Gentoo Archives: gentoo-devrel

From: Ferris McCormick <fmccor@g.o>
To: gentoo-devrel@g.o
Cc: proctors@g.o
Subject: [gentoo-devrel] Equal treatment of developers in violation of policy
Date: Sun, 15 Apr 2007 14:35:55
Message-Id: 20070415143547.1b1c2227@terciopelo.krait.us
1 -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
2 Hash: SHA1
3
4
5 Recently, in the context of a small dispute and clear violation of both
6 established policy and Code of Conduct, hparker raised the question,
7 "why don't we treat all violators the same?" (This in the context of
8 the ciaranm hearing a year ago.) This is a reasonable question, and
9 I'd like to make a few observations, perhaps relevant to it.
10
11 1. The vast majority of our developers and users are unfailingly
12 polite and respectful in their correspondence. (Well, most of our
13 developers are silent. If you pick any given thread (on -dev), I doubt
14 if more that 20 people contribute, and I think for each thread, it's
15 pretty much the same 20.)
16
17 2. Occasionally, any one of us (developers or users collectively)
18 will temporarily "lose it." I think at most such an event should
19 trigger a (perhaps private) warning "Please don't do that --- you know
20 better." I also think such a note along with an opportunity for the
21 offender to cool off will solve the problem. This sort of event is
22 normal now and then in a community our size, and generally there is no
23 real harm.
24
25 3. Some times, however, the offender will not "cool off", and there
26 will be a complaint filed to devrel. This is when devrel steps in in
27 a more formal capacity. In the normal course of events, the complaint
28 is sent to the ombudsmen to try to effect a reconciliation, and they
29 are usually successful. When they are not, then Homer's observation
30 kicks in, and we have to process it. This is not a pleasant task.
31
32 So I think the answer to hparker's question is that we try very hard
33 to treat all violators the same way; fundamental fairness demands it.
34 If you step back a bit from the ciaranm hearing, you will see that the
35 entire stage 2, 3 process was active in that case.
36
37 Hope this is at least marginally useful,
38 Regards,
39 Ferris
40 - --
41 Ferris McCormick (P44646, MI) <fmccor@g.o>
42 Developer, Gentoo Linux (Sparc, Devrel)
43 -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
44 Version: GnuPG v1.4.6-ecc01.6 (GNU/Linux)
45
46 iD8DBQFGIjhDQa6M3+I///cRAraFAKCEz7U7cDI1SRBKjReeVotg4gWQ0wCgw35x
47 8tyQkRuCX4x5z/uaMYlS1k4=
48 =zd85
49 -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

Replies