Re: [gentoo-council] User Relations authority

[Ferris McCormick]

On Wed, 2008-07-09 at 22:49 -0700, Donnie Berkholz wrote:
> From this month's agenda:
>
>   User Relations authority
>   ------------------------
>
>   Ferris asks: Does userrel have the authority to enforce the Code of
>   Conduct on users in the same way devrel does for developers?
>
>   Preparation: Donnie will start a thread on the -council list. Post
>   your opinion there. If everyone's posted in advance of the meeting,
>   status check at meeting to see who's ready to vote.
>
>   Goal: Reach a decision on-list no later than July 17.
>
> Please respond with your thoughts.

I didn't even remember that I had asked this, but here are my thoughts.

1.  Yes, Userrel has (or should have) that authority;
2.  But for both devrel and userrel, the Code of Conduct loses almost
all its impact unless response is immediate --- CoC's intent, I think,
is to help keep the mailing lists and #gentoo-dev channel on track
pretty much in real time.  I know this was the original idea behind it,
and this was one reason we felt we needed people outside devrel to help
enforce it (devrel is not set up for immediate responses);
3.  Thus, I think bugzilla bugs for Code of Conduct violations miss much
of the point.
4.  That is, we (devrel, userrel, averyone else perhaps) should use Code
of Conduct to stop elaborate flame wars before they can burn out of
control.  Whether a flame war ever merits a bug will vary from situation
to situation, but generally if we have a flame war and wish to impose
some sort of sanctions because of it, we really need to be hitting
several people or none with warnings or brief "vacations."

5.  I am not sure where the current Code of Conduct document is, but
I'll volunteer to help update it to bring it into line with how we wish
to use it and to help clarify who has what authority under it, and that
sort of thing.  I have come to support it, and I'd like to help make it
more effectively used in the rather narrow context for which it was
designed before we consider extending its reach.
6.  For example, I think we could put some sort of limited moderation
onto the -dev mailing list, citing the current Code of Conduct as
authority, any time we wanted.  And I do not think the Code of Conduct
as currently envisioned has much reach into the past (one or two days,
probably; one or two weeks, perhaps; one or two months, no; one or two
years, certainly not).

I hope you get the idea.  Although I advocate brevity, I have problems
practicing it.

Regards,
Ferris
-- 
Ferris McCormick (P44646, MI) <fmccor@g.o>
Developer, Gentoo Linux (Devrel, Sparc, Userrel, Trustees)