Re: [gentoo-dev] [RFC] Splitting developer-oriented and expert user mailing lists

[Peter Stuge]

Hi Michał,

Michał Górny wrote:
> major problems with some of the posters for more than a year.

Please believe me when I say that I know what this feels like.

I want to applaud and thank everyone who has been tackling/discussing
this issue in private, and I especially want to applaud taking action!

I however disagree with the proposal to move the problem.

I would like to encourage everyone, but in particular devs, to watch
this 18 min talk by Donnie Berkholz from 2012, about Gentoo actually:

Assholes are Ruining Your Project
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ZSli7QW4rg

If you don't want to, then the most important take-away as stated by
Donnie and supported by my own experience having "my" project ruined
is:

Do not tolerate bad behavior by anyone!


> The problems of more abusive behavior from some of the mailing list
> members have been reported to ComRel numerous times. After the failure
> of initial enforcement, I'm not aware of ComRel doing anything to solve
> the problem.

While reading your message, I kept thinking to myself: "isn't this
the very purpose of ComRel?"

I only have a non-dev understanding of ComRel, but I agree with Matt that
inaction in this situation is a failure of ComRel, and that should not be
to the detriment of any constructive contributor on gentoo-dev.


> A. Bans can be trivially evaded
> B. People should be allowed to express their opinion

Mh, so-so. It is important to take action which clearly rejects
unacceptable behavior. Otherwise any behavior is per definition
implicitly accepted, which attracts assholes.


> C. The replies of Gentoo developers were worse

This should *also* not be accepted. Equal standards for what is
acceptable and what is not must apply to everyone.

It could be argued that different people deserve different sanctions.
I would agree with that only as far as there is a mentoring process in
place, requiring a third party to work on eliminating bad behavior.

I think that's the purpose of DevRel for developer<->developer, and
ComRel for developer<->non-developer.

Yes, such mentoring requires a non-negligable committment to
non-trivial work.

It is clearly not always possible to mentor bad behavior away. Then
that person must be shut out to save the environment, whether a
long-standing developer or not!


Coming back to the concrete proposal, I think a better course of
action is to demonstrate strong leadership, by speaking out in force
against bad behavior, every time.

In order to have something to lean on, it can be super helpful to
have a code-of-conduct in place, and was already mentioned.

I had to think about code-of-conduct for a long time, before my
mental model of them "clicked". I consider them to be about
explicitly stating the community expectations for good behavior,
and as an agreed-upon reference for (sometimes unpleasant, but
incredibly important) forceful action in reponse to bad behavior.


> The alternative suggested by ComRel pretty much boiled down to 'ignore
> the trolls'.

I find this highly inadequate.


I urge either ComRel or other leadership to take as forceful action
as is neccessary against bad behavior, to uphold a healthy
environment.

Selective moderation is a more technically sophisticated ban. If
possible that's cool. If not possible that's perfectly fine. Just
ban. Keep banning if the bad behavior resurfaces with another
identity.

Please do not relent. It is not fair to yourself or your colleagues.


Thank you and keep up the excellent effort everyone

//Peter