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

[Daniel Campbell]

On 11/06/2016 05:42 PM, Rich Freeman wrote:
> [snip]
>
> I wouldn't say that operating in confidentiality in these matters is
> ideal, but it seems like the least worst alternative.  The rest just
> seem like a good idea until you think through what would happen if you
> actually tried them out.
>

(somewhat long, skip to tldr at the bottom if desired)

I'm not convinced of that. I understand and appreciate the angle
you're coming from. I think Gentoo owes (some) transparency to its
developer and user community _IF_ it's going to try mediating or solving
interpersonal problems. I'd rather us expect people to be adults and, if
they can't sort things out on their own, simply leave each other alone.

Gentoo is ultimately better off if it takes its stance of
non-involvement more seriously and butts out of any disputes until
they affect Gentoo itself, i.e. commit wars, spam or harassment in
IRC/forums, etc. If the status quo is so favored, why do we entertain
the idea of Gentoo handling disputes in the first place? We already have
the CoC to refer to, and effective means of handling things without
being secretive or having a specialized team for it. I mean, ultimately
the trustees and infra have complete practical and legal control over
Gentoo.

Why is comrel necessary? Do we not have policy documents outlining the
consequences of violating the CoC? If not, we should. IIRC, agreeing
to abide by the CoC is a requirement of becoming a developer. The
same people who monitor or maintain our various media can handle the
real issues when they become a real problem. We have IRC ops, forum
moderators and admins, wiki staff, and so on. In a sense, they already
_are_ the CoC enforcers.

Removing comrel can reduce legal liability in that there _is_ no
investigative team involved, no slander or libel to worry about. 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.

Of course, this could be viewed as pushing it off on ops and mods, etc.
This wouldn't really increase their workload, because they already have
SOP (standard operating procedures). Large problems can be pushed to the
council, as they are already elected officials who are expected to make
impactful decisions on Gentoo. This creates an agenda point and a log
of discussion. It's flexible enough to give the council discretion if
something is potentially litigous, and provides a record for those who
may want to research the history. If an issue is not big or impactful
enough to bring to the council, then the parties involved need to
solve their conflict in other, hopefully more constructive ways. 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.

We are all (I hope?) adults, and are expected to act as such, without a
secretive group of babysitters. It would be less social overhead and to
the betterment of Gentoo in general if we did away with the babysitting
project, imo.

tldr: we should treat social disputes the same way we treat upstream
software: modify it only when Gentoo functionality depends on it.

Just my 2¢.
-- 
Daniel Campbell - Gentoo Developer
OpenPGP Key: 0x1EA055D6 @ hkp://keys.gnupg.net
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