Gentoo Archives: gentoo-project

From: Roy Bamford <neddyseagoon@g.o>
To: gentoo-project@l.g.o
Subject: Re: Shutting down the Off the Wall (was: Re: [gentoo-project] Call for agenda items ...)
Date: Sat, 12 Dec 2020 14:42:42
Message-Id: 2LFZC3RZ.WVSUWEDL.VQXYWEFC@CMM6QA7H.D55IMDXP.EKCHVXDO
In Reply to: Re: Shutting down the Off the Wall (was: Re: [gentoo-project] Call for agenda items ...) by "Michał Górny"
1 On 2020.12.12 13:24, Michał Górny wrote:
2 > On Tue, 2020-12-01 at 05:15 +0200, Andreas K. Hüttel wrote:
3 > > This leaves us with two options:
4 > >
5 > > 1) shut down OTW
6 > > or
7 > > 2) replace or supplement forum moderators with people willing to
8 > > fulfill the
9 > > moderator role in OTW
10 > >
11 > > I dont see 2) happen (for the simple reasons
12 > > * that it will be difficult to find someone to do the work
13 > > * and that noone has volunteered to do it over the past year
14 > > ), so 1) it is.
15 > >
16 >
17 > The more I think about it, the more this seems to resemble gentoo-dev
18 > moderation.
19 >
20 > To recap, we've closed down gentoo-dev to public because of a few
21 > people misbehaving. This was the wrong solution to the problem,
22 > and in my opinion -- and I say that as someone who originally pushed
23 > for it and then regretted it -- this has done more harm than good.
24 > It did not solve the problem, and it has done harm to our community.
25 > In the end, the problematic individual was banned anyway, and the list
26 > was reopened.
27 >
28 > I feel like the whole OTW situation is similar. OTW is not the root
29 > of
30 > the problem, it is just its biggest symptom. I feel that we're trying
31 > to eliminate one symptom and hoping that would be enough to cure
32 > the disease. Sure, that works for a common cold but I think it's
33 > a long shot for the Forums situation.
34 >
35 > Andreas is right that replacing Forum moderators isn't easy. However,
36 > if we leave things as-is and just apply a drive-through band-aid,
37 > the problem will return in one form or another. I know that political
38 > correctness asks us to discuss problems, not people -- but what *if*
39 > people are the problem? I really feel like we should not be
40 > discussing
41 > 'applying this or that band-aid to Forums' but 'saying "thank you" to
42 > our Forums team and starting over'.
43 >
44 > Sure, it will take some time before a new team forms, from people
45 > actually willing to keep Forums a quality ground for everyone. It
46 > might be necessary to disable the most problematic Forums for the time
47 > being, or even the new team may decide not to have such a forum at
48 > all.
49 > The experience with many projects inside Gentoo proves that once
50 > the most problematic people left the project or were forcibly removed
51 > from it, long-defunct projects started thriving again. I don't see
52 > why
53 > the same couldn't work for Forums.
54 >
55 > I don't feel like us arbitrarily making decisions Forums team
56 > disagrees
57 > with and then hoping that things will work out is right. If Forums
58 > team does not have the best Gentoo interest at heart (and I feel like
59 > at least some of the Forum moderators have lost contact with 'Gentoo
60 > the distribution' a long time ago), then it is time to make a new
61 > Forums team. A team that cares about Forums benefitting Gentoo users
62 > more than about chit-chatting with their buddies from the old days.
63 >
64 >
65 > --
66 > Best regards,
67 > Michał Górny
68 >
69 >
70 >
71 >
72 >
73 My view is that its more like the original Proctors project than the
74 -dev ml but I see the parallels you draw.
75
76 The original Proctors project was created by the council of the day to
77 be a quick reaction short slap response team to CoC violations.
78 Then one day, a council member did something to get slapped.
79 Instead of calming down and reflecting on events, by which time, the
80 slap would have worn off, said council member appealed directly to
81 council and managed to get the Proctors disbanded.
82
83 That sent the message to the community that the CoC did not apply
84 to council members. The CoC has never recovered.
85
86 Now we have a council member appealing directly to council again ...
87 that sends the message to the community, yet again, that the
88 processes that council are supposed to enforce don't apply to council
89 members.
90 Will the damage from that message ever be undone?
91
92 As to potential solutions to perceived problems, we are going to apply
93 any fix in one planned well publicised sequence of events, exactly
94 once. Not piecemeal by council knee-jerk reaction votes month
95 after month.
96
97 The first step in that process is for all interested parties to compile
98 a comprehensive problem statement, encompassing all the perceived
99 problems (real or not). So far, several months after the original post to
100 the closed list, nothing like that exists.
101
102 Should anyone be too shy to post in public, I'll offer to do the
103 compilation based on signed emails to my gentoo address.
104
105 It's time to put up or shut up.
106
107 --
108 Regards,
109
110 Roy Bamford
111 (Neddyseagoon) a member of
112 elections
113 gentoo-ops
114 forum-mods
115 arm64

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