Re: [gentoo-project] Re: Trying to become a Gentoo Developer again spanning 8 years...

[Raymond Jennings]

On Thu, Oct 6, 2016 at 6:13 PM, Rich Freeman <rich0@g.o> wrote:
> On Thu, Oct 6, 2016 at 9:02 PM, Raymond Jennings <shentino@×××××.com>
> wrote:
>>
>>  Speaking of a conflict of interest, I would like to point out for
>> the record
>>  that devrel and userrel were aliased as "proctors" in previous
>>  documentation.
>>
>
> Actually, the Proctors were a third project distinct from Devrel and
> Userrel (though there was probably overlap in membership, etc).  They
> lasted all of a few days.  They were created along with the CoC and
> never really got to function as intended.  They were intended to
> operate a bit like forum mods for the lists, locking discussions that
> were out of control, issuing short-term bans to try to discourage
> flaming, and so on.  I was around when they were formed and disbanded,
> but I wasn't on the inside back then so I didn't appreciate the
> politics that caused them to fail.  A few others who were around back
> then could better relay the story.
>
> The proctors were never intended to deal with serious complaints about
> individual behavior that might warrant kicking somebody out.  There
> has been talk of trying to bring back the role, with the goal of
> trying to nip bad behavior in the bud before it grows into a big mess.
> If we went down that road then Proctors would have a lot less rigor in
> their activities, and could hand out "punishments" with almost no due
> process/etc, but the "punishments" would be things like a few days ban
> from IRC or other minimal sanctions, with a strict upper limit on
> their powers.  Basically they'd be handing out slaps on the wrist.
> Issues that couldn't be handled in this way could be escalated to
> Comrel.  The idea would be that when a problem starts they could
> quickly step in and moderate/warn/ban/etc to try to keep the overall
> tone of the channel/list/etc in line with the CoC, as opposed to what
> happens today where two parties can snipe at each other for months
> until both are screaming for blood.

Seems this oversight either never made it into the docs I studied for 
my quiz, or I missed something.

That said I think the principle of avoiding a conflict of interest is 
still a meritorious one.  Someone obviously felt strongly enough about 
it to put it in as official policy for the proctors (a role which 
devrel and userrel were explicitly documented as fulfilling, btw).

If as you say they were intended to only give otu slaps on the wrist of 
a sort, one would think that the principle would apply even more 
strongly in a comrel case where the long term fate of an errant 
developer hangs in the balance.


>
> --
> Rich
>