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

["Aaron W. Swenson" <titanofold@gentoo.org>]

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On Tue, Dec 01, 2020 at 05:15:30AM +0200, Andreas K. Hüttel wrote:
>> Please respond to this message with agenda items. Do not hesitate to
>> repeat your agenda item here with a pointer if you previously
>> suggested one (since the last meeting).
>
>I would like to propose the council consider shutting down the "Off the Wall"
>(OTW) forum on forums.gentoo.org permanently and without replacement.
>
>Rationale:
>
>* provides zero value to the distribution
>* large parts of the content are toxic and not something I (and others) wish
>  Gentoo to be associated with
>* it caters to a set of users somewhat distinct from the rest of the forums
>  (e.g., >5000 posts in OTW, <100 elsewhere)
>* forum moderators have made clear they are not going to fulfill their roles
>  (e.g., regarding the code of conduct) in OTW, following a similar discussion
>  one year ago
>
>This leaves us with two options:
>
>1) shut down OTW
>or
>2) replace or supplement forum moderators with people willing to fulfill the
>   moderator role in OTW

I propose a third and fourth option here: Make it a privileged area, or split
off to a Religion & Politics forum.

Some other communities have made a dedicated "Religion & Politics" area despite
the community having no connection to religion and politics otherwise. Users who
wish to access the area would need to submit a request via PM to gain access. As
part of the request, the user acknowledges that the forum will be relatively
free from moderation. Only requests for threats of injury will be moderated.
Basically, words are allowed, but stick and stones aren't.

Additionally, it makes the forum private so the topics therein won't come up in
searches, but will still be publicly available. This should minimize non-Gentoo
user participation.

>
>I dont see 2) happen (for the simple reasons
>* that it will be difficult to find someone to do the work
>* and that noone has volunteered to do it over the past year
>), so 1) it is.
>
>Cheers, Andreas
>
>-- 
>Andreas K. Hüttel
>dilfridge@gentoo.org
>Gentoo Linux developer
>(council, qa, toolchain, base-system, perl, libreoffice)



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