Re: [gentoo-council] Extent of Code of Conduct enforcement

[Ferris McCormick]

On Tue, 2008-07-22 at 02:34 -0400, Mark Loeser wrote:
> Donnie Berkholz <dberkholz@g.o> said:
> > Can people be entirely banned from Gentoo?
>
> It would be ideal, but not technically feasible.
>
> > - What would such a ban include? Some ideas -- the person could not:
> >   - Post to any gentoo mailing list;
> >   - Post to gentoo bugzilla;
> >   - Participate in #gentoo- IRC channels;
>
> All of these seem to be possible to an extent and would be valid if we
> would like to limit the damage an individual does to the community.
>

Perhaps you could ban a name (like fmccor), But if I reappeared just as
Ferris@××××××××××××××××××××.pro, that would be harder.  Ferris is not
all that unusual last name, and not unique as a first name (it's Celtic)
--- think of "Ferris Buehler's day off."  So, you might be convinced
it's really me, but if by mistake you banned Ferris Buehler, you'd have
a problem.  (Just an unethical lawyer, not the poisonous fmccor. :) )

> >   - Contribute to gentoo (hence my corner case of a security fix) except
> >     perhaps through a proxy;
>
> This would be difficult to control, and I don't think we should care in
> this case.  If they are contributing through a proxy (say Linus), should
> we reject their fix?
>
> > - Why would we do it?
>
> Because they are damaging the community and driving possible
> contributors aways.
>
> > - Under whose authority would it happen?
>
> Devrel and/or userrel
>
> > - Would it be reversible? What conditions would cause this?
>
> This would be something I would like to hear opinions from userrel and
> devrel on.  Do they think someone that we would want to ban permanently
> would turn around enough to unban?
>

Sure.  Everyone changes.

> >   Since the banned person couldn't participate in Gentoo, we'd never
> >   know whether anything changed.
>
> Refer to my comment above.
>
> > - How would one appeal this? Would there be a chance to respond before
> >   the ban?
>
> If it got to the point of us considering a permanent ban, I don't think
> there is any reason to even consider listening to an appeal at that
> point.  With that being said, I would expect a permanent ban to be a
> majority vote from devrel or userrel to put such a ban in place.
>

Let's see, devrel population is about 8 or 9; userrel is smaller, I
think.  That's a tremendous amount of power in the hands of very few
developers, most of whom participate in these groups for reasons
unrelated to discipline as such (most of devrel is taken up with
recruiting people, retiring people, or documentation).  Further more,
unless we are considering imposing permanent bans on developers, it's
hard for me to see devrel's interest in such a process.

And you are saying that Council hears appeals of disciplinary actions
(GLEP 39), except in the case of the most severe action possible?

> > - Would moderating the gentoo-dev mailing list obsolete this concept?
>
> I don't think so.
>
Why not?  No one has explained that in a way I can comprehend.  Perhaps
I'm slow, but I just don't see it.  Having watched gentoo-dev@ over the
last few weeks, I conclude that usually the moderators would have
nothing to do in fact.  Almost all the time everything is pretty calm,
in fact.  We have problems when someone says something provocative and
someone else way overreacts, and things spiral out of control.

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