[gentoo-project] Re: Shutting down the Off the Wall

[desultory]

On 12/11/20 16:23, Thomas Deutschmann wrote:
> Hi,
>
> The topic has been discussed extensively in the past few weeks; The sad
> climax was last Tuesday. At this point I will not look back anymore.
> Maybe all of us could have done a better job but whataboutism doesn�t
> help anyone. Let's try to focus on a possible solution.
>
> To recall the problem:
> On November 7th, Gentoo forum member "Old School" named another human
> being a slut (https://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-p-8526392.html#8526392).
>
Council then claimed primary enforcement responsibility regarding that
post.

Council has since exercised that responsibility by doing precisely
nothing in regard to that post, not even inquiring with forum moderators
regarding what action would have been taken were they free to act in
response to it.

Council, upon being informed (again) that it was possible to make the
entire section in which that post was made visible only to logged in
users, voted to do so, again avoiding doing anything about the supposed
matter at hand.

Council has, as a whole, since effectively demanded that the forums be
proactively moderated in their entirety while ignoring that moderation
is driven by reporting problems to moderators.

> This is a violation of Gentoo's code of conduct where we explicit state
> that "posting messages that are deliberately hostile and insulting" are
> unacceptable behaviors
> (https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Project:Council/Code_of_conduct).
>
> This is not about free speech. Gentoo is primary a Linux distribution,
> not a discussion platform. This is about us who defined once how we want
> to treat each other in the Gentoo community and everyone participating
> must adhere to our code of conduct. It�s that simple.
>
> I expect that everyone in Gentoo, including forum moderators, agree on
> that.
>
> What does that mean for the forum?
>
> From my point of view, the following things must change:
>
> 1) We must finally migrate the forum's software. The new software should
> give us new possibilities like introducing a warning system and move to
> a reporting system which doesn't require posting in a public forum. This
> should make life for moderators a lot easier like nobody is expecting
> that moderators will read every posting. But once we get aware of a code
> of conduct violation, we must take action.
>
I agree that the software should be updated once it is ready.

Warnings already exist, and have since well before I joined the project
over a decade ago.

Making all reports private is largely irrelevant, if there is a reason
to make a report in private any moderator can be reached via private
messaging or the team as a whole or in part can be reached via e-mail.
Indeed having public reports allows users to respond to complaints
against them, this has at times removed the need for moderator action.

Once a violation of any of the forum rules is reported, including the
CoC, action is taken as deemed fit. In this particular case the council
claimed that responsibility for itself and to be frank has botched the
role rather terribly, not even following its own procedures much less
those of the forums.

> 2) Moderators must of course moderate a bit more, at least for the next
> three months until everyone in the community has understood that Gentoo
> should be a place where everyone should feel welcome and where we pay
> attention how we treat each other. I am expecting that not more than 20
> people will have a problem with our rules but consistently applied rules
> should either lead to changes in behavior or result in bans after a
> short time.
>
Moderation is largely driven by reporting problem posts, and is thus
largely contingent upon the users. Given that the council member who
first complained about the post in question is rather obviously a Gentoo
developer and thus has an e-mail account, has an account on the forums,
and has an account on freenode, he has access to literally every
canonical manner of reporting a post, but instead chose to engage in
this farce. Thus at least one user was deliberately acting against that
goal, and that user is to vote on the matter in the council meeting.

Asking moderators to handle reports is perfectly normal, arguably it is
largely the point of even having moderators. Making a complaint that
they are held to not be free to handle as they would any other report
and holding up inaction on that complaint as evidence of anything other
than tampering with their functions and abilities is pointedly absurd.

> 3) We should consider starting with a new, empty, OTW forum. Some old
> content like the screenshot or Christmas thread can (and should) of
> course be preserved.
>
In that case, at least for a time, the existing Off the Wall would need
to remain, even if not visible to the public and not writable to users,
in order to facilitate harvesting of content deemed worthy of retention.

> Like said, these are only the things which I believe have to change. I
> am looking forward for other opinions, especially from current forums
> moderators how they believe that the problem should be resolved.
>
> If the situation will not change and forum remains a place where our
> code of conduct will be ignored, we will have no choice but to close it.
>
> Let's work together to solve the problem and keep the forum open! Don�t
> let less than 20 people who don't share our values take our forum away
> from us!
>
>