posts in that thread (based on a subjective standard that isn't anywhere in the Code of Conduct, nor reasonably inferrable from the Code of Conduct, and which was only publicized ex post facto in https://discuss.python.org/t/_/58666) because it was necessary in order to respond to everyone who was bothering him with such. However, it seems that he either doesn't reach such a point of realization, or doesn't have a proper exit strategy for such situations. Granted, it's much harder when it isn't one-on-one.

> It’s a shame to lose people with the technical knowledge and experience, but sometimes they are just too disruptive and refuse to acknowledge it.

Hopefully, Thomas Wouters et. al. will learn this lesson in the next Steering Council election. (The Code of Conduct Work Group, for whatever reason, isn't elected and gets to appoint its own replacements.)