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Rich Freeman <rich0@g.o> wrote: |
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> |
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> Fred is a community member. Fred consistently harasses and trolls new |
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> contributors in private. |
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|
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Sure, it's a problem. But not a problem which can be solved by |
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closing the mailing list, in no step of the issue. |
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|
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First of all, this happens in private, so you cannot prevent it |
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by closing a mailing list. |
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|
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> No mention is made of why Fred as booted out, because everything |
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> happened in private. |
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|
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That's the mistake which is made in this example. Be open in the |
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decisions. If you cannot be open in order to protect other people's |
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privacy, be open at least by saying exactly this. |
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|
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> Now a bunch of community members get upset about Fred being booted out |
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> without reason. Fred claims it is because he disagrees with the |
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> leadership on something. People start arguing endlessly about |
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> openness. |
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|
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Yes, this might happen due to the non-openness. This might happen even |
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if you are open. And nothing will prevent it. Closing a mailing list |
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will not close such a debate; it will then just happen elsewhere. |
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Anyway, such a debate does not belong to dev-ml. The correct solution |
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is to continue to point people to have this debate on the appropriate place, |
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not on the mainly technically oriented dev-ml. Making the posters silent |
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by blacklisting even more is contra-productive and will give the |
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impression that they are actually right. As it is a commonplace: |
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You cannot solve social problems by technical measurements. |
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|
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> Ultimately the leaders just want Fred gone so that new contributors |
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> aren't getting driven away. They can't explain that because then they |
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> create potential civil liability for the project. |
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|
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Why not? Is it against a law to exclude somebody who is hurting a |
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project? If it is (or if there is a danger that it is), then the |
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problem is not that they cannot explain it but that they must not |
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do it in the first place. |
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In any case, this is a different problem and cannot be solved by |
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closing a mailing list. |
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|
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> The problem is that |
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> the debate goes on for over a year despite intervening elections and |
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> now this becomes the issue that is driving new contributors away. |
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> What solution would you propose for this problem? |
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|
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How would closing the mailing list solve the problem? It will give |
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the impression that you want to close the debate by taking away the |
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medium where people can argue. And the impression is correct, because |
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this actually *is* the intention if you are honest. |
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Of course, it will not close said debate. The debate will just happen |
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on another channel. (Which in this example might be appropriate, but |
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pointing to the proper channel is what should have happened and not |
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closing a mailing list and thus excluding random people from posting |
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things about clompletely different topics which *are* on-topic on dev-ml). |
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|
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> Sure, but we can at least force the negative advertising of Gentoo to |
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> go elsewhere, rather than basically paying to run a negative PR |
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> campaign against ourselves. |
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|
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Closing dev-ml will not help here. If people have a strong |
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disagreement with a decision, this will happen on gentoo channels. |
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If you want to prevent it technically, you have to close all channels. |
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|
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> And what about the freedom to endlessly troll and harass you and |
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> others? [...] |
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|
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Closing a mailing list will not prevent this. |
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Somebody who behaves this way (or feels being treated wrong) will not |
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stop this only because one channel is closed for him. |
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What is really happening by closing the mailing list is that you stop |
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innocent contributors. |
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|
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In any case, that's the discussion blacklisting vs. whitelisting: |
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To stop one specific single poster, blacklisting is enough, |
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at least for the beginning. Sure, technically it can be circumvented, |
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but you will not stop this social problem anyway by technical means. |
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|
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> Surely Gentoo's mission isn't to run completely unrestricated forums |
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> for discussion of anything and everything. Our main purpose here is |
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> to maintain a Linux distro, not provide a platform for anybody who has |
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> an opinion on anything. |
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|
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Sure, pointing to the right channel is appropriate. This is something |
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completely else than to prevent posting *by default*. |
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|
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> without being endlessly trolled and harassed. |
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|
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This is unrelated about closing the mailing list. Especially if this |
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happened in private, anyway. |
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|
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BTW, I do not think that contributors are that blue-eyed that they |
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will stop contributing only because one person does not know how to |
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behave. Especially if it is made clear somewhere that this happens |
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in disagreement with gentoo as a whole. *This* might be a way how |
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one might react to such a problem. Anyway, this discussion now is |
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getting off-topic: All these problems have nothing to do with |
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closing a ml and cannot be solved by this. |