From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: from lists.gentoo.org (pigeon.gentoo.org [208.92.234.80]) (using TLSv1.2 with cipher ECDHE-RSA-AES256-GCM-SHA384 (256/256 bits)) (No client certificate requested) by finch.gentoo.org (Postfix) with ESMTPS id 0BDA6138334 for ; Thu, 27 Jun 2019 14:15:25 +0000 (UTC) Received: from pigeon.gentoo.org (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by pigeon.gentoo.org (Postfix) with SMTP id 8EE2FE08D0; Thu, 27 Jun 2019 14:15:23 +0000 (UTC) Received: from mail-pg1-f195.google.com (mail-pg1-f195.google.com [209.85.215.195]) (using TLSv1.2 with cipher ECDHE-RSA-AES128-GCM-SHA256 (128/128 bits)) (No client certificate requested) by pigeon.gentoo.org (Postfix) with ESMTPS id 51D26E08C9 for ; Thu, 27 Jun 2019 14:15:23 +0000 (UTC) Received: by mail-pg1-f195.google.com with SMTP id z75so1093897pgz.5 for ; Thu, 27 Jun 2019 07:15:23 -0700 (PDT) X-Google-DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=1e100.net; s=20161025; h=x-gm-message-state:mime-version:references:in-reply-to:from:date :message-id:subject:to:cc; bh=zuUCvwra0EyGDJt/8lcnai/DUeECTQVmmBHROCD8NEs=; b=eFw3Hgtr7qkWeaDZabjMtVWpzcKISMilE2wmfYXNSEE8Ky6qHNjkkqzfnrrhIWQofd xAyxaYMtv1W25RmgKrjhk7zInfpSmphJDAfZNzVwVRJOMXnHIBE7yv7EZ9bqCB8sMddP aBLRfbdUUs+scM+uyMC+Vy4qAFSchv99v2HsIGXSfot7r4Y/E7kz7TspzzGmooONYG1r /vKqZGds05E+yRnzAemGM8TnQVy1vpT6if3quimD/ktYzDu01485IHwFnauPxDONNuX/ +55dAaQ6r8DpLTS2eGrfCzLqd0sGj4IxkK6CU3XbXSUK4yqq6fZ0/J3x3mdop41rIa7F BL2g== X-Gm-Message-State: APjAAAXvGmY0VOXcj0jFUJPU0QTQg2o5TJY8up1JLGbdYAOsx6OWRiBT VWnaSncBV91yEacFUq3cpxHUQBM+eqEz/56v8jQ= X-Google-Smtp-Source: APXvYqwUNZKyzjtLvscZNc3NMjbV+nVnnsSuVdeiOGNaAGXw8W22Hv6+YchpSp9IA2Pvh4BND7NNhG0J7j7DUlLV+7E= X-Received: by 2002:a63:5a4b:: with SMTP id k11mr4011720pgm.143.1561644921798; Thu, 27 Jun 2019 07:15:21 -0700 (PDT) Precedence: bulk List-Post: List-Help: List-Unsubscribe: List-Subscribe: List-Id: Gentoo Project discussion list X-BeenThere: gentoo-project@lists.gentoo.org Reply-To: gentoo-project@lists.gentoo.org X-Auto-Response-Suppress: DR, RN, NRN, OOF, AutoReply MIME-Version: 1.0 References: <5e45376a-8253-a8f3-6c24-92fa5af900d4@gentoo.org> <7f50285dd6e9dd3175e552ed21dcb7ad40a14719.camel@gentoo.org> <71de4d68-e14f-333f-e46d-82dee0e6b2ac@gentoo.org> <4a8db128-d62b-a2b6-ee2c-03d2fbe0feb6@gentoo.org> <120ec264-07e4-0d3a-b711-b2f2b7a00cb2@gentoo.org> In-Reply-To: <120ec264-07e4-0d3a-b711-b2f2b7a00cb2@gentoo.org> From: Rich Freeman Date: Thu, 27 Jun 2019 10:15:09 -0400 Message-ID: Subject: Re: [gentoo-project] Why should you *not* vote on existing Council members To: desultory Cc: gentoo-project , proctors@gentoo.org Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8" X-Archives-Salt: a694a1e1-a759-4d54-b3a3-9332ec5cccd8 X-Archives-Hash: 6ea6a4fea7a4adfa53a049851557a27c Again, only speaking personally. Also, on many of these issues we're just going to disagree on what the policy is and how it ought to apply - ultimately policy is up to Council. Proctors just tries to apply the little guidance that exists in this area and accept whatever direction it is given. I'm just replying where something hasn't already been said.. On Thu, Jun 27, 2019 at 1:23 AM desultory wrote: > > On 06/26/19 08:36, Rich Freeman wrote: > > On Wed, Jun 26, 2019 at 12:24 AM desultory wrote: > >> > >> On 06/24/19 06:55, Rich Freeman wrote: > >>> Speaking only for my personal opinion: > >>> > >> by > >> your espoused reasoning even filing a bug requesting ComRel intervention > >> due to demonstrable violation of the CoC would not be a suitable venue > >> for arguably negative comments regarding an individual, as (per ComRel > >> [ComRel]) there is no indication that such bugs would necessarily be > >> private. > > > > There is also no indication that such bugs would be public. IMO the > > ComRel policy should define expectations of privacy because this has > > been a problem in the past with Council appeals, which I believe I > > have commented on the lists about previously. > > > So no ComRel needs to clean house in order to avoid running afoul of a > new (unilaterally conceived) policy that runs distinctly counter to > existing practice. I was saying that ComRel needed to document expectations of privacy back when I was on Council, which was a while ago, and long before Proctors was restarted. People share all kinds of sensitive stuff with Comrel. It absolutely should be clear whether they can expect it to remain private. Having heard Comrel appeals I can tell you what is wrong with the current state. A few witnesses share sensitive concerns with Comrel about some dev with the understanding that it will be kept private (likely given by private assurance). Comrel ends up taking action against the dev. The dev appeals to Council. The Council gets a dump of all the evidence, much of which is sensitive, and where promises about privacy have already been made. What does Council do? Council could decide that we don't act on private info, but then what was the point in soliciting it in the first place? Also, Council has good reason to think that somebody bad is going on, which they are now ignoring. Council could decide to uphold the Comrel action, and keep the private info private. Now you get the usual conspiracy theories about secret cabals running Gentoo, and no official policies one way or another. Council could uphold the Comrel action, and then publish the private info. Now you get people really upset about broken promises on sensitive issues. No matter what the policy is set to, somebody will be upset. However, we should still have a published policy. This is why Proctors has a published policy. Proctors deals with stuff done in public on Gentoo communications media, on lists, bugs, IRC, etc. Proctors doesn't deal with stuff that happens in private, anywhere. Proctors doesn't accept private evidence - anything submitted will go in a public bug. Anybody with a concern about what Proctors is doing can go search on bugzilla and see the same things we see. The most ephemeral stuff we deal with would be unlogged but official IRC channels, but usually plenty of people have personal logs they can look at for these, and even then we rarely get involved because most are already moderated. Bugzilla in general is within scope of Proctors. We would generally not deal with Comrel bugs because: 1. Comrel already has all the powers Proctors has to deal with CoC issues. We don't add value. 2. Most of these bugs are generally hidden, and stuff that isn't public generally isn't our scope. 3. Comrel IS an appropriate forum for frank discussion of a lot of stuff that would violate the CoC in public, so it requires a different approach, which is what Comrel already specializes in. > Which would make this yet another new policy spawned for no > evident reason other than having not thought through the implications of > an existing policy, and not bothering to consult with affected parties, > again. I don't hear Comrel complaining. I'd be shocked if they had concerns over what we're doing, and have a liason on our team for just that reason. It isn't like we make stuff up in a vacuum. > > While it isn't Gentoo's policy I'd suggest taking a look at the FSF's > > CoC. It does a decent job (IMO) of explaining why personal attacks > > are counterproductive even if you think they should be allowed, which > > they are not (at least not unless Council says otherwise). > > > The most obvious problem with that is what was warned about was not a > personal attack. There is a difference between "$person lack empathy" > and "$person is an inhuman monster" which seems to have been lost in > this action by proctors. So, I think we're arguing over the definition of "personal attack" - either statement is not appropriate on our lists. And we certainly do make distinctions, which is why only a warning was issued. > This is yet another occurrence of a fallacy which is distressingly > common in various media: since one does not think that a system is being > overly abused now, why should anyone be at all concerned about abuses in > the system? Especially when that system is, in the instance in question, > being abused. If Council feels that our action was inappropriate they can take whatever action they feel is necessary. We enforce the CoC as we believe it was intended to be enforced. A few people have voiced disagreements, which is to be expected. That is why we elect Council members. All Proctors actions and bugs (whether action is taken or not) are public. Anybody can review what we're doing and raise whatever concerns they wish, as you have done. IMO it is a good system. There will be disagreements, but I think this is about as transparent a system as I can think of, and suggestions for improvement are always welcome. > It is entirely possible to make policies which are unclear, or > inexplicit on some point, which are then taken, incorrectly, to imply > something which is itself then made policy and enforced. Of course. And that is why we have the opportunity for feedback. All policies need refinement over time, and Council is the appropriate place to bring concerns about the meaning of the CoC. > There have been > numerous personal attacks on the lists in the time since the proctors > project was started (restarted, if you prefer), none received a warning > for months, then a critique of how someone handles one of their roles > was treated as an actionable violation. True. I do not claim that this was the worst violation since Proctors existed. In general we avoid opening bugs every time a minor issue comes up. However, we didn't open this bug. Once a complaint was submitted to us our options were basically to close it without action, or close it taking some kind of action. You might disagree with the decision we made in this case, but IMO it was the right one. I'm not suggesting that I want everybody to go opening up Proctors bugs everytime somebody does something you don't like. However, if bugs are opened, we're going to follow our process to resolve them, and we will generally do so quickly. Over time I'm sure we'll both get better at it, and people will become more used to how these are being handled, and maybe we'll have fewer CoC violations in the first place. > I think that it is distinctly unrealistic to treat a personal critique > as an actionable personal attack when personal attacks are regularly > ignored by proctors. So, you can't get out of a speeding ticket by arguing that the police failed to pull over EVERY car that was speeding. No CoC enforcement will be perfect, nor is it intended to be really. The goal is to steer things in the right direction, and nudges over time will hopefully get things going in the right direction. This is why I am emphatic that warnings should not be seen as reflecting on the individual. Getting a warning doesn't mean that you're the worst person in Gentoo - it just means that you did something wrong, and you should try not to do it again. That's it, and if we actually heed the warnings maybe it will be a nicer community to participate in. -- Rich