Re: [gentoo-project] ComRel / disciplinary action reform proposal

[Rich Freeman]

On Sun, Jan 15, 2017 at 2:23 PM, Michał Górny <mgorny@g.o> wrote:
>
> 2. Transparency
> ---------------
> Any disciplinary action should be announced by the team in a manner
> specific to the appropriate media where the measure applies.
> The announcement should be visible to all users of that media,
> and contains:
>
> - the name of the user to whom the measure applies,
>
> - the description and length of the measure applied.

I think most of your proposal is reasonable, except for this point.

I'd prefer that transparency be done in an anonymous way.  I'm fine
with the individuals being affected by a disciplinary action
voluntarily choosing to allow this information to be divulged.
However, if somebody is the subject of discipline they shouldn't be
turned into public examples for a few reasons:

1.  It makes them hard to rejoin the community after their
ban/whatever is over, because now they have a public reputation.
2.  It can damage somebody's public reputation, which could affect
their ability to work on non-Gentoo projects or even for them to find
employment.
3.  Because of #2, it tends to force the subject of an action to
defend their reputation in public, which then leads to arguments/etc.
4.  Also because of #2, it may lead the subject of an action to defend
their reputation using the courts, which can become an expensive
proposition for all involved.
5.  #3-4 will tend to render moot your suggestion to keep the details
of infractions private, since it will probably tend to come out in all
the arguing.  Or, if it doesn't then all that argument doesn't
actually serve any productive purpose since there are no facts
involved.

If the concern is abuse then let those who feel they were the victims
of abuse be the ones to choose whether they make it a public issue.
And by all means publish anonymous information about the volume of
actions so that we can collectively judge whether it is happening too
often/little/etc.

-- 
Rich