Mailing List Archive

Wulf C. Krueger wrote:
> I'm sure they have the best intentions but I've never seen any clear
> guidelines for them. They use their best judgement what to handle and
> what not to but due to language barriers, cultural differences etc. it's
> difficult to judge.
The guideline, as far as I understood it, was (and is?) to ban people who dont
abide by the time-outs.
And the guideline for time-outs, as far as I understood it, was (and is?) to
use them when a thread, as obviously as this one, is neither technical, nor
productive but a flame war.
And yes, in my opinion, it already was one to the time the warning was sent
out.

> Do we really need moderation on the list? Or could we just literally
> moderate ourselves instead? Could we try and succeed to be just ignore
> some flames instead of adding oil to the fire?
As the incidents in the last few months showed, there is a handfull of people
who seem to love flame wars, or dont have anything better to do, so:
No, ignoring them does not work, as it just is not what people are doing,
which is why proctors where brought into existence:
To make people calm down by forcing a delay, which likely will make them stop
replying.

> When I first read the CoC I had just read about the entire Ciaran-incident
> on the respective bugs, Forums, mailinglists, blogs and many other
> sources. CoC, while not bad in itself, seemed (and still seems) to me
> like a "Lex Ciaran" - a document with that what I had just read clearly
> in mind and targetted at preventing it.
The CoC is the legal basis for the proctors (as well as the other teams).

> The problem is, though: In an asynchronous communications medium, you
> simply cannot pro-actively do anything without bordering on what some
> like to call censorship. You can only *re*act in such a situation.
The reaction was to delay the thread, and therefore pro-actively forcing
people to calm down. There's the hidden pro-active part.
Of course, by anyone who felt the urgent need to reply anyway, this effect was
destroyed.
Furthermore, it was reversed by those replys containing the self-fulfilling
prophecy that there is no effect which got things really going.

> If, after both sides were investigated properly, the complaining party is
> found to be exaggerating or too easily offended, disciplinary action
> should be taken against it.
I am strictly against any way to punish a complainer, except where it is
slander or similar, where in turn, the slandered person might complain via
the same way.
Punishment for exaggeration leads to arbitrariness.
--
gentoo-dev@gentoo.org mailing list

Wulf C. Krueger wrote:
> IRC is more or less self-moderated.
I'd have to disagree, given the pure insanity and horsepiss the last 48
hours have been. Clearly, we can't keep ourselves in line.

Why? Because:

> Even *trying* to act pro-actively will lead to unrest as we've only ver=
y=20
> recently seen it.

<snip>

> Do we really need moderation on the list? Or could we just literally
> moderate ourselves instead? Could we try and succeed to be just ignore
> some flames instead of adding oil to the fire?

This doesn't seem possible. We don't seem to be able to moderate
ourselves because it doesn't look like we have any authoritative
figures...or people we listen to. Not often enough to make the slightest
bit of difference, anyway.

Hi all,

I am not a dev but a Gentoo-addicted user that would be interested in
getting involved. So I have no more situation awareness than the
website and this ML brought to me. But I have 2 cents I want to share
peacefully.

First, I am wondering about the exact role of what is known to be:

"The elected Gentoo Council decides on global issues and policies that
affect multiple projects in Gentoo. It also serves as an appeal court
for disciplinary decisions."

Many questions come up. How much powerful it is ? Why the council get
both a decisional role and a proctor one ? Why do the community of dev
needs such a council ? Well, even if I don't have the answers, what I
know is there is a need to explain, describe, and provide clear
information about this to the whole world. Neither
http://www.gentoo.org/proj/en/council/index.xml nor
http://www.gentoo.org/proj/en/glep/glep-0039.html provides enough
information. Why it is a need ? Because lots of people want to know
where they are.

To keep on lack of communication, I would like to share one or two
suggestions. The glep page
http://www.gentoo.org/proj/en/glep/glep-0039.html lists some issues
about the TLPs...
and I come to that point: I don't know how the dev teams manage their
projects, deal with planning, call for new blood and so on... since I
just can have an external view, but it is possible to know why there
is no public information about Gentoo and its
packages/projects/needs/delays/status-of-whatever-that-needs-a-status
?

Right, there is an Online Package Database.... good. But definitely
insufficient. Can't we have a kind of https://savannah.gnu.org/ for
Gentoo ? A web application providing information like status of
packages, needs of dev, planned delivery dates, delays, links to
bugs, plus info on projects, stand-alone tasks, with related decisions
of the council and so on. What for ? just to have a better view of
Gentoo as a whole. The users could better know what is going on, how
previous issues turned out and many more info. The dev too, plus maybe
extra info that are not public. Because when I see email on this ML
like "package johndoe requires new dev", I think wtf this request is
not shared on a public location. When I also read the meeting logs of
the council, I am wondering about the fact that you need to be member
of the council to have a clear global view of the situation. But I
can't see why normal user and dev could not have it.

So, what's about the council ? A band of proctors, moderating the ML ?
Or a powerful and decisional group that leads Gentoo to the directions
these 7 devs choose, due to the global overview that only them have ?
Why not providing technical solutions to allow the whole dev community
to make choices, open new projects, closing others, and providing
these info to the users ? What could be the council in such a
situation ? I think we need such a council to handle TLPs for
example. The council could vote a list of TLPs, and take special care
of them, putting high priority (e.g. to make sure that the 2007.0
release project doest not lack devs ), providing official news, and so
on. Maybe a so big community of devs needs a secretary, some entity
that embodies the executive power, like in most of the democratic
regimes. But all the devs could be free to start project, join a dev
team or an existing project the way they want... as long as they
respect the CoC. For the TLPs, a minimum activity can be required, and
the dev responsible for the package/project can take decision to bring
solutions together, but not the proctors in their own since the
project manager know the devs working in his team and all the related
issues. It sounds sensible, isn't it? But I do not understand why 7
devs -even elected by the others- could make decisions on other
projects and are described as the group in charge of the 'global
issues and policies'.

Gal'


2007/6/6, Wulf C. Krueger <philantrop@gentoo.org>:
> On Wednesday, June 6, 2007 05:29:47 PM Grant Goodyear wrote:
> [Proctor system]
> > a way to fix the current system, or should it be chucked entirely, as
> > has been suggested?
>
> Personally, I think we simply don't need the proctors.
>
> I'm sure they have the best intentions but I've never seen any clear
> guidelines for them. They use their best judgement what to handle and
> what not to but due to language barriers, cultural differences etc. it's
> difficult to judge.
>
> Furthermore, where do we need them? The Forums are moderated by an, IMHO,
> excellent team. IRC is more or less self-moderated.
> That basically leaves the mailinglists and among those, the only one that
> *might* arguably need supervision could be -dev.
>
> Do we really need moderation on the list? Or could we just literally
> moderate ourselves instead? Could we try and succeed to be just ignore
> some flames instead of adding oil to the fire?
>
> And even if we can't: We still have DevRel we can complain to. Yes, DevRel
> is for inter-developer conflicts but let's look back in the archives a
> bit - do we really need more than that? Most conflicts arise between
> active developers and, well, one active retired-dev.
>
> Do we really need an entire team for dealing with one former dev in case
> he goes too far? Or could we just agree to ignore him if he again behaves
> inappropriately (or what some of us *feel* might be inappropriate)?
>
> When I first read the CoC I had just read about the entire Ciaran-incident
> on the respective bugs, Forums, mailinglists, blogs and many other
> sources. CoC, while not bad in itself, seemed (and still seems) to me
> like a "Lex Ciaran" - a document with that what I had just read clearly
> in mind and targetted at preventing it.
>
> While preventing it is a good goal in itself, writing a CoC based on an
> actual case which has only recently occurred, usually leads to this
> result and damages the whatever good intentions were involved because
> other people will see the similarities as well.
>
> More than that, it puts a strain on those who are entrusted with enforcing
> the CoC because they will try, with the best motives, to prevent anything
> like that happening again. And they will do it, as the proctors stated
> themselves, pro-actively.
>
> The problem is, though: In an asynchronous communications medium, you
> simply cannot pro-actively do anything without bordering on what some
> like to call censorship. You can only *re*act in such a situation.
>
> Even *trying* to act pro-actively will lead to unrest as we've only very
> recently seen it. If we accept my hypothesis of asynchronous
> communication and the implications I described, we come to the conclusion
> that reaction is the most likely way not to open Pandora's Box.
>
> That leads back to DevRel. We have them to deal reactively with conflicts
> after a complaint by either party involved. I stated, that on the
> mailinglists, we mainly see inter-developer conflicts and those can be
> handled by DevRel.
>
> A small improvement to DevRel might be achieved, at least from what I've
> seen by reading lots and lots of DevRel bugs, by taking action on
> unfounded complaints, too. I'm speaking of trivial complaints, of course.
>
> If, after both sides were investigated properly, the complaining party is
> found to be exaggerating or too easily offended, disciplinary action
> should be taken against it. Of course, this should be done light-handedly
> but it should give the complaining party some time to learn from their
> mistake. Maybe this is what's already intended - it's just that I haven't
> found any examples. :)
>
> I apologise for the long mail but I wanted to state clearly and without
> too much emotions why I think we don't need the proctors and why we
> should thank them for attempting to bring some order to the chaos and
> give up on the concept as a whole.
>
> Best regards, Wulf
>
>
--
gentoo-dev@gentoo.org mailing list

On Wednesday, June 6, 2007 07:20:18 PM Josh Saddler wrote:
> Wulf C. Krueger wrote:
> > IRC is more or less self-moderated.
> I'd have to disagree, given the pure insanity and horsepiss the last 48
> hours have been. Clearly, we can't keep ourselves in line.

Well, yes, there are exceptions from the general rule, of course. We're
still here, though, and will still be in spite of the "phenomena" you
describe.

> > Do we really need moderation on the list? Or could we just literally
> > moderate ourselves instead? Could we try and succeed to be just
> > ignore some flames instead of adding oil to the fire?
> This doesn't seem possible. We don't seem to be able to moderate
> ourselves because it doesn't look like we have any authoritative
> figures...or people we listen to. Not often enough to make the
> slightest bit of difference, anyway.

We shouldn't really need authoritative figures. We've left kindergarden at
least a few years ago.

If people can't moderate themselves, the rest of us who can should
probably just ignore them completely. The trolls *will* give up then
rather sooner than later. Believe me, I've seen this over the course of
almost 20 years now in many communities I've been a part of and all of
these survived quite a few more disgruntled former or even current
members.

A thicker skin and letting things rest for a while really cools down one's
temper. :-)

Best regards, Wulf

Wulf C. Krueger wrote:
> On Wednesday, June 6, 2007 05:29:47 PM Grant Goodyear wrote:
> [Proctor system]
>> a way to fix the current system, or should it be chucked entirely, as
>> has been suggested?
>
> Personally, I think we simply don't need the proctors.

Nor do I. Every thread that has gone bad in the last 2 years has been
because of the same people. Ban them from -dev and there is no need for
the proctors.

If they weren't banned from the forums as well then they could have been
directed there. It just goes to show how positive their influence on
Gentoo is.
--
gentoo-dev@gentoo.org mailing list

Galevsky wrote:
> But I do not understand why 7
> devs -even elected by the others- could make decisions on other
> projects and are described as the group in charge of the 'global
> issues and policies'.
>

The logic is that most organizations are overseen by a board of
directors. This system is used in most corporations worldwide, most
non-profits, and to some degree most governments. The reason is simple
- it generally works fairly well, although this is obviously limited by
the makeup of the overall organization.

The concept is that the council provides oversight and high-level
guidance. If necessary they can step in and micromanage when necessary,
but in theory they should be delegating their power whenever possible.
The proctors are a body to which the council delegated day-to-day
responsibility for enforcing the code of conduct.

In most companies if the head of an organization (who reports to the
board of directors) makes a decision that a good chunk of the board
disagrees with, the board does NOTHING in public. At least not without
careful thought. Instead the board just sits down in private with the
CEO/president/secretary/whatever and decides what to do about the
disagreement. This might ultimately lead to the appointment of a new
CEO/president/secretary/whatever - usually without a whole lot of
fanfare. The reason for this is that the organization speaks with one
voice at all times. The board is in ultimate control, but they don't
usually feel the need to step into the limelight.

What gentoo needs is a little more patience. If somebody says/does
something you disagree with, try talking to them in private about it.
If necessary try talking to an appropriate moderator in private. And
don't expect a huge change within 8 hours.... And think about the good
of the whole organization, even if you don't agree with every person who
is in charge.

On Wed, 2007-06-06 at 18:10 +0200, Wulf C. Krueger wrote:
> On Wednesday, June 6, 2007 05:29:47 PM Grant Goodyear wrote:
> [Proctor system]
> > a way to fix the current system, or should it be chucked entirely, as
> > has been suggested?
>
> Personally, I think we simply don't need the proctors.

As much as I was a part of the creation of the proctors, I agree.

> I'm sure they have the best intentions but I've never seen any clear
> guidelines for them. They use their best judgement what to handle and
> what not to but due to language barriers, cultural differences etc. it's
> difficult to judge.

Well, they've been asked to write guidelines for Council approval, as
well as changes to the Code of Conduct. Neither of which have been
done. As it stands now, there are no publicly available guidelines that
I am aware of for the proctors.

> Furthermore, where do we need them? The Forums are moderated by an, IMHO,
> excellent team. IRC is more or less self-moderated.
> That basically leaves the mailinglists and among those, the only one that
> *might* arguably need supervision could be -dev.

One thing I have started to really wonder about is this.

Why do we need the -dev mailing list? How much real "development" (or
even discussion about it) happens on the mailing list?

Most of the traffic on this list is political in nature and simply
doesn't belong on this list. Since we've pretty much shown over the
past couple years that the development list isn't being used properly,
why have it?

> Do we really need moderation on the list? Or could we just literally
> moderate ourselves instead? Could we try and succeed to be just ignore
> some flames instead of adding oil to the fire?

Do we really need the list? We tried self-moderation and it simply
didn't work. We know it won't work. There's no point in trying again.
The situation isn't likely to change.

I mean no disrespect to people's age, but I think part of the problem
why we have such a hard time, collectively, acting like adults is we
aren't adults. A very good number of our developers are in the high
school/college age range. This means their life experience isn't as
high as a more seasoned adult. They have no real experiences dealing
with adults in adult situations. They're simply used to how things are
done with people their age. It isn't their fault, it is just simply a
lack of life experience. We simply cannot reasonably expect everyone to
act like a level-headed thirty year old computer professional. I have
heard people say that our lack of being paid developers compounds this,
as we have people from all walks of life. I don't think that I believe
that, but I do know that paid developers tend to be older and more
professional. After all, if they constantly acted like a tool, they'd
be fired.

> And even if we can't: We still have DevRel we can complain to. Yes, DevRel
> is for inter-developer conflicts but let's look back in the archives a
> bit - do we really need more than that? Most conflicts arise between
> active developers and, well, one active retired-dev.

Developer Relations has gone through a few good spots intermixed with
lots of failures. They keep improving, but the trust level many
developers have with Developer Relations isn't very good. With the
recent changes within the group, we might see improvement here, and I
think that we will. I don't mean this to sound like I am throwing
devrel under the bus or anything. I am not. I know that those guys
work hard. However, good intentions and hard work don't necessarily
make up for failing to attain goals. Part of the problem has been the
fear that Developer Relations has rightly had in using their powers. I
have always felt that a properly-running distribution should have the
need for a group whose purpose is to resolve internal conflict. We will
always need recruiters, but the existence of a group just to make the
300 or so of us play nice together shows that our culture is broken.

> Do we really need an entire team for dealing with one former dev in case
> he goes too far? Or could we just agree to ignore him if he again behaves
> inappropriately (or what some of us *feel* might be inappropriate)?

Developer Relations does a bunch more than just deal with problems with
Gentoo developers and Ciaran. If it really were just Ciaran that was
the cause (or catalyst) of all of our problems, it could be solved very
simply. It isn't.

Developers simply aren't going to agree all the time. No matter what,
there will end up being some group responsible for trying to resolve
interpersonal issues. In companies, that would be the Human Resources
department. When you think of devrel more as an HR department, you
realize there's more to it than dealing with problems. After all,
Developer Relations does all the recruiting work.

> When I first read the CoC I had just read about the entire Ciaran-incident
> on the respective bugs, Forums, mailinglists, blogs and many other
> sources. CoC, while not bad in itself, seemed (and still seems) to me
> like a "Lex Ciaran" - a document with that what I had just read clearly
> in mind and targetted at preventing it.

The Code of Conduct was written with the hopes that its existence would
help to curb the flamewars and other general nastiness between people
within the community. The proctors were created to enforce the Code of
Conduct. Their mandate was to be very fast moving and to try to keep
flames from spreading. For some time, I was working with the proctors.
I ended up disliking the bureaucratic direction they were taking and
chose to have myself removed from the group. Since that time, I have
pretty much felt that the proctors *have* taken it upon themselves to
single out and target particular individuals. Whether this was
intentional or not is really beside the point. The perception is all
that really matters, as it is all that gets propagated to the world. I
think this is something that people seem to forget. It doesn't matter
what the real truth is for anything. All that matters "to the world" is
what they perceive. If the perception is that Gentoo is nothing but a
bunch of guys waiting to flame people, it doesn't matter that there
might be 98% of the developer pool that has never engaged in a flamewar.
(Numbers completely made up...)

> While preventing it is a good goal in itself, writing a CoC based on an
> actual case which has only recently occurred, usually leads to this
> result and damages the whatever good intentions were involved because
> other people will see the similarities as well.

The Code of Conduct wasn't written in response to a particular case.
The timing suggests that it was written against Ciaran. It wasn't. I
know this will sound a bit harsh, but if we really were trying to just
get rid of Ciaran, we would have just banned him and been done with it.
There wouldn't have been a point in creating yet another project and
staffing it. The goal *was* and still *is* to reduce the flames, no
matter what parties are involved.

> More than that, it puts a strain on those who are entrusted with enforcing
> the CoC because they will try, with the best motives, to prevent anything
> like that happening again. And they will do it, as the proctors stated
> themselves, pro-actively.

No, re-actively. If it were proactive, it would be done before the
flames started. The proctors *have* tried to react as quickly as
possible. The problem is that there are no published guidelines, and
decisions from the proctors are completely arbitrary to any outside
observer. I think they've failed. Again, I don't think that the guys
didn't have the best intentions, and I know that some people took my
voicing of their failure as a direct personal assault. It wasn't meant
that way, but I'm not going to apologize for my observations. I see no
point in apologizing for what *I* perceived, even if it does hurt a few
feelings. I just think people are being overly-sensitive. It's
Gentoo's curse.

> The problem is, though: In an asynchronous communications medium, you
> simply cannot pro-actively do anything without bordering on what some
> like to call censorship. You can only *re*act in such a situation.
>
> Even *trying* to act pro-actively will lead to unrest as we've only very
> recently seen it. If we accept my hypothesis of asynchronous
> communication and the implications I described, we come to the conclusion
> that reaction is the most likely way not to open Pandora's Box.

Attempts to become more proactive were dismissed. One such attempt was
to enforce bans on all mediums. For example, if someone is banned for
24 hours for their actions on IRC, they should be banned from all of our
media. Why? Because there's nothing keeping the person from just
moving "next door" and starting more problems. We've even seen it
happen in at least one occasion that I am aware of with this list and
the forums.

> That leads back to DevRel. We have them to deal reactively with conflicts
> after a complaint by either party involved. I stated, that on the
> mailinglists, we mainly see inter-developer conflicts and those can be
> handled by DevRel.

I think we mostly see developer<->user conflict. That was one of the
reasons we created a new group to monitor our media. We felt that
Developer Relations was *not* the group, since it dealt only with
inter-developer communications and we needed something broader.

> A small improvement to DevRel might be achieved, at least from what I've
> seen by reading lots and lots of DevRel bugs, by taking action on
> unfounded complaints, too. I'm speaking of trivial complaints, of course.

If Developer Relations were able to act fast, it would help immensely.
Again, we have tied ourselves in so much red tape and procedure, that
getting things done is now secondary to following protocol. I am not
pointing fingers at devrel on this. I think it is a failure across
most, if not all, of Gentoo.

> If, after both sides were investigated properly, the complaining party is
> found to be exaggerating or too easily offended, disciplinary action
> should be taken against it. Of course, this should be done light-handedly
> but it should give the complaining party some time to learn from their
> mistake. Maybe this is what's already intended - it's just that I haven't
> found any examples. :)

It is actually what was intended. The problem is that even the most
light-handed actions have been met with resignations, flames, people
being general assholes, and all kinds of other fun things that compound
the problems rather than resolve them. I know that one of kloeri's
biggest fears as creating more problems than he solved, every time
devrel had to do just about anything.

We are an open source project that is completely community-based. We
simply don't all think alike and can't expect that to ever change.

> I apologise for the long mail but I wanted to state clearly and without
> too much emotions why I think we don't need the proctors and why we
> should thank them for attempting to bring some order to the chaos and
> give up on the concept as a whole.

We don't really have any sort of replacement for the proctors. The
original User Relations was supposed to do that job, but that was before
Christel came around and reinvented userrel as a great
community<->developer gateway. The problem was that we *needed* to have
the "old" userrel to compliment devrel. The proctors were supposed to
fill in that gap.

I know I am planning on bringing up discussion on this at the next
Council meeting and we'll simply go from there.

--
Chris Gianelloni
Release Engineering Strategic Lead
Alpha/AMD64/x86 Architecture Teams
Games Developer/Council Member/Foundation Trustee
Gentoo Foundation

On Wed, 2007-06-06 at 19:16 +0200, expose@luftgetrock.net wrote:
> Wulf C. Krueger wrote:
> > I'm sure they have the best intentions but I've never seen any clear
> > guidelines for them. They use their best judgement what to handle and
> > what not to but due to language barriers, cultural differences etc. it's
> > difficult to judge.
> The guideline, as far as I understood it, was (and is?) to ban people who dont
> abide by the time-outs.

What guideline? Where is it? When was it approved by the Council, like
we had said that proctors policy would need to be?

--
Chris Gianelloni
Release Engineering Strategic Lead
Alpha/AMD64/x86 Architecture Teams
Games Developer/Council Member/Foundation Trustee
Gentoo Foundation

Chris Gianelloni wrote:
> On Wed, 2007-06-06 at 19:16 +0200, expose@luftgetrock.net wrote:
>> Wulf C. Krueger wrote:
>>> I'm sure they have the best intentions but I've never seen any clear
>>> guidelines for them. They use their best judgement what to handle and
>>> what not to but due to language barriers, cultural differences etc. it's
>>> difficult to judge.
>> The guideline, as far as I understood it, was (and is?) to ban people who dont
>> abide by the time-outs.
>
> What guideline? Where is it? When was it approved by the Council, like
> we had said that proctors policy would need to be?
>

from http://www.gentoo.org/proj/en/council/coc.xml

Consequences

Disciplinary action will be up to the descretion of the proctors. What
is a proctor? A proctor is an official charged with the duty of
maintaining good order. If discplinary measures are taken and the
affected person wishes to appeal, appeals should be addressed to the
Gentoo Council via email at council@gentoo.org. To prevent conflicts of
interest, Council members may not perform the duties of a proctor.
--
gentoo-dev@gentoo.org mailing list

On Thu, 2007-06-07 at 01:08 +0100, George Prowse wrote:
> from http://www.gentoo.org/proj/en/council/coc.xml

Look at the Council logs from the CoC being approved and the ones since.
We asked for real guidelines so we could specifically avoid this sort of
problem from happening.

--
Chris Gianelloni
Release Engineering Strategic Lead
Alpha/AMD64/x86 Architecture Teams
Games Developer/Council Member/Foundation Trustee
Gentoo Foundation

Chris Gianelloni wrote:
> On Thu, 2007-06-07 at 01:08 +0100, George Prowse wrote:
>> from http://www.gentoo.org/proj/en/council/coc.xml
>
> Look at the Council logs from the CoC being approved and the ones since.
> We asked for real guidelines so we could specifically avoid this sort of
> problem from happening.
>
Then the council are to blame for having the CoC readily available under
their *own* project pages.

It has your's and most of the council's names as reviewers and after 3
months nothing has been said about it. The lack of activity and where it
is situated make it look like it is official policy.

All this is immaterial anyway because even if it had been extensively
discussed at length then the proctors would still have acted the same,
or would you have preferred that they held a meeting first and then a
focus group and then a coffee morning before trying to stop a thread
descending into anarchy? I cant see it would have gone any different to
1) warning. 2) if ignored then act
--
gentoo-dev@gentoo.org mailing list

On Thu, 07 Jun 2007 11:15:58 +0100
George Prowse <cokehabit@gmail.com> wrote:
> All this is immaterial anyway because even if it had been extensively
> discussed at length then the proctors would still have acted the
> same

If that really were the case, it would just be an even stronger
argument for disbanding them.

> or would you have preferred that they held a meeting first and
> then a focus group and then a coffee morning before trying to stop a
> thread descending into anarchy?

The thread descended into anarchy because of the proctors.

> I cant see it would have gone any different to 1) warning. 2) if
> ignored then act

Perhaps if the proctors had discussed things first, they wouldn't have
made two major screwups that resulted in Gentoo losing yet another
developer.

--
Ciaran McCreesh

Ciaran McCreesh wrote:
>
> Perhaps if the proctors had discussed things first, they wouldn't have
> made two major screwups that resulted in Gentoo losing yet another
> developer.
>

Might I suggest that anybody who is waiting for "one last straw" go
ahead and take a month or two off right now and save everybody the
drama? If I felt like I was in a position on a project where I was so
fed-up that if anything serious happened I'd just quit, and I wasn't
being paid at all, I'd take a vacation. Relax! Come back with an idea
of why it is I'm participating in the project in the first place. It
would be better for myself and the project than doing something that
will upset a lot of people and which I might regret down the road. It
might be harder in the "real world" if you need a steady income, but
most of us at Gentoo have the liberty of taking time off without much of
a drop in income... :)

If the proctors overstepped their bounds I'm sure the council will talk
to them about it in the appropriate forum, and straighten things out.
Some general positive contribution as to what role if any proctors
should have is also a good thing. I've really only seen two roles
advocated in this series of posts:

1. They're essentially doing the right thing already - short-term bans
are OK to enforce cooldown periods and stop off-topic flames.
2. They really aren't needed at all.

The few posts that don't fall into those categories haven't really
suggested anything else in-between as an alternative. Personally I tend
to fall into category #1 - maybe with the addition of sending private
warnings before enforcing bans. A better solution might be closing
threads, but this probably isn't all that practical to accomplish in a
mailing list without moderating the list with approval of all posts.

If somebody has a practical suggestion as to how the proctors can
fulfill their mission without causing problems, I'm sure they're open to
it. I'm not sure I'd call the CoC a failure so much as a work in
progress - it may already be causing an improvement in bugzilla or
elsewhere even if not obviously on this list. In any case, there really
isn't anything in the CoC that isn't generally good-policy, so just
having it acts as a warning to those who might later need to be dealt
with simply for being super-obnoxious.

On Thu, Jun 7, 2007 at 12:20:07 +0200, George Prowse wrote:
> [...] before trying to stop a thread
> descending into anarchy?

I wish it was descending into anarchy. Which is a highly organized
social system, and doesn't have anything to do with chaos. Anarchy is
just a system where there is no authority which hasn't been freely
accepted (and freely as in "you can refuse it without any consequence",
not freely as in "you can refuse it but then you won't be part of this
project").

So please, let's pay attention to the meaning of the words we are using.

/Alexandre
--
http://aperturefirst.effraie.org

Ciaran McCreesh wrote:
> On Thu, 07 Jun 2007 11:15:58 +0100
> George Prowse <cokehabit@gmail.com> wrote:
>> All this is immaterial anyway because even if it had been extensively
>> discussed at length then the proctors would still have acted the
>> same
> If that really were the case, it would just be an even stronger
> argument for disbanding them.
>
You have to be joking, their actions were 100% what they should have
been: thread was going downhill - they gave a warning - people ignored
it - they acted. If you dont want to adhere to the rules, dont post to
the list.

>> or would you have preferred that they held a meeting first and
>> then a focus group and then a coffee morning before trying to stop a
>> thread descending into anarchy?
> The thread descended into anarchy because of the proctors.
>
No, the threat descended into anarchy because of your opportunistic
nature. Every thread where there is a possibility of getting back at the
Gentoo heirachy you jump in with both feet and pull your coven in with you.

Trying to get back at various people and groups in Gentoo because you
feel embarrassed by your exclusion is no way for an adult to act, this
isn't like carbon trading, you cant offset any good you do with the bad

>> I cant see it would have gone any different to 1) warning. 2) if
>> ignored then act
> Perhaps if the proctors had discussed things first, they wouldn't have
> made two major screwups that resulted in Gentoo losing yet another
> developer.
>
That may have been the case if they acted inappropriately but as I have
said, a warning and then a 24hr cooling off is all that is needed, the
thread would have stopped dead then.

You must start to realise that whenever a touchy subject is brought up
and you intervene the decibel level goes up 10x by virtue of the fact
that the pro-Ciaran and anti-Ciaran groups will immediately jump in with
their voice. If you were really on these lists to help then you would
keep quiet unless it is a 100% technical post so maybe the best idea is
for you to teach yourself when to bite your lip.
--
gentoo-dev@gentoo.org mailing list

Alexandre Buisse wrote:
> On Thu, Jun 7, 2007 at 12:20:07 +0200, George Prowse wrote:
>> [...] before trying to stop a thread
>> descending into anarchy?
>
> I wish it was descending into anarchy. Which is a highly organized
> social system, and doesn't have anything to do with chaos. Anarchy is
> just a system where there is no authority which hasn't been freely
> accepted (and freely as in "you can refuse it without any consequence",
> not freely as in "you can refuse it but then you won't be part of this
> project").
>
> So please, let's pay attention to the meaning of the words we are using.
>
> /Alexandre

Anarchy is when the individual as a law unto himself and there are no
rules to force him to act appropriately - suitable word for the
situation, thankyou.
--
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Chris Gianelloni wrote:

<snip various good infos>


> The Code of Conduct was written with the hopes that its existence would
> help to curb the flamewars and other general nastiness between people
> within the community. The proctors were created to enforce the Code of
> Conduct. Their mandate was to be very fast moving and to try to keep
> flames from spreading. For some time, I was working with the proctors.
> I ended up disliking the bureaucratic direction they were taking and
> chose to have myself removed from the group. Since that time, I have
> pretty much felt that the proctors *have* taken it upon themselves to
> single out and target particular individuals. Whether this was
> intentional or not is really beside the point. The perception is all
> that really matters, as it is all that gets propagated to the world. I
> think this is something that people seem to forget. It doesn't matter
> what the real truth is for anything. All that matters "to the world" is
> what they perceive. If the perception is that Gentoo is nothing but a
> bunch of guys waiting to flame people, it doesn't matter that there
> might be 98% of the developer pool that has never engaged in a flamewar.
> (Numbers completely made up...)
>

Not everyone had your perception either - in fact, it would appear that
a lot of people have the same perception as me, which is that Neddy saw
the potential of this thread to do exactly what has happened, and asked
for people to NOT post for 24 hours. Certain individuals decided to
respond anyways due to that being their nature, and they got banned.
Suddenly because those people have a tendency to do this "proctors are
out to get them" - perpetrated by the fact that it is them doing the
same thing time and again, it is *NOT* singling anyone out, it is simply
responding and attempting to curtail their efforts yet again. So while
you have a certain perception - which appears to be the same as the ones
the CoC was used against, whether that is good or bad, I have no idea -
doesn't mean that *everyone* has your perception.


>> While preventing it is a good goal in itself, writing a CoC based on an
>> actual case which has only recently occurred, usually leads to this
>> result and damages the whatever good intentions were involved because
>> other people will see the similarities as well.
>
> The Code of Conduct wasn't written in response to a particular case.
> The timing suggests that it was written against Ciaran. It wasn't. I
> know this will sound a bit harsh, but if we really were trying to just
> get rid of Ciaran, we would have just banned him and been done with it.
> There wouldn't have been a point in creating yet another project and
> staffing it. The goal *was* and still *is* to reduce the flames, no
> matter what parties are involved.
>
>> More than that, it puts a strain on those who are entrusted with enforcing
>> the CoC because they will try, with the best motives, to prevent anything
>> like that happening again. And they will do it, as the proctors stated
>> themselves, pro-actively.
>
> No, re-actively. If it were proactive, it would be done before the
> flames started. The proctors *have* tried to react as quickly as
> possible. The problem is that there are no published guidelines, and
> decisions from the proctors are completely arbitrary to any outside
> observer. I think they've failed. Again, I don't think that the guys
> didn't have the best intentions, and I know that some people took my
> voicing of their failure as a direct personal assault. It wasn't meant
> that way, but I'm not going to apologize for my observations. I see no
> point in apologizing for what *I* perceived, even if it does hurt a few
> feelings. I just think people are being overly-sensitive. It's
> Gentoo's curse.
>

Overly sensitive? Perhaps you should go re-read your email. And yes, I
do believe an apology IS in order. Of course, my beliefs mean nothing,
I am a lowly developer, you are a high and mighty council member who is
above reproach for your actions.


>> The problem is, though: In an asynchronous communications medium, you
>> simply cannot pro-actively do anything without bordering on what some
>> like to call censorship. You can only *re*act in such a situation.
>>
>> Even *trying* to act pro-actively will lead to unrest as we've only very
>> recently seen it. If we accept my hypothesis of asynchronous
>> communication and the implications I described, we come to the conclusion
>> that reaction is the most likely way not to open Pandora's Box.
>
> Attempts to become more proactive were dismissed. One such attempt was
> to enforce bans on all mediums. For example, if someone is banned for
> 24 hours for their actions on IRC, they should be banned from all of our
> media. Why? Because there's nothing keeping the person from just
> moving "next door" and starting more problems. We've even seen it
> happen in at least one occasion that I am aware of with this list and
> the forums.
> <more snippage of good informations>

> I know I am planning on bringing up discussion on this at the next
> Council meeting and we'll simply go from there.
>

Good to know that it will be discussed. Also, is there a place where we
can go to request a council member be removed before their term is up?
I do admit that I don't have the greatest of knowledge and due to how
"young" I was as a developer during the last election, I didn't vote as
I didn't know enough about any of the developers running, and I didn't
pay particular attention to the mailing list. Now that I do, I am much
better informed and will be voting accordingly.
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gentoo-dev@gentoo.org mailing list

Hello Chris!

I'm shortening your mail greatly and respond to only a few aspects because
the two of us seem to agree on a great deal of those points you made.

On Thursday, June 7, 2007 01:45:43 AM Chris Gianelloni wrote:
[Proctors]
> Well, they've been asked to write guidelines for Council approval, as
> well as changes to the Code of Conduct. Neither of which have been
> done.

I'm well aware of that. Of course, one could argue that the council should
have a) set a fixed date for those tasks and b) monitored the
progress. :-)

> Why do we need the -dev mailing list? How much real "development" (or
> even discussion about it) happens on the mailing list?

Rarely any. We still need it, though, because it's the only
development-related mailinglist that everyone may at least read.

That said, before I became a dev I've read this list but I've never posted
to it because I felt it was inappropriate. I've contacted either
individual devs or herds and that worked fairly well.

Users have lots of ways to communicate with us - our mail aliases, the
other mailinglists, the forums and what not. So let's make this list
read-only for anyone but devs and staff (as was suggested by others here
as well) and keep it.

> Most of the traffic on this list is political in nature and simply
> doesn't belong on this list. Since we've pretty much shown over the
> past couple years that the development list isn't being used properly,
> why have it?

Because devs will need a place to vent sometimes. -core is not the list
for such purposes. Furthermore, we generally don't need to hide (and we
shouldn't either) from our users. Thus, there should be a mailinglist for
all to read. Just like we have #gentoo-dev on IRC.

> I mean no disrespect to people's age, but I think part of the problem
> why we have such a hard time, collectively, acting like adults is we
> aren't adults.

Thank you for bringing this up. I didn't want to state it that clearly
because some will feel it's unfair but I think that's indeed one of the
problems.

> It isn't their fault, it is just simply a
> lack of life experience. We simply cannot reasonably expect everyone
> to act like a level-headed thirty year old computer professional.

Exactly. About ten to twelve years ago, I often reacted like Ciaran, too.

Twice, I was almost fired because of that. Fortunately for me, there were
two colleagues who were willing to tolerate me anyway and by just
treating me much friendlier and more patiently than I did treat them,
I've learned there are better ways to handle frustration and latent
aggressions.

> I have heard people say that our lack of being paid developers compounds
> this, as we have people from all walks of life.

The latter I definitely consider one of our strengths because we're *not*
all from the isolated ebony towers of university. We're from all over the
world and from all professions.

> but I do know that paid developers tend to be older and
> more professional. After all, if they constantly acted like a tool,
> they'd be fired.

Of course.

> Developer Relations has gone through a few good spots intermixed with
> lots of failures.

Yes, I agree. Of course, both of our views are highly subjective and some
others may, as subjectively, feel that it's exactly the other way round.

> I have always felt that a properly-running distribution should have the
> need for a group whose purpose is to resolve internal conflict.

I'm guessing you meant to write "should NOT have"?

> We will always need recruiters, but the existence of a group just
> to make the 300 or so of us play nice together shows that our culture is
> broken.

No, I don't think so. The fact that we all come from different cultures,
are aged from 15 or so up to 70 (? Neddy, correct me if I'm wrong. ;-) )
makes it impossible to avoid conflicts among ourselves. Thus, we'll
always need some people to mediate.

Granted, personally, I don't need DevRel. I just ignore those who annoy me
or I'll let them know what I think about them directly without making a
public fuss about it. We can't expect that from others, though.

> > Do we really need an entire team for dealing with one former dev in
> > case he goes too far? Or could we just agree to ignore him if he
> > again behaves inappropriately (or what some of us *feel* might be
> > inappropriate)?

This was targetted at the proctors again, not DevRel. I should have made
that clear, sorry.

> > When I first read the CoC I had just read about the entire
> > Ciaran-incident on the respective bugs, Forums, mailinglists, blogs
> > and many other sources. CoC, while not bad in itself, seemed (and
> > still seems) to me like a "Lex Ciaran" - a document with that what I
> > had just read clearly in mind and targetted at preventing it.
> The Code of Conduct was written with the hopes that its existence would
> help to curb the flamewars

Yes, I know. I was sceptical about that when I first heard of it and I
still am. :)

> The perception is all that really matters, as it is all that gets
> propagated to the world. I think this is something that people seem
> to forget. It doesn't matter what the real truth is for anything.
> All that matters "to the world" is what they perceive.

Exactly! That's the point: In an ideal world, the absolute truth would be
all that mattered. We all know, though, that neither the world outside
the virtual walls of our electronic communications media is perfect nor
that our own little Gentoo world is perfect.

Thus, we really have to think about how we (and others) perceive what
we're doing.

> > While preventing it is a good goal in itself, writing a CoC based on
> > an actual case which has only recently occurred, usually leads to
> > this result and damages the whatever good intentions were involved
> > because other people will see the similarities as well.
> The Code of Conduct wasn't written in response to a particular case.

Yes, it was not intended to be but that's again a question of perception
*and* one of the timing. Just look at the dates of both the incident in
question and the time the CoC was written.

Furthermore, lay both the DevRel bug and the CoC next to each other and
compare the accusations and the CoC regulations with each other - even
the ordering is pretty much the same. :-)

Of course, the CoC was not intended as a Ciaran-response but it was
(probably even unintentionally) written with it in mind and it shows.

> The timing suggests that it was written against Ciaran. It wasn't. I
> know this will sound a bit harsh, but if we really were trying to just
> get rid of Ciaran, we would have just banned him and been done with it.

Don't worry about sounding harsh and I'll do the same: You wouldn't have
gotten rid of him. If you were able to get rid of him, he wouldn't be
able to post to this mailinglist.

Yesterday on IRC, I suggested banning Ciaran from here but, as I expected,
that was met with enraged shouting about "censorship".

If we're not even able to deal with someone who has proven to me even (and
I wasn't convinced retiring him was right after reading all I've listed
in my previous mail) that he's a troublemaker above anything else, we
aren't able to deal with anyone as decided as him.

> > More than that, it puts a strain on those who are entrusted with
> > enforcing the CoC because they will try, with the best motives, to
> > prevent anything like that happening again. And they will do it, as
> > the proctors stated themselves, pro-actively.
> No, re-actively.

Agreed - they were talking about *pro*-actively themselves, though. :-)

> I think they've failed.

I agree.

> voicing of their failure as a direct personal assault. It wasn't meant
> that way, but I'm not going to apologize for my observations. I see no
> point in apologizing for what *I* perceived, even if it does hurt a few
> feelings. I just think people are being overly-sensitive. It's
> Gentoo's curse.

Absolutely! That's exactly my feeling, too, and the reason why I've voiced
my hope that people would finally grow a thicker skin as I put it.

> If Developer Relations were able to act fast, it would help immensely.

Define a right to a "speedy decision" and make that 30 days at most.

> > If, after both sides were investigated properly, the complaining
> > party is found to be exaggerating or too easily offended,
> > disciplinary action should be taken against it. Of course, this
> > should be done light-handedly but it should give the complaining
> > party some time to learn from their mistake. Maybe this is what's
> > already intended - it's just that I haven't found any examples. :)
> It is actually what was intended. The problem is that even the most
> light-handed actions have been met with resignations, flames, people
> being general assholes, and all kinds of other fun things that compound
> the problems rather than resolve them.

Tough luck. Make DevRel a body that people are being elected to for, e. g.
one year, and let people resign over their decisions if they feel they
have to. It already happened and at least one dev came back after some
rest.

You said it yourself: People are overly sensitive and DevRel must not hurt
their feelings because of that? Sorry, that's not the way it works.

> We are an open source project that is completely community-based. We
> simply don't all think alike and can't expect that to ever change.

No, of course not. But I've seen (and am a part of) much bigger projects
survive for much longer (more than 20 years in one example) than Gentoo
in spite of having basically the same problems we have.

> We don't really have any sort of replacement for the proctors.

And we don't need one.

> original User Relations was supposed to do that job,

I've never understood what that was about either but that's another
story. :-)

> I know I am planning on bringing up discussion on this at the next
> Council meeting and we'll simply go from there.

That would be on the 14th this month, right?

Best regards, Wulf

Steev Klimaszewski <steev@gentoo.org> posted 46680A01.9090801@gentoo.org,
excerpted below, on Thu, 07 Jun 2007 08:37:05 -0500:

> Not everyone had your perception either - in fact, it would appear that
> a lot of people have the same perception as me, which is that Neddy saw
> the potential of this thread to do exactly what has happened, and asked
> for people to NOT post for 24 hours. Certain individuals decided to
> respond anyways due to that being their nature, and they got banned.
> Suddenly because those people have a tendency to do this "proctors are
> out to get them" []

Agreed. I believe I responded to one post in the thread, an entirely
favorable response I don't believe anyone will have an issue with, BTW,
because it showed up higher in my thread list than did the "please don't
post for 24-hours" proctors' request. Then I got to the proctor's
request and felt a bit badly, that I had posted without yet seeing it.

Had I been banned for 24-hours as a result, with a (probably form, given
the number of folks it would apply to) response to the effect that
everyone posting was getting it, I'd have certainly been frustrated, but
would have understood (tho admittedly it might have taken me a fair bit
of that 24 hours /to/ understand).

Anyway, I think it has been 24-hours /now/, so I don't feel badly about
posting again now... not that there was anything I felt strongly and
clearly enough to post on in the interim.

>> Attempts to become more proactive were dismissed. One such attempt was
>> to enforce bans on all mediums. For example, if someone is banned for
>> 24 hours for their actions on IRC, they should be banned from all of
>> our media. Why? Because there's nothing keeping the person from just
>> moving "next door" and starting more problems. We've even seen it
>> happen in at least one occasion that I am aware of with this list and
>> the forums.
>> <more snippage of good informations>
>
>> I know I am planning on bringing up discussion on this at the next
>> Council meeting and we'll simply go from there.
>>
>>
> Good to know that it will be discussed.

Agreed.

From my perspective, I think the proctor thing is a good idea, and
contrary to some, I'm /not/ of the opinion it has been deliberately used
against certain people.

The problem, and I remember many people saying so at the time, was that
the idea wasn't subject to the usual time limit impositions that most
proposals go thru. If it wasn't a response to the specific situation,
and I'll trust Chris that it wasn't, it sure SEEMED like it was, and that
it was rammed thru without proper debate and discussion.

That's really sad, IMO, because what's happening is what I believe a lot
of people could have predicted would happen, given the way it was rammed
thru. What /was/ a great proposal in principle, ended up with a crappy
implementation, without official public guidelines, with no way to answer
allegations of favoritism (which were CERTAIN to come up) as a result of
the lack of guidelines, perhaps with a bit of favoritism demonstrated,
not deliberately, but /because/ of the same lack of guidelines... etc.

If it was /not/ a response to the specific incident, why then the rush?
Why was it rammed thru as if the continuance of time itself was at
stake? Had it been done in the normal orderly way, the process itself
would have taken care of these issues we are now dealing with, at least
to the point there would have been some guidelines, some sort of answer
that could be given referencing the official guidelines as to whether
there was favoritism or not. Whatever. What's done is done, and we're
living with the consequences.

I'm glad to see the decision is going to be reexamined. As I stated
above, I'm in favor of the idea. It's just the birth of it that wasn't
right. Regardless of that, hopefully, our new baby isn't going to be
thrown out with the bathwater, so to speak. I'm honestly not sure it's
possible now, but I'd love to see a proctor's project that could stand up
with confidence and point not only to direct council authorization, but
public guidelines also blessed by the council, so they could act with
confidence, clear in the knowledge that they are within properly
established guidelines, and that any challenge as to favoritism
(deliberate or not) or the like can be met equally confidently. Perhaps
this baby, "bastard" tho he might have started, will now be given the
chance to grow into a mature and respected member of the community. =8^)

--
Duncan - List replies preferred. No HTML msgs.
"Every nonfree program has a lord, a master --
and if you use the program, he is your master." Richard Stallman

--
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Chris Gianelloni wrote:
> > On Wed, 2007-06-06 at 18:10 +0200, Wulf C. Krueger wrote:

etc. it's
> >
> > Well, they've been asked to write guidelines for Council approval, as
> > well as changes to the Code of Conduct. Neither of which have been
> > done. As it stands now, there are no publicly available guidelines that
> > I am aware of for the proctors.
> >

Yes, there are no approved guidelines. That doesn't mean that there was
no discussion about that. However, during that process, the little
feedback that came from the council seemed to indicate that in the end
those guidelines didn't needed to be approved by the council - the
proctors could just discuss them and present them as a matter of fact.
Chris, I should probably say this in private, but since you were the one
to opt for public discussion, I would like to rekindle your memory that
you decided to abandon the proctors@ alias during the discussion because
you felt you were being attacked - I would argue that you were being
*touchy*. After that, I sent a mail directly to you asking for your
opinion - I never got any reply.

For anyone interested in the type of discussion that was taking place at
the team, at least my contribution, please check the gentoo archives:
http://archives.gentoo.org/gentoo-proctors/

an, IMHO,
one that

For the record, the council's reply to the proctors about this was that
the CoC should be enforced *everywhere*.

> > I mean no disrespect to people's age, but I think part of the problem
> > why we have such a hard time, collectively, acting like adults is we
> > aren't adults. A very good number of our developers are in the high
> > school/college age range. This means their life experience isn't as
> > high as a more seasoned adult. They have no real experiences dealing
> > with adults in adult situations. They're simply used to how things are
> > done with people their age. It isn't their fault, it is just simply a
> > lack of life experience. We simply cannot reasonably expect everyone to
> > act like a level-headed thirty year old computer professional. I have
> > heard people say that our lack of being paid developers compounds this,
> > as we have people from all walks of life. I don't think that I believe
> > that, but I do know that paid developers tend to be older and more
> > professional. After all, if they constantly acted like a tool, they'd
> > be fired.
> >

I understand this reasoning and can in part agree with it, although
there's always some exceptions - a few people seem they'll be
mentally 5 year olds, even when they get to their 70s.

- -- Regards, Jorge Vicetto (jmbsvicetto) - jmbsvicetto at gentoo dot org
Gentoo- forums / Userrel
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