[gentoo-dev] How others handle bad behaviour on mailinglists

Dear List,

as Gentoo is not the only project with large mailing lists, others suffer from 
similar problems.
This is an overview on how other (well know) (community driven) projects 
handle flaming and similar things.

Only use this thread to add further links or information as well as to correct 
me, if my information was wrong (which it hopefully not, of course).
Add where you got the information from, if you do so please.

Please start new threads with new titles if you want to comment on this email.

(Projects are in no particular order.)

OpenBSD:
A Netiquette exists ( http://www.openbsd.org/mail.html ).
#openbsd information: The practise is to ignore people locally and personally, 
like an ignore list on IRC. If someone who is usually ignored (should be 
easily doable by setting up a filter that marks to-be-ignored-mail 
accordingly) posts something important anyway, one will usually notice this 
since there are followups referencing this mail which were sent by other 
people, thus arent masked...

Debian:
Several codes of behaviour exist ( http://www.debian.org/MailingLists/ and 
linked pages).
IRC was not very responsive, no further information.

FreeBSD:
Excerpts from 
http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/eresources.html :
"Personal attacks and profanity (in the context of an argument) are not 
allowed, and that includes users and developers alike."
"All FreeBSD mailing lists have certain basic rules which must be adhered to 
by anyone using them. Failure to comply with these guidelines will result in 
two (2) written warnings from the FreeBSD Postmaster 
<postmaster@×××××××.org>, after which, on a third offense, the poster will 
removed from all FreeBSD mailing lists and filtered from further posting to 
them."
Codes of behaviour exist and can be found either directly or indirectly via 
the above link.

NetBSD:
Seems to be a semi-ideal world here.
Taken from http://www.netbsd.org/MailingLists/ :
"Please note that while the majority of the NetBSD mailing lists are normally 
unmoderated, there are circumstances which will occasionally cause a mailing 
list to be moderated by its manager."
IRC information: Nothing known of banning, yet "moderation" in the sentence 
cited above might well include the right to do so. Behaviour is quite good in 
general, so that no further rules and so on are needed up to this point. 
Nevertheless people who get on others nerves are usually ignored, see 
OpenBSD.

KDE:
Points out to http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html .
Got no (real) information on IRC. Additional information anyone?

Gnome:
Nothing found on the website except for (un)subscribe information, and that 
cross-posting is to be avoided.
IRC replys were not helpfull.

Ubuntu:
A general "Code of Conduct" can be found here 
http://www.ubuntu.com/community/conduct
One quote specific to mailings lists and forums taken from it:
"Please avoid flamewars, trolling, personal attacks, and repetitive arguments. 
On technical matters, the Technical Review Board can make a final decision. 
On matters of community governance, the Community Council can make a final 
decision."
Another specific document on mailinglists is here 
http://www.ubuntu.com/community/lists/etiquette

OpenSUSE:
There is a netiquette here 
http://en.opensuse.org/Opensuse_mailing_list_netiquette
IRC information: Someone who said to read both dev and user lists said there 
are few flame wars, and a more major problem for the project would be 
off-topic threads.

Fedora:
A guideline exits here 
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Communicate/MailingListGuidelines
Each list is owned by a specific operator, which can be found on this page 
http://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/ when following the correct link (see 
the very bottom of the (un)subscribe pages, search for "list run by").
IRC information: Those moderators are allowed to warn than ban. People who 
flame are excluded from the community by telling them flamers are not wanted 
and similar.



Sincerely,

        Daniel


P.S.: Spaces around URLs on purpose for easier copy&paste.
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