Re: Shutting down the Off the Wall (was: Re: [gentoo-project] Call for agenda items ...)

[desultory]

On 12/12/20 10:15, Thomas Deutschmann wrote:
> Hi,
>
> On 2020-12-12 08:34, desultory wrote:
>> Asking for the council to actually state the problem at hand as it sees
>> it seems to be an entirely reasonable thing to do, especially given how
>> long it has gone without doing so.
>
> It is difficult for me to believe that those involved in this four-week
> discussion did not understand what it was actually about and then did
> not even ask specifically about it themselves.
>
> But anyway, like said in my initial email, let's forget about the past
> and let's focus on a solution.
>
> Nobody says that forum staff is doing a bad job in general but OTW
> section was often handled like an autonomous zone which we are going to
> end. Hopefully together. But let me be clear on this: The Gentoo
> community will definitely find a solution for this problem. Maybe we
> will grant you time until end of January in case you will tell us that
> forums software will finally get upgraded in January and that the new
> software will play an important role (i.e. warning system, new/easier
> moderation tools, better reporting system...). For such a concession,
> however, it would be important to get clear signals from the forum team
> that they understand what needs to be changed and are willing to solve
> the problem together.
>
> I am sure you can. Please join the process!
>
> Again some guidelines which should be addressed in the proposal/concept:
>
> 1) Clear statement/commitment that forums staff intends to enforce
> Gentoo's code of conduct in forum like any other project. This shouldn't
> be a big deal for you but it will help us to understand that we are all
> on the same page.
>
The CoC is part of, and linked from, the forum guidelines.

> 2) We don't expect that forum staff will read every posting but if
> forums staff will even quote insults and join 'the discussion', we would
> consider this problematic because we expect that any community member
> will step in if he/she will observe a code of conduct violation in
> general and make everyone see reason (notice: this doesn't imply 'block
> warden' mentality).
>
Quoting the content which violates the rules is part of issuing a public
warning on the forums, as it is in most any medium in which such quoting
is not actively discouraged by the interface. Public warnings are given
in the same topic as the post which incited the warning, and as such
could be considered to be joining the discussion. Doing otherwise is, at
very best, ambiguous.

> 3) Implement a reporting system which will protect the reporter.
>
From what? Are you seriously suggesting that a council member was so
afraid of users commenting on a report of a post that this whole farce
was somehow justified?

Even aside from that, as I have already noted, forum moderators can be
reached via private message on the forums, via IRC (which allows direct
communication between users), and via e-mail either individually or as a
team. Thus if a user does have any reason to make a private report,
which is exceedingly rare, they already have several options at their
disposal.

> 4) Tell us how you plan to address some inconsistency. For example, this
> is not the first time that the user in question has posted such an
> insult. The user was banned for similar postings back in 2016. We would
> expect that such a misbehaving user who has shown in the past that they
> disregard Gentoo values, would have been removed from the community long
> time ago.
>
It is not inconsistency to have time limits on most bans, the point of
disciplinary action is not to persecute but to correct. If and when
further correction is necessary, further action can be taken. Given the
example of one infraction every four years, I would hardly call that a
problem worthy of a permanent ban. To put the scale of this farce into
perspective a bit, if the post which was the subject of the original
complaint in this farce had been reported normally and left to the
moderators to handle, if there had been a ban implemented (after four
years a warning is distinctly more likely) that ban would have ended by now.

> 5) Remove bad content. If someone posted an insult and we took action,
> don't forget to remove the offending content (soft delete entire posting
> or remove offending paragraph).
>
This seems counterproductive. If a warning is issued, or a ban levied
citing a specific post in public then users know why. If a post suddenly
vanishes and a public warning is issued without being able to quote the
problematic post, not only do users no longer have the context of the
offending post they also have no clear indication of quite what the
problem was that caused the warning. Making warnings wholly private
means that only the user being warned even knows what happened, thus
other users will not know what was considered problematic about the
post(s) in question.

All of those options do little more than foster distrust of those in a
position to issue warnings or levy bans; all for the supposed benefit of
attempting to banish everything that anyone considers inappropriate,
which is itself a losing game.

Attempting to make any functioning community as neat and orderly as a
Potemkin village will, in the long run, render them as substantive.

> 6) Just a reminder: You are not alone at the front. If forum staff is
> unsure about certain postings, please ask for help. We have projects to
> deal with things like that and they are happy to assist you.
>
>