Re: [gentoo-project] RFC: Expanding Foundation Bylaws, section 4.9 Termination from Membership

[zlg <zlg@gentoo.org>]

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On Wed, Feb 07, 2018 at 10:41:11PM -0700, Daniel Robbins wrote:
> The current bylaws are sufficient.
> 
> Threats should not be tolerated. It seems like right now, all it takes are
> the trustees to vote on it to remove that member. Your addition leaves it
> up to interpretation whether specified events fit the criteria you define,
> which just make it more confusing than a simple vote of trustees in the
> first place.

All of our policies are written in a natural language, which leaves them
open to interpretation by a human. How would you improve the wording of
the criteria?

> 
> So I don't think any of this helps; and with the videos at the end, it just
> kind of seems paranoid.

The intent was to show that the phenomenon is real and poses a threat to
us. The all-caps warning was being respectful of the circumstances that
people may be reading the list under. I thought I put enough thought and
effort into my recommendation to not be written off and disregarded as
paranoid. In an age where information is gathered en masse and
often misused against people, I hardly consider it paranoid to be
concerned about the safety of our members.

Which bylaw(s) already cover legal threats? 4.9 is a bylaw with broad,
general language that is also subject to interpretation. Our Code of
Conduct does not cover this behavior, either. The closest thing is
"mean-spirited", which is actually *less* specific than what I outlined.

It comes down to this: these events *can* and *do* happen, and some of
our members *have* threatened legal action in response to situations
they didn't like. There is no denying any of that. What will Gentoo do
about it when it's one of our own who loses their job or their life at
the hands of an angry person with a phone?  Should we stand by and wait
until damage is done before acting?  I think we can do better than that.

As mentioned in my prior mail, it's a draft. Patches welcome.
> 
> -Daniel
> 
> On Wed, Feb 7, 2018 at 9:50 PM, zlg <zlg@gentoo.org> wrote:
> 
> >[snip]
> >

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