Gentoo Archives: gentoo-project

From: "Michał Górny" <mgorny@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 13:24:55
Message-Id: 6fdc2e391963216419f77dead8e16ff8d50f0322.camel@gentoo.org
In Reply to: Shutting down the Off the Wall (was: Re: [gentoo-project] Call for agenda items ...) by "Andreas K. Hüttel"
1 On Tue, 2020-12-01 at 05:15 +0200, Andreas K. Hüttel wrote:
2 > This leaves us with two options:
3 >
4 > 1) shut down OTW
5 > or
6 > 2) replace or supplement forum moderators with people willing to
7 > fulfill the
8 > moderator role in OTW
9 >
10 > I dont see 2) happen (for the simple reasons
11 > * that it will be difficult to find someone to do the work
12 > * and that noone has volunteered to do it over the past year
13 > ), so 1) it is.
14 >
15
16 The more I think about it, the more this seems to resemble gentoo-dev
17 moderation.
18
19 To recap, we've closed down gentoo-dev to public because of a few
20 people misbehaving. This was the wrong solution to the problem,
21 and in my opinion -- and I say that as someone who originally pushed
22 for it and then regretted it -- this has done more harm than good.
23 It did not solve the problem, and it has done harm to our community.
24 In the end, the problematic individual was banned anyway, and the list
25 was reopened.
26
27 I feel like the whole OTW situation is similar. OTW is not the root of
28 the problem, it is just its biggest symptom. I feel that we're trying
29 to eliminate one symptom and hoping that would be enough to cure
30 the disease. Sure, that works for a common cold but I think it's
31 a long shot for the Forums situation.
32
33 Andreas is right that replacing Forum moderators isn't easy. However,
34 if we leave things as-is and just apply a drive-through band-aid,
35 the problem will return in one form or another. I know that political
36 correctness asks us to discuss problems, not people -- but what *if*
37 people are the problem? I really feel like we should not be discussing
38 'applying this or that band-aid to Forums' but 'saying "thank you" to
39 our Forums team and starting over'.
40
41 Sure, it will take some time before a new team forms, from people
42 actually willing to keep Forums a quality ground for everyone. It
43 might be necessary to disable the most problematic Forums for the time
44 being, or even the new team may decide not to have such a forum at all.
45 The experience with many projects inside Gentoo proves that once
46 the most problematic people left the project or were forcibly removed
47 from it, long-defunct projects started thriving again. I don't see why
48 the same couldn't work for Forums.
49
50 I don't feel like us arbitrarily making decisions Forums team disagrees
51 with and then hoping that things will work out is right. If Forums
52 team does not have the best Gentoo interest at heart (and I feel like
53 at least some of the Forum moderators have lost contact with 'Gentoo
54 the distribution' a long time ago), then it is time to make a new
55 Forums team. A team that cares about Forums benefitting Gentoo users
56 more than about chit-chatting with their buddies from the old days.
57
58
59 --
60 Best regards,
61 Michał Górny

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