Re: [gentoo-dev] Gentoo Council Reminder for August 7

[Ferris McCormick]

On Thu, 2008-07-31 at 23:17 -0700, Donnie Berkholz wrote:
> This is your friendly reminder! Same bat time (typically the 2nd/4th
> Thursdays at 2000 UTC / 1600 EST), same bat channel (#gentoo-council @
> irc.freenode.net) !
>
> If you have something you'd wish for us to chat about, maybe even vote
> on, let us know! Simply reply to this e-mail for the whole Gentoo dev
> list to see.
>
> Keep in mind that every GLEP *re*submission to the council for review
> must first be sent to the gentoo-dev mailing list 7 days (minimum)
> before being submitted as an agenda item which itself occurs 7 days
> before the meeting. Simply put, the gentoo-dev mailing list must be
> notified at least 14 days before the meeting itself.
>
> For more info on the Gentoo Council, feel free to browse our homepage:
> http://www.gentoo.org/proj/en/council/

Two items, or perhaps two views of the same item:

1.  After some of the comments I've received after mentioning what I
think the hold-over item "2) Code of Conduct extent" is, I'm not quite
sure what Council is planning to vote on (the comments seem to conflict,
for example).  Is council planning to vote on changes, possible changes
for discussion by the community, or what?  If the vote is on the
specific questions Donnie raised, is the intent to implement the outcome
or to make it the official proposal for discussion?  Sorry to come
across as somewhat clueless after all the ongoing discussions, but I
guess I really am confused at this point.

I think I'm going to reraise my request for someone if favor of the
proposed changes (which I no longer know quite what are) to put them in
the form of a GLEP so we can all discuss the same things.  Whatever the
changes are, they do represent a policy change, and I still think the
community should be able to review the whole thing in complete form
before we just put it in place.

2.  Last February, Council determined that for Code of Conduct
enforcement,
"The basic idea is to just promote individual devs responding to
people who are being jerks. Privately, unless things get out of hand."

Where I think "promote" == "get together a core culture of people". But, thus:
"My hope is that with no team of people assigned to doing this stuff, we 
can actually build a culture and get more people participating rather 
than having "the people who do that stuff" and everyone else."

{both quotes are Donnie's}

At least, that is what I infer from the summary of the February Council
meeting and the emails on the topic.

I am also told currently posted Code of Conduct dated March 15, 2007 is current
and in no need of revision.  But I don't see it.  Even if we agree that this
informal "core group" may be called proctors, they have no disciplinary
authority because (1) Council expected them to work by replying to inappropriate
email (on gentoo-dev) by requesting the jerk in question to quit being a jerk.
This is a mild form of mailing list moderation, but does not extend to anything more;
(2) Nor could it, because this group I think is pretty much self selected and so its
members might not even be known (so far as I know, there are people doing this today
as called for last February), and so would have no way of getting infra to apply
any sort of suspension.  But the Code of Conduct talks of actions by the proctors
which I think the group as described last February have no capability of carrying out.

Userrel might have such authority after the last Council meeting, but if so, the
CoC should be updated to mention that.

I believed that Code of Conduct had actually been updated, but everyone tells me
not.
===============================================================

Now, here's why my two items might be two sides of the same question.  It seems
to me that current Code of Conduct as interpreted last February and perhaps modified
last Council meeting cannot possibly be stretched to encompass Donnie's questions from
the 13th of last month.  After all, last February the Council made the Code of Conduct
*milder* than it currently reads, with the intent of rebuilding our culture gently but
firmly by "training" jerks not to be jerks.  I find it very hard to read a harsh,
user-only policy into that.

If the "extent of CoC enforcement" item is talking about something outside the CoC or
a major change to the CoC from last February, then all the more reason for someone to
put it in the form of a GLEP just like any other consequential change.


Regards,
Ferris
-- 
Ferris McCormick (P44646, MI) <fmccor@g.o>
Developer, Gentoo Linux (Devrel, Sparc, Userrel, Trustees)