[gentoo-project] Re: Shutting down the Off the Wall

[desultory]

On 12/01/20 09:58, Aaron Bauman wrote:
> On Mon, Nov 30, 2020 at 10:07:53PM -0800, Alec Warner wrote:
>> On Mon, Nov 30, 2020 at 7:15 PM Andreas K. Hüttel <dilfridge@g.o>
>> wrote:
>> (1) I strongly prefer folks to make a good faith effort to work with others.
>
> <snip>
>
> There has been a steady escalation here by the council and various other
> developers. So, this is satisfied (or is that subjective of me to
> assume?). Is there a metric for establishing whether good faith has
> occured?
>
It is not subjective of you to assume that good faith has been
exercised, it is outright disingenuous. If you seriously have trouble
finding ways in which council members have acted in bad faith in regard
to this motion, pointing them out again will be every bit as futile as
when they were pointed out before.

>> (2) I want to make decisions based on shared goals and policies, not
>> people's personal preferences.
>
> No matter how much you want to be objective... we are humans and
> subjectiveness is a part of that. The CoC is a shared policy... hell,
> some may even say it isn't as they weren't there to adopt/formalize it.
> So, there's that.
>
>> (3) I want to make decisions based on data. To that end I've tried to
>> provide some data to clarify some various points.
>>
>
> I don't find the data here relevant. Regardless of
> who/what/where/when (which is what data will give us)... I want to
> understand the why.
>
> Quite simply, the why is... because people have nothing better to do on
> a forum meant for something completely different. More on this later.
>
So, data is irrelevant, but your suppositions are pure, unvarnished, and
unsupported, gospel Truth?

>> Also FYI: What about the polish OTW (
>> https://forums.gentoo.org/viewforum-f-61.html)
>>
>
> Not really sure what relevance this plays as I do not know Polish. Also,
> relying on automatic translation of such content, in this context, seems
> short-sighted.
>
>>
>>>
>>> Rationale:
>>>
>>> * provides zero value to the distribution
>>>
>>
>> I think the OTW forum does provide value. Can you elaborate on why you
>> think the value is 0?
>>
>> For example, forum-mods move offtopic threads from other forums into OTW,
>> so it serves as a holding bin for those conversations. We could advocate
>> moving those to the dustbin, but the dustbin is readonly, so threads may
>> come back.
>>
>> In addition there are those who believe that the offtopic nature of OTW
>> keeps the rest of the forums a nicer cleaner place, and that suppressing
>> this content can have unintended consequences. So I request that you do
>> consider the 2nd and 3rd order consequences of this decision.
>>
>
> Pump the breaks. So, you are justifying that they do play a role because
> it provides a dumping ground for things that *are not* relevant to the
> forums?
> By volume, compared to the forums as a whole, Off the Wall is comparable
to the volume of off topic content present on other channels but it is
segregated from the on topic discuss, unlike other channels.

> Furthermore, it is not suppression. It is ensuring that the nature of
> the forums is *relevant* to the goal of the forums... which is to support
> the Gentoo distribution (here comes the subjectiveness). How threads
> discussing politics, conspiracy theories, or other shenanigans relates
> to Gentoo's goals is beyond me.
>
As antarus pointed out in another reply to your post, it is indeed
suppression literally by the definition of the word. To claim that Off
the Wall, by mere fact of existence, somehow makes the forums as a whole
not "*relevant* to the goal of the forums" is utterly absurd. And,
again, such discussions take place in channels that are explicitly
dedicated to technical usage, but you dismiss that as not being
problematic despite those channels being expressly misused while Off the
Wall is expressly not being misused when it is used for "discussing
politics, conspiracy theories, or other shenanigan".

Your argument is analogous to claiming that drinking water treatment
facilities should be removed because they collect things that you would
rather not drink in a place that you would not be drinking from, instead
of letting those things enter the water supply in the concentrations
that they exist in the source water. Sure, you can pick out the chunky
bits yourself, but why should everyone be forced to do that when the
water can be centrally filtered to a higher standard?

> FTR, there are threads discussing very dark times in the world's
> history such as Hitler etc. Are these really things we want our
> sponsors' monies/hardware and our donations going to support? Are we
> really being good stewards of the monies, hardware, etc donated to
> further our cause as a distro?
>
Some people have an interest in history, and what it can teach us.
Including how and why the worst aspects of it came to pass, along with
whether and in what ways current events reflect those of the past. It is
ironic that you specifically highlight an individual known for
suppressing thought and speech which he considered to be undesirable, to
make it easier for him and those following him to engage in acts which
were beyond barbaric, to support your position that we should
necessarily suppress thought and speech which you consider to be
undesirable.

As for your questions, the hardware that the forums are hosted on was
donated for the hosting of the forums on the condition that the company
providing it received mention in the page footer used by the forums.
That was done with Off the Wall being entirely visible to the public,
and thus to those making the offer. That hardware is used to host other
things beyond the forums, which do not carry the credit to the host. The
obvious inference is that the provider of that hosting considers the
credit on the forums to have sufficient value to support not only the
forums but other services as well, without being put off by Off the
Wall. In short, yes, to both of your questions.

> Maybe our donors are objective too, but I doubt they would be happy with
> such a situation.
>
Funny, they seemed happy to make the offer to host the forums in the
first place.

>> * large parts of the content are toxic and not something I (and others) wish
>>>   Gentoo to be associated with
>
> <snip>
>
> The argument from our "elected" official is very valid. Isn't that what
> he is there for? He has to be subjective, but he has also publically
> stated on many mediums *why* OTW is bad for us. Additionally, many
> others agree.
>
Setting aside various the other assertions, are you seriously arguing
that people are elected for the express purpose that they are to then
act irrationally?

> Policies are great, but you cannot legislate common sense (which IMHO is
> where subjectiveness plays a role). Attempting to delineate every
> possible scenario of things we deem "not OK" is asinine. This is what
> the CoC is for and why we have an elected council to interpret
> it/enforce it (along with COMREL).
>
> This brings up a larger point. I am sure there are many developers who
> would argue with COMREL and/or the Council regarding their
> subjectiveness to forcibly retire them. Should we do away with the
> council too? It's a slippery slope toward objectiveness.
>
Frankly, you are making a fine argument for dissolving, at least this
instance of, the council. Abusing policies, to the point of breaking
them, for purely subjective reasons. Ignoring established processes in
pursuit of a personal goals which have little (if any) logical basis.
Having a plurality of members openly acting in bad faith, an outright
majority if comments made outside of the discussions here and on core
are to be considered. Repeated violations of the very policy which they
claim to be acting in support of. Given the pattern of behavior, not
dissolving this council could well be considered irresponsible.

>>> * it caters to a set of users somewhat distinct from the rest of the forums
>>>   (e.g., >5000 posts in OTW, <100 elsewhere)
>>>
>>
>> According to what data?
>>
>> Looking at the past year:
>> select COUNT(*) as cnt, IF(phpbb_posts.forum_id=10,true, false) as forum,
>> phpbb_users.user_id as user from phpbb_users INNER JOIN phpbb_posts ON
>> phpbb_posts.poster_id=phpbb_users.user_id where phpbb_posts.post_time >
>> UNIX_TIMESTAMP(DATE_SUB(CURDATE(), INTERVAL 365 DAY)) and
>> phpbb_posts.poster_id IN (select DISTINCT(poster_id) from phpbb_posts where
>
> <snip>
>
> Cool data. The problem is the *why*. None of this content, regardless of
> who/what/where/when is relevant to us as a distro.
>
Nor is a fair portion of traffic in other Gentoo affiliated
communications media, while Off the Wall provides a very clearly
delineated space where that discussion does belong instead of simply
chalking up off topic discussion to being part of cost of having on
topic discussions.

With Off the Wall, we can move things that are off topic out of the way
of things that are on topic, without Off the Wall we would need to
invest more time and effort into deciding whether something tangentially
related is close enough to stay. Which, incidentally, is a subjective
decision which is open to disagreement and debate which would itself
consume still more volunteered time. In any scenario where there are
rules being enforced, edge cases consume more resources to consider and
act upon. Not to mention that telling people that there is some fuzzy
line which they cannot cross is often taken as an invitation to prod the
boundaries of that line and complain when subjective decisions could be
interpreted to not perfectly agree with one another over time. Fostering
disorder in the name of fostering order is rather counterproductive.

> <snip>
>
>> sailed after repeated failed attempts at gaining that support.
>>
>
> So, like, what is your counter proposal or proposal here? You seem to be
> playing a "devils advocate", but have very strong opinions on why Andreas is
> wrong in his approach.
>
> So, what would Alec do?
>