Re: [gentoo-dev] Re: Mailing list moderation and community openness

[Dawid Weglinski <dawid.weglinski@gmail.com>]

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2018-03-27 18:39 GMT+02:00 Rich Freeman <rich0@gentoo.org>:

> On Tue, Mar 27, 2018 at 12:12 PM, Martin Vaeth <martin@mvath.de> wrote:
> > Rich Freeman <rich0@gentoo.org> wrote:
> >> On Tue, Mar 27, 2018 at 3:34 AM, Martin Vaeth <martin@mvath.de> wrote:
> >>>
> >>> It is about openness vs. isolation.
> >>
> >> I'm pretty sure most developers, myself included, want to welcome
> >> contributions.
> >
> > Closing of the mailing list does not sound like that.
> >
>
> Sure, but it is actually part of the motivation.
>
> Consider this scenario.
>
> Fred is a community member.  Fred consistently harasses and trolls new
> contributors in private.  New contributors end up leaving because of
> Fred.


> Fred gets booted out as a result.  No mention is made of why Fred as
> booted out, because everything happened in private.
>

And how this work on forums?  Do moderators have the ability to ban Fred
for his harrasments on private channels?


>
> Now a bunch of community members get upset about Fred being booted out
> without reason.  Fred claims it is because he disagrees with the
> leadership on something.  People start arguing endlessly about
> openness.
>

Very same efect you will get when Fred is whitelisted by a developer, and
kicked out when he starts acting inappriopriate. Please kindly show me the
difference.


>
> Ultimately the leaders just want Fred gone so that new contributors
> aren't getting driven away.  They can't explain that because then they
> create potential civil liability for the project.  The problem is that
> the debate goes on for over a year despite intervening elections and
> now this becomes the issue that is driving new contributors away.
>

Please explain. I can imagine a troll on some #gentoo-${ISO3166-1_alpha-2}
who
is banned by channel operator. Does this create potential civil liability
for the project?


>
> What solution would you propose for this problem?  It isn't
> hypothetical at all - I can think of one case in Gentoo's past where
> this happened that I'm aware of, and I'd be shocked if it were the
> only one.
>

Saying as an ex-dev and community member by last 12 years - banning trolls
and explaining reasons to others is always better solution.


>
> > And anyway, you can be sure that the problem will appear again,
> > no matter how closed the list will be.
>
> Sure, but we can at least force the negative advertising of Gentoo to
> go elsewhere, rather than basically paying to run a negative PR
> campaign against ourselves.
>
> >> A lot of this comes down to considering that most people in these
> >> debates probably are well-intended.
> >
> > Taking away freedom is never justified by good intention.
>
> You might want to choose a BSD-based distro then.  :)
>
> And what about the freedom to endlessly troll and harass you and
> others?  Is this truly a freedom we want to stand for?  How about the
> freedom to harass members of legally-protected classes (something that
> also has happened historically in the community)?
>

Trolls are trolls, and when banned/blacklisted by default THEN, they will
start
their trolling on private channels.


>
> Surely Gentoo's mission isn't to run completely unrestricated forums
> for discussion of anything and everything.  Our main purpose here is
> to maintain a Linux distro, not provide a platform for anybody who has
> an opinion on anything.  Free expression has to be balanced against
> the interests of people who want to actually contribute to the distro
> without being endlessly trolled and harassed.
>
> --
> Rich
>
>


-- 
Pozdrawiam
Dawid Węgliński

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