On 15:21 Fri 11 Jul     , Roy Bamford wrote:
> - From memory, the CoC was not intended to change *rels authority or 
> scope of action in any way at all. It was intended to document some 
> behaviours that anyone at all could use as a reference to remind other 
> participants in a medium that they we not behaving as other users had a
> right to expect. I recall it was based on some of the concepts behind 
> freenodes catalyst idea.
> 
> See dberkholzs' earlier ideas on CoC enforcement - anyone can do it.
> 
> There was no statute of limitations implied with the creation of the 
> CoC. While the CoC was being drafted, it was recognised that many CoC 
> breaches come from anger/emotion/misunderstandings and their writers 
> not sleeping on a post before they make it. 
> It was also recognised that *rel take in comparison to these 
> outbursts, a long time to act. The Proctors was created at the same 
> time as the CoC as a rapid reaction group to deal with rapidly 
> developing situations and calm things down, leaving *rel to deal with 
> the persistent offenders in slower time as they always had done.
> 
> In short, the publishing of the CoC changed nothing, it only documented
> something that had always been implied previously. 
> 
> Note that the Forums mods and #gentoo channel ops had been enforcing 
> the standards in the CoC long before it was written. It follows that 
> the CoC is just documenting a part of what had been Gentoos' common 
> law. 

Yes. =) Thank you for this well-constructed email, Roy.

-- 
Thanks,
Donnie

Donnie Berkholz
Developer, Gentoo Linux
Blog: http://dberkholz.wordpress.com