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On 12/11/20 21:38, Thomas Deutschmann wrote: |
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> Hi, |
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> |
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> On 2020-12-12 02:07, Roy Bamford wrote: |
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>> [...] |
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>> |
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>> Can the council provide a problem statement that a least |
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>> a majority of the members support? |
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> |
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> Let's cool down the heated debate a bit. |
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> |
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Asking for the council to actually state the problem at hand as it sees |
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it seems to be an entirely reasonable thing to do, especially given how |
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long it has gone without doing so. |
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|
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At this point you are the only council member to bother to express what |
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you consider the problem to be. Which, while that is a start, is one |
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seventh of the way to even having a basis to start to formulate a |
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gestalt opinion of the council and comes a couple of days before the |
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meeting before which a proposal which would satisfy that gestalt opinion |
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would need to be formulated and presented. I would ask that you kindly |
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forgive me for being distinctly underwhelmed on the whole. |
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|
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> Anyone can bring up a topic to council at anytime. This also applies to |
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> council members and nothing else has happened yet. |
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> |
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While that is true, a council member making a motion to the council |
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usurping the role of an active project, then complaining that the |
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project in question has not fulfilled its role as it otherwise would |
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have is a perverse privilege unique to council members. |
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|
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> I don't get your reference. Like said, this is not about free speech. |
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> Not about section 230 currently discussed in the US: |
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> |
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> We as Gentoo community have created our code of conduct. |
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> |
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> The code of conduct we created should protect our values. |
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> |
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> This has nothing to do with liability. It doesn't matter if anything |
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> which happened violates any law applying to Gentoo foundation or not. |
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> |
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Might I be so bold as to suggest that your opinion of that would change |
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rather dramatically were such liability brought to bear? |
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|
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> This is about our 'own' law we gave ourselves to protect the values we |
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> believe in to run this Linux distribution and how we want to treat each |
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> other while doing what we love. |
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> |
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> Don't you believe in our code of conduct? |
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> |
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> Don't you agree that from time to time, especially those active in the |
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> OTW forum adopt the wrong tone and tend to offend people? |
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> |
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> I think you do. Like I hope every community member do. |
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> |
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I believe that when there is a problem which calls for the attention of |
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a moderator, it should be brought to the attention of a moderator, |
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preferably the entire team, not declared to be the sole purview of the |
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council which then refuses to let moderators act on it for weeks on end. |
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|
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> The current motion is about those few people (<20!) who don't. All of |
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> them will have the chance to change their behavior in case they really |
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> share our values. If they don't, those people no longer have a place in |
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> our community. |
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> |
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If those few people make such frequent violations of the code of |
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conduct, it should be utterly trivial to find reasonably current posts |
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of theirs to properly report, be handled by the moderators, and if |
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necessary the users could then be subject to disciplinary action by the |
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moderators under existing rules. That it is somehow evidently considered |
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to be an intractable problem is bewildering to me. Either there is cause |
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to report the problem users, or there is not, and if not there is no |
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cause to do anything about their posts either. |
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|
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The code of conduct is inherently subjective, the differences in posts |
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in this discussion by different council members demonstrates that rather |
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openly, and there will be disagreement on how it is enforced and indeed |
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on whether it is enforced at all. That the council appears to be |
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treating it as a fully objective document with hard binary pass/fail |
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criteria while evidently not even agreeing amongst itself on quite what |
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the CoC means in practice is itself concerning. That the council is |
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treating it as an excuse to interfere with the basic functioning of a |
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project on a level even below a bug report is an extremely concerning |
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precedent to set, especially considering that the proposed remedy would |
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negatively impact that project on an ongoing basis. The irony that the |
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council is doing this with regard to the only project which enforces the |
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CoC and has not openly stated that it avoids doing so as a general |
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practice is not lost on me. |
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|
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> And that's also why I think you don't need any statement: |
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> |
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> A community member like you and me brought to everyone's attention that |
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> there's a place in Gentoo forums where a minority of people violates our |
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> code of conduct from time to time and want to stop that (and not for the |
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> first time but hopefully for the last time!). |
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> |
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> We are currently in the process to find a solution for this. And |
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> everyone in Gentoo is invited to join and help with that problem. |
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> Especially the current forums team who usually do a great job. |
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> |
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Final solutions to social problems, real or imagined, imposed by those |
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divorced from the consequences have a rather unpleasant history. |
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|
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> Of course, if nobody comes up with another, working, solution, like |
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> said, we will have no choice but to close it. |
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> |
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> Please join the process. I think we all agree that we need to address |
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> this problem because we believe in the values Gentoo is known for but we |
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> can only do this together. |
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> |
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> |
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Reporting problem posts is itself a working solution, and has been since |
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before the forums formally became a part of Gentoo, if it weren't there |
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would be a much broader problem. |