Re: [gentoo-dev] Re: Mailing list moderation and community openness

[Rich Freeman]

On Tue, Mar 27, 2018 at 10:55 PM, R0b0t1 <r030t1@×××××.com> wrote:
>
> On Tue, Mar 27, 2018 at 11:39 AM, Rich Freeman <rich0@g.o> wrote:
>
>> Ultimately the leaders just want Fred gone so that new contributors
>> aren't getting driven away.  They can't explain that because then they
>> create potential civil liability for the project.  The problem is that
>> the debate goes on for over a year despite intervening elections and
>> now this becomes the issue that is driving new contributors away.
>>
>
> This is insane. If they sue produce the emails. At least in the US,
> the suit will be thrown out, as truth is a defense to defamation.

There are several problems with this:

First, as soon as a suit reaches a courtroom you're spending thousands
of dollars on attorney fees, which you typically will not get back if
you win in the US.  If the case isn't dismissed almost immediately
you're spending tens of thousands of dollars.

The next problem is that there is a matter of proof.  Suppose the
harassment happened in private IRC conversations.  The only logs
you'll have are those provided by random contributors.  They might not
even be admissible in a court unless the random contributors want to
appear publicly to testify to them.  Also, this all requires sharing
this stuff with the person who was harassing them.

If all we do is quietly kick somebody out with no indication as to
why, they don't really have any grounds to sue in the first place, and
since nothing negative was said about them there are no statements to
defend.

This is why most organizations/business/etc don't disclose why they
terminate employees.  They don't have to, and doing so just exposes
them to liability.

> As I have tried to explain my issue with the closure of the mailing
> list is not the removal of a user, but the lack of openness with which
> decisions are made.

Sure.  Everybody wants to see the info so that they can judge for
themselves and not have to trust somebody else's judgment.  It is only
natural.  This is why courts operate openly for the most part.

However, unlike courts we don't have budgets to pay professionals to
spend extensive time on process, and we also don't have the power to
issue subpoenas and wiretap communications.

So, ultimately we're probably just going to have to live with not
knowing the truth behind why people get booted once or twice per
decade, which seems to be the current rate.

-- 
Rich