Re: [gentoo-project] Representation of Gentoo on third-party platforms

[Rich Freeman]

On Wed, Nov 9, 2016 at 2:08 AM, Daniel Campbell <zlg@g.o> wrote:
> On 11/07/2016 04:20 AM, Rich Freeman wrote:
>
> A group whose sole purpose is to mediate disputes and makes the business
> of others its business is, to me, the exact opposite of staying out of
> disputes and letting adults be adults.

They moderate disputes when possible because it is preferable to just
booting people every time they do something wrong.  Obviously it is
preferable if people can work out issues on their own.

>>
>> Comrel is the body that actually administers enforcement of the CoC.
>
> And how do they enforce that? Somebody has to have access to infra,
> forums, mailing lists, etc. Does comrel have its hands in that many
> cookie jars?

No.  They gather logs and such from whoever witnessed the activity.
If there is enforcement they file a bug with infra the same as anybody
else.

> Having people wearing both hats is also dangerous, as it creates a
> chilling effect on anyone on the business end of comrel. If 2 or 3
> members of Comrel are also Councilors, one of two things happens...

So, which is it?  Do you want two independent groups (necessitating
the existance of something like Comrel), or do you want just one group
(just the Council, which was your original proposal)?

If the Council is the only one hearing disputes then there simply
wouldn't be any appeals.  And the folks current who are in both bodies
would be part of that.

I don't see how adding two layers, even with some overlap, is less
independence than having only one.

> To me, that's a red
> flag for corruption, and some may consider that grounds to petition the
> Foundation for a recall. In my searching, I didn't see a time where that
> happened. I hope nothing comes to a head like that.

You do realize that you're stuck with the same dilemma.  At some point
the final decision has to be made by somebody.

Right now CoC enforcement falls on the Council, so people elect
representatives to the Council who they trust to handle these matters.
You could change the CoC enforcement so that it falls on the Trustees,
but then you're probably going to see the same sorts of people elected
as Trustees instead.

>>> Removing comrel can reduce legal liability in that there _is_ no
>>> investigative team involved, no slander or libel to worry about.
>>
>> When somebody goes doing "commit wars, spam or harassment in
>> IRC/forums, etc" how would you propose dealing with those problems
>> without having some sort of investigative team?
>
> That honestly depends on the incident. Disrupting discussion or support
> in an official Gentoo channel on IRC is often handled by ops with
> warnings, kicks, and if it's bad enough, temporary bans. Comrel's not
> even involved with that unless it chooses to be.

Sure, when an op isn't part of the problem.  And I think everybody
favors having simple moderation when problems aren't severe, and that
already largely works today.  Comrel is generally for more serious
problems, such as people causing trouble over multiple types of media,
or in places where there are no ops, or when an op is involved, or
when an op isn't resolving the situation, and so on.

>>> Then
>>> there's the added bonus of those devs gaining free time to do things
>>> that they enjoy rather than listen to greivances and being expected to
>>> please two or more parties.
>>
>> They're volunteers.  They're not forced to do anything.  Volunteer
>> resources generally aren't fungible.  If the Council said that MIPS is
>> a waste of time and the MIPS team is disbanded it isn't like they'd
>> just start spending the time they spend on MIPS on other Gentoo
>> projects.  They might leave Gentoo entirely, or work on something
>> completely different.  If having a MIPS team were actively harmful to
>> Gentoo it might still be the right call, but that is of course not the
>> case.
>
> Are you saying there are people within Gentoo that volunteer to get in
> other peoples' business and might leave Gentoo if they were removed from
> that role?

No.

> As I mentioned a few quotes up, the system does not work as intended if
> there is co-membership between Council and Comrel, because it blurs the
> lines between the two.

I thought you didn't want Comrel, so the co-membership would
effectively be 100% since Council would become Comrel.

> A fair point. Sometimes people just don't get along. Those are the edge
> cases where someone is actually being a social threat to Gentoo. To
> bring up my upstream metaphor again, we should tweak that only to the
> extent that it protects Gentoo. Of the incidents that Comrel has become
> involved in, how many were actually warranted? Has that information
> even been shared with you? Those are rhetorical questions, as I know
> policy dictates (at this time, anyway) it's kept quiet. I'd wager the
> involvement has been more than what should have been, and the
> organizational failure to audit that is telling.

Actually, it isn't kept quiet at all, since Comrel posted the stats
recently in a different thread (and I certainly support creating some
kind of mechanism to report on this periodically):
https://archives.gentoo.org/gentoo-project/message/34090670cb7a19f80cb4d301da6de406

And the same email basically expresses that Comrel DOESN'T want to get
involved in minor stuff, which is basically what you're arguing for.

If the sky were falling I suspect we'd see more appeals, or at least
complaints to Council.  There have been very few of either, and as far
as I can tell all the email churn on this list was mostly triggered by
one or two recent events (one of which the Council reviewed and
upheld, and the other has not been appealed).

>>> Third
>>> party platforms already have their own guidelines, so if someone is
>>> dissatisfied with Gentoo's action (or inaction), they can go to the
>>> platform moderators and we (Gentoo) don't need to be involved.
>>
>> And what if the platform moderator doesn't do anything, and somebody
>> is the victim of harassment on a medium that bears our name and logo?
>> What happens when people start branding Gentoo with the sorts of bad
>> behavior that is occurring on that third party site?
>
> That's not the Council's concern. Things having to do with trademarks
> are meant to be handled by the Trustees.

I never said this was solely a Council concern.  The council enforces
the CoC, the Trustees manage the trademarks, and the current policy
requires that sites using the Gentoo name abide by the CoC.  That is
the policy that was recently approved by the Trustees, and I think it
is the right policy.  Surely as a member of the Foundation I can
express an opinion on this matter (everything I post in these emails
is nothing but my personal opinion unless otherwise stated)?  The fact
that I'm on the Council doesn't mean that I can't advocate for the
right approach for our trademarks.

> "Gentoo" is a species of
> animal and has uses in other industries, so the removal of the logo is
> likely enough to remove legal liability. I'm not a lawyer, but it holds
> up to logic imo.

As long as they are focused on talking about animals, and not our
distro or even linux in general, sure.  There is a reason that
trademarks apply to names and not just logos.

> Right. But again, the council doesn't handle that sort of stuff. As
> a councilor, you're obviously free to alert the trustees (like the
> rest of us), but ultimately a councilor worries about mostly technical
> or organizational things.

The code of conduct is certainly in scope for the Council.  And I have
as much right to advocate for how our Foundation policies ought to
work as you.

> I'm aware I suggested the Council handle
> social disputes, but when it reaches the point of the Council, there
> should be evidence of harm against Gentoo; so clear that it doesn't need
> investigation. Without that sort of undeniable evidence, no group in
> Gentoo has business doling out punishments or bans.

Merely asking the person bringing a complaint to send a copy of their
IRC log or link to a list archive or whatever is "investigation."  It
isn't like we lock people in a room and shine a light on them.  Before
anybody takes some kind of serious action they should reach out and
try to gather all the relevant evidence, and make sure they're hearing
from all sides.  That's an investigation.

I doubt anybody is going to waste their time doing anything if there
isn't some kind of evidence presented up-front that something bad
happened.


> IRC ops and forum members should be part of Staff, if they aren't
> already. Again, we do not need a group of people whose sole purpose
> is to get into peoples' business. As developers, we're all partly
> responsible for Gentoo and are expected to act in its interests where
> relevant.

Well, the general idea behind the original proctors was that they'd
largely be formed of people like IRC ops and forum moderators, and of
course the original target was areas where there was no moderation
such as mailing lists.

> If a dispute is not negatively affecting Gentoo, why do we
> need to get involved?

We don't.  I only advocate taking action when things negatively impact
Gentoo.  However, patterns of CoC violations do have a negative
impact, because it makes people want to avoid contributing.

Overall things have gotten better than they used to be.  But,
sometimes there are issues that need to be dealt with, and I generally
favor minor actions by moderators over larger actions like when Comrel
gets involved.

-- 
Rich