[RFC 175] Memorandum on Equitable Moderation #175
Conversation
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This seems to be aligned with a similar attempt of mine #114 from 2021. The goal has been moved from "these are acceptable behaviors in this CoC" (114) to "these are how these behaviors should be enforced fairly". Which sounds good to me. I'll do a more thorough review, but feel confident that I would like to nominate myself as a shepherd. |
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Reading "evidence" mirror document, I can state that, quoting from you:
It may be the case that not all participants in the current community around NixOS/Nix are reasonable actors desiring a community of diverse yet equal participants, but rather prefer to exclude people on unreasonable grounds to satisfy a purely subjective desire or feeling.
Is exactly what you are doing. Using the term "myth of marginalization", it is absolutely tone deaf.
This is not a document intended to resolve conflict. This is a molotov cocktail intended to light-up the community.
You know what you are doing.
No.
| 8) We commit to treating community members with respect and avoiding derogatory language when addressing concerns. | ||
| 9) We affirm our role as moderators is to facilitate a respectful community, not to punish members. We will use language that reflects mutual respect. | ||
| 10) We prefer inclusion to exclusion, resorting to permanent exclusion only in cases of extreme necessity. We are committed to exploring ways to prevent exclusion and to engaging constructively in efforts to reinstate excluded members. | ||
| 11) To reflect a consensus in a diverse community, the moderation team must embody cultural and viewpoint diversity, respecting members with varying societal views, provided they do not undermine equal community membership. |
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Ignoring the context of all the drama for a quick second, but is this the primary topic of contention for this and the past community/moderation RFCs? i.e.: do we either:
- prioritize full equality on teams
or 2. do we prioritize "positive" discimination to try and create more diverse teams in order to reverse systemic trends.
From my (granted, limited) parsing of the threads I can see two definite groups arguing for/against these two options. Is my inference correct?
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@zyansheep I believe your summary is accurate. There are some who want equality and others who want equity.
The concern on one side is the pursuit of equity will result in discrimination of other groups based upon characteristics that have nothing to do with technical ability.
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This is tone policing document, seeking to embolden folks who are seemingly, if I as an outsider understand the context, using their technical contributions, to undermine the group consensus on how to behave. If you're a great contractor, but you take a dump on the home-owners couch, they have the right to both ask you to stop, and throw you out! It doesn't matter how good your work is, how dilligent you are, how much you internally care, or why you think that behaviour is acceptable; folks told you it wasn't, presumably when you start threads questioning diversity and representation, and apparently you get a temporary ban. Which is understandable but very light-touch. |
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| - We propose the adoption of a *Memorandum of Understanding on Equitable Moderation* (hereinafter referred to as the *Memorandum*), establishing a foundation for reasonable expectations within a community of equal and reasonable contributors. | ||
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| - To prevent the abuse of exclusionary power inherent in community moderation, we aim to establish an *Appeals Council* with a diverse composition. |
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Would you be satisfied if the moderation team couldn’t ban you from NixOS/nix{,pkgs}?
The more people you put into the bureaucracy, the more bureaucratic it will get.
I feel that most issues happen on Matrix or Discourse and “bubble up”, but I feel it’s quite rare to see horrible behavior on GH.
Of course it will happen occasionally, but you could delegate it to a NixOS org owner.
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As a person who is actually in a marginalized group in real life, I've genuinely felt afraid of commenting on these issues happening in the nix community, frankly because of the fact that I feel like I'd be downvoted to hell and back for not feeling or acting the way people expect me to. I'm honestly in support of this. I'm kinda tired of people telling me how I should respond to something instead of letting me respond for myself. I feel more marginalized in this community now than I ever have, and it's because of the people standing around screaming that I'm marginalized. If a contractor takes a dump on your couch, you don't go around demanding that people not hire him, you explain to people why they shouldn't and let them make the choice for themselves. |
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I suppose I can use this as an example. We're focusing so much on someone being the victim. What I don't want is people gathering around me screaming about who is the victim, be it me or someone else. I want to have a productive discussion about this. I'm fully capable of ignoring the troll I've fed, and the moderators can make the decision as to whether or not the comment actually contributes to said productive discussion. They don't need to decide whether or not I'm marginalized because of it. My follow-up comment was marked as off-topic and I wholly recognize and understand that. My couch now smells of feces, but that doesn't change the fact that I'm here giving my two cents on the topic. It's a technical community. If the comment goes off topic, eliminate it. In my opinion, we're focusing so much energy on determining who is and isn't a victim that we're forgetting that we could be discussing the terrible error messages or the likes. I'll edit this to add that I recognize and understand that my comment was marked as off-topic, and I agree with that. |
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"Exhibit A" was abusive to begin with, so I considered follow-up posts as off-topic. |
Reasonable. |
| In response to the impression left by past events and with a fervent desire for improvement, we adopt the following principles and maxims as the *Memorandum of Understanding on Equitable Moderation*. These principles serve to clarify the overlapping consensus on reasonable expectations for community participation: | ||
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| 1) We, as moderators, commit to basing decisions on general principles and concrete reasons that apply equally to all community members, irrespective of characteristics such as sociopolitical orientation, economic status, identity, or religion. | ||
| 2) We adhere to the principles of *equality* and *objectivity*. Equality refers to the status of each community member, while objectivity pertains to the consistent, unbiased reasoning behind our decisions. |
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There is no objective moderation. Moderation is always an exercise in value judgement.
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Moderation is, fundamentally, about aligning the community with the community values. Put another way: it's about banning people with radical undesirable values, preventing undesirable values from leaking out of people who aren't nearly as radical, and enforcing desirable values. This document does not attempt to discuss the values of the project, nor does it try to make moderation process more effective. What it tries is to force a new set of values for the project, as well as dissolve the moderation team by making their work essentially impossible with tons of bureaucratic nonsense. It is not controversial to say that the values of our community is to be a decent person. This document tries to force in a new set of values, that consist of looking reasonable. It heavily prefers style over substance, and postulates that moderation actions should appear reasonable to any community member without having any prior context on the situation. This makes any conflict essentially non-resolvable as long as all the participants are polite enough. As such, it tries to force tone policing instead of solving actual problems in the community. In short: no. |
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Hi all, fwiw Hacker News has evolved a set of community & moderation guidelines over many years, aimed at fostering thoughtful curiosity and minimizing flame wars. Context is similar but not exactly the same, so may or may not be useful, but posting just in case it is. Moderator @dang does a good job at reminding folks from time to time to stick to the guidelines, not heavy-handed but effective and respectful. |
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This pull request has been mentioned on NixOS Discourse. There might be relevant details there: https://discourse.nixos.org/t/why-was-jon-ringer-banned-from-github/44114/12 |
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This pull request has been mentioned on NixOS Discourse. There might be relevant details there: https://discourse.nixos.org/t/rfc-memorandum-on-equitable-moderation/44214/1 |
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This pull request has been mentioned on NixOS Discourse. There might be relevant details there: https://discourse.nixos.org/t/open-venue-for-policy-discussion/43107/20 |
No, this is wrong. Moderation is about making sure community members are acting in line with code of conduct / policies / community rules / etc. Moderation is not about "preventing undesirable values". Prevention of undesirable values is censorship. Prevention undesirable values - in the limit - causes authoritarian rule of whoever defines what are undesired values. If the "undesired values" are vague and generic, this effectively gives the powers that be to do whatever they want. This prevents people from thinking out loud and discussing ideas. It has a chilling effect on anyone who is not aligned with the most loud voices. This converts a community over time into an echo chambers which hurts project success and decreases diversity of the community. All of the above is crystal clear to anyone who has ever lived in any authoritarian regime, or learnt enough about such places. |
There is no right or wrong when it comes to that kind of thing. Moderation can be the one, or moderation can be the other. We can argue about which approach is better and why. But don't make pseudo-objective statements about things where there is no ground truth to be found.
We are a community not a country. Entirely different problem space. |
@piegamesde, please refrain from ad hominem attacks, e.g. by calling my statements "pseudo-objective". Thank you. Can we agree that our goal is long-term success of Nix ecosystem? The disagreement is about the path to success. I claim that the moderation based on policies which use vague and subjective terms and without clear accountability (as proposed in this RFC), if applied to repeatedly over long-enough period of time, will have adverse effects on the success of Nix ecosystem. This is because lack of transparency and accountability very quickly erodes trust of community members towards the moderators, the Foundation, and - overall - the powers that be. Lack of trust prevents people from investing. Lack of effort put into the ecosystem leads to slower progress and - in the limit - death of the project. Hence - in practical terms and without referring to "ground truth" concept - the model of moderation will have be detrimental for progress towards the common goal. This makes this model of moderation be "the wrong way" as it decreases the chances of reaching the goal.
They are very much alike. A government of a country has a prerogative of using power against anyone living in the country, that's policing. Moderators of a community have prerogative to ban people from participating in the community, that's also policing. Psychology behind inter-personal interactions and, conversely, power balance dynamics are the same. The parallels are very strong. The stakes are obviously much lower and a ban in an online community can't compare to a death by execution squad. |
Oh, don't you worry about that - I lived under authoritarian regime. What you're doing is conflating the political concept of "free speech" with community governance. "Free speech" as a value has roots in democratic traditions - that is, holding the government accountable and responsible for silencing the opposition. If we have a government - we have someone to hold accountable and responsible, and thus "free speech" is a positive, because it means that we are successfully holding the government accountable and responsible. This is also not what you propose here. You propose to establish the rules for moderation, and have moderators be just people who act on those rules. Moderators are only responsible for enacting the rules - they have no agency on their own. They can't be held accountable or responsible, because they don't have agency. And you can't hold the rules accountable, because they were drafted by a group of individuals who have no further authority or responsibility. This is chaos, and this further worsens governance crisis that we have had for years. The solution is to empower individuals with authority, and to hold them accountable. This is closer to the "free speech" than what you're proposing - having no authority, no accountability, but having transparency for the sake of it. |
I elaborated on this in my second post. My goal is not a free speech per se, it is fairness of moderation. Free speech is one of the ways to promote fairness. Another way is to establish an appeals process for moderation actions.
Do we want the moderation team to be the legislature, the judiciary and the executive roles at the same time? I am assuming that nobody wants that, but correct me if I am wrong! The line between legislature and executive roles is as fuzzy as policies are vague. I am of opinion that the current moderation policies are too vague. Fuzzy lines reduce accountability, allow for arbitrary interpretation of policies, and lead to eradication of free speech and - as described in the second post - trust inside of the community. The RFC proposes introduction of clearer moderation policies (improving legislature) and an appeals process (introduces a judiciary as a mechanism of balancing the executive powers). The RFC is a bit heavy, but it moves the community in the right direction of improved transparency, fairness, and trust inside of the community. |
No, but consider this. We don't have tens of senators to act as legislature. We don't have a president we hold a nation-wide election for, and we don't have centuries of judiciary experience to treat intentions. We also don't have millions of cops to do moderation, nor do we have millions of lawyers who give their reading on rules. We don't need them, either. We don't need a complex bureaucratic system to have moderation in place. With the trust at an all-time low in the community, it is a really bad idea to lower this trust even further and formalize that neither legislature, judiciary nor executive roles are trustworthy by themselves. All we need is a trustworthy party that will do moderation, and a basic and understandable set of premises for how we want the community to look. This is the model that #98 assumed. This model is not accepted as a result of continuous corrosion of trust over the years. If we want the community to prosper, calling our losses and formalizing that we need a bureaucratic system in place because the trust was broken irreversably is terrible. |
Got it. It's important to find a common ground in any discussion like this one.
My understanding from reading all the threads on the most recent controversy is exactly that part of the community is concerned about the moderation team wielding all three mantles at the same time. I am observing the following concerns raised across multiple threads:
"Basic" and "understandable" are both subjective. I am afraid that the set of premises has been interpreted inconsistently across the community, which drives the split. It is clear that non-trivial part of the community wants changes as per the votes: I do not think enough people in the community consider the moderation team to be the trustworthy party we need :'( This deep split in my opinion highlights that changes are necessary to rebuild the trust. What do you think?
Where is the corrosion coming from? Can we address that? Can we refocus the community on areas of Nix ecosystem which are common to us all?
I agree that having more bureaucracy is bad in the long term and we should strive to build as lightweight solutions as possible. However, given the split in the community, I would dare to say that #102 needs amendments, since the actions of the moderation team are not supported by significant-enough slice of the community (as crudely measured by the ratio of +1 and -1 on this RFC). Maybe we should treat this RFC as a signal for necessity of changes and try take incremental steps to heal the divide in the community by carefully addressing the concerns of the dissenters? |
I wholeheartedly agree. This is a good summary of the situation.
It just occured to me that perhaps, we might have been on different pages. The open letter, which is essential for understanding the corrosion of trust in the community, places a lot of the blame on Eelco's leadership. I am also maintaining a more freeform description of events. I consider the open letter, both sponsorship incidents, and more generally - a long chain of bad decisions starting from RFC 49 to be at the core of corrosion of trust, and as such - necessary to understand the context of the discussion around moderation that we have. This RFC (if we can call it that) is continuing the long chain of related incidents. Full disclosure: I have signed the open letter, and I fully support banning Eelco from leadership positions in the Nix project indefinitely, and banning him for 6 months from any involvement in the community in general. I have tried to keep my bias out of any conversation that I'm having, but please keep in mind that I do have a strong opinion and that may leak out to how I represent facts, too.
I agree - this is a strong signal that changes are necessary. But ultimately, I don't believe that this RFC (if you can call it that) serves to help the issue in any way, shape or form. As pointed out above, it is a molotov cocktail. I hold out hope that once our governance crisis is resolved and some months have passed, the issue will be resolved by the virtue of new governance actually upholding the moral standards of the community. I also believe that many concerns that are voiced today will be resolved in the similar fashion. I'm going to unsubscribe and disengage from the thread. As I said above - I believe a lot of the very real concerns will be addressed with governance changes, and that this "RFC" is more akin to a declaration of war, rather than a genuine attempt to solve a problem. Personally, I would advise everyone to do the same, and close this "RFC" for good. |
Hi. Many people (including but certainly not limited to me) have been doing this for years. It has not gone anywhere, because as it turns out, a number of people do not actually intend for this to get resolved. I would more broadly suggest that people refrain from trying to infer the problem space here out of a single read of a single document (or even a few documents about the same incident, for that matter), when they've never been involved in the situations preceding it, and do not have any of the background about what has already been tried and how that worked out. There are many years of history here, much of it never centrally documented anywhere. It requires a significant investment of time and energy to get up to speed with it. |
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This pull request has been mentioned on NixOS Discourse. There might be relevant details there: https://discourse.nixos.org/t/rfcsc-meeting-2024-06-10/46817/1 |
Please note that the suspension or banning of myself, @shlevy from zulip, @nrdxp, apcodes, and others may make people wanting to nominate themselves apprehensive as there is a clear correlation of participation and being moderated. I would be happy for the assembly to also take into consideration the intent of this document, which is to make moderation actions more accountable and predictable. Reinforcement of trust in a system can come in many forms: transparency, clear interpretation of rules, predictable usage of enforcement to adhere to the rules.
Holistically, silencing individuals with dissenting views just furthers division; as the individuals who may have considered themselves as part of the community now have to question whether or not they are able to participate freely. And those individuals will only confide in others who have shown "similar positions", thus creating a series of echo chambers within the community. Ideally people of different backgrounds can feel welcome to collaborate here. EDIT: readability and some sources |
Another interpretation is that the moderation events were done in "bad faith", and that seeking justice for unjust actions is justifiable.
I would reason there was and still is a power grab going on. I feel that the current assembly is at least empowered to end the cycle.
I would phrase it as, "
Did you read the RFC? With the exception of the evidence document, I don't think any of the content has a bias other than attempting to instill a paradigm of fairness to how the moderation team conducts itself and administers judgement. EDIT: Also, please stop using "bad faith" to describe things you don't agree with. It's an ad-hominem attack used to paint the individual as a bad actor. Thus easier to ignore, suspend (E.g. @jonringer @shlevy), or ban. Like it or not, people can have differing views on what is "the best for Nix", and that view point not being aligned with your perspective doesn't make it evil. |
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| ## Resolution to Establish an Appeals Council | ||
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| - Form an *Appeals Council* of three long-standing community members, reflecting cultural and viewpoint diversity. |
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Would shorter but lower barrier suspensions be applicable here? Feel like an appeals council is a lot of "additional overhead" for moderation activity.
Maybe this would be prudent short term to review previous moderation actions?
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On lemmy.world/c/politics I almost always default to 3(or x < 7) day suspensions, for trolls they just get bored when they see they get banned. And for the majority of kind people that got heated, they see that and don't get upset that it's disproportionate. Very rarely except for the most blatant trolling (repeated direct insults to other users and slurs) do I permanently ban. I generally don't moderate insults directed at moderators.
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a few bullets down there is a stipulation that says that appeals council members can only overturn moderation decisions exceeding 3 months, to avoid excessive appeals. Essentially only someone who is excluded from the project for an extended period need appeal.
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| [RFC 98](https://github.com/NixOS/rfcs/pull/98) | ||
| [RFC 102](https://github.com/NixOS/rfcs/pull/102) | ||
| [RFC 114](https://github.com/NixOS/rfcs/pull/114) |
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Oh, should have scanned this far down before my self-nomination...
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I wrote this before my ban from github landed. Thought it was fun so I left in the review.
| ## Resolution to Adopt the *Memorandum* | ||
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| - Incorporate the *Memorandum* text into the moderation repository on GitHub, linking it prominently from the Code of Conduct and all relevant public information sources. | ||
| - Implement one-year term limits for moderation team members, with a one-year hiatus before potential return. Apply this rule retroactively. |
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Given that currently moderators rarely stay for longer than half a year before burning out
Maybe this is a symptom of how behaviors are enforced in the community. Not reprimanding and establishing behavioral precedents early on opens up the pandora's box of "what is acceptable".
Unfortunately, I think the environment has shifted from "what is acceptable" to "who his acceptable".
| start-date: 2024-04-24 | ||
| author: nrdxp | ||
| co-authors: apcodes | ||
| shepherd-team: |
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Since I was banned (technically) / suspended (effectively) previously before doing this
| shepherd-team: | |
| shepherd-team: jonringer |
| co-authors: apcodes | ||
| shepherd-team: | ||
| shepherd-leader: | ||
| related-issues: |
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Prior art section can likely go here
| related-issues: | |
| related-issues: RFC 98](https://github.com/NixOS/rfcs/pull/98) [RFC 102](https://github.com/NixOS/rfcs/pull/102) [RFC 114](https://github.com/NixOS/rfcs/pull/114) |
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To quote from the template: "will contain links to implementation PRs". So no, prior art can likely go elsewhere (into the "Prior art section", if you want to follow the template)
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Feel like related-issues could be better phrased then... as issues should really correspond to issues.
but good catch
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I'd just like to point out, for the record, given all the claims to the contrary, that my actions were not in "bad faith" at all. By my own definitions and understandings, it is the moderation team that has been assuming bad faith on a regular basis, which is itself a form of bad faith. More to the point, there are social conditions in which this project will survive and those in which it will not. Just on shear historical precedence, there is more than enough evidence to suggest the current and growing culture of silence will ultimately be existentially detrimental for the project. Therefore, far from being bad faith, calling it out and suggesting a sensible alternative with further historical evidence to suggest both it's necessity and validity is absolutely essential for the long term sustainability of the project and it's participants. Moreover, far from being exempt from accountability, public officials and authorities must assume that they will be held accountable a priori, and to pretend like doing so is somehow "bad faith" is merely telling of your severe lack of understanding and therefore, suitability for the position. Still further, it is only within the last few years that this extreme, assumptive and accusatory mode of social morality has picked up steam, and in the wider culture it has already started losing it, because it simply, and for obvious reasons, is not conducive to productive work, or anybodies mental health, for that matter. True compassion requires critical analysis, or you are doing little more than stroking your own ego and cultivating an echo chamber bordering on the religious. I don't blame anyone for erring on the side of compassion, but I will for willfully ignoring the consequences of that uncritical, misplaced "compassion" that many simply never asked for in the first place. If you truly care about the wellbeing of others, considering the real and actual consequences of your behavior is mandatory, regardless of intention or socio-political alignment. And no, simply claiming "harm" is not enough. That would be an example of uncritical analysis. Gaming systems is a real, and common thing. |
Most likely, @AidanWelch was referencing the zulip governance document, where banned (document's wording) members (this RFC's author and one shepherd) were allowed to participate under threat of permanent ban:
Such strong language I think was intentionally used to set a precedent of "play by our rules, or else we have justifiable cause to get rid of you for good". |
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@NixOS/moderation this PR is descending into the same-old re-litigating of bans etc. from the same small group of vocal "dissenters." It seems like this PR is being used as a proxy to vent grievances rather than simply participating in the governance Zulip as has been repeatedly requested. I'm tired of getting GitHub notifications of more conspiracy theories / persecutory delusion that the "power grab" is trying to "get rid of you for good", etc. This PR evidences bad faith engagement that is obviously derailing and flaming the RFC process. |
An attempt to label a group of people as undesirables
Displease the right people there, and I give ammo to "be permanently banned"
If you're quoting from policy framed exactly at one's person, is it really delusional?
No, it's not. As I said above, please stop writing everything off as bad faith. People can be motivated to do something you don't agree with, it doesn't make it wrong, just different. All of these jabs fall into the Perfect Rhetorical Fortress, aimed at de-platforming myself and others. Maybe the Nix community has a serious underlying moderation and culture issues, and we just need another "crisis" to send the community into full panic again. I'll repeat what I said above, the assembly has the power to draw the line in the sand, and potentially end this for good. But being dissmissive to people is uncalled for. Myself, @nrdxp, and many others truly care for the well-being of the Nix community and we clear show that through actions: being release managers, contributions to the ecosystem, etc. |
You identified "individuals with dissenting views" and @gleber pointed to "dissenters". I'm just quoting the terms used in this thread.
Again, this is conspiracy theory / persecutory delusion.
This is patently paranoid.
It's bad faith because there isn't substantive disagreement about anything technical or actionable, just hazy claims about weird conspiracy theories, etc.
Honestly if you would come to the table and talk instead of operating as if you were constantly under seige a solution could be found. I and others have offered repeatedly to hear you out and talk things over.
Is that what you want?
If you want to "show that through actions" then join the governance Zulip and actually work through the process established for dealing with these issues. Come to the table and let's work things out. I am not going to respond further here to reduce the noise on GitHub. It's not helpful to keep litigating all this here. Come to the table Jon, let's actually work things out. |
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I just want Nix to be open to everyone; and for people to be judged by the content of their character, not the color of the skin or political lean. Ideally, the community would be a meritocracy, with those who have done the most good receive the most referent power. There's nothing to work out, other than some people who want to partake in discrimination and canceling members of the community. |
Seriously nat, why is it always and only a consiracy to use this type of language when it is not you? You may be so heavily invested that you don't see your own blatant double standard, but it is much more clear for some of us. How is going around accusing everyone under the sun of racism, bigotry, or any other of n possible deragotory titles at the slighest and first minor disagreement not also conspiratorial thinking, for example? You are currently muted in the RFC discussion channel for just this sort of behavior. Maybe we could take you more seriously if you took some time to reflect and apply the same standards you expect from us toward your own behavior. In any case, Jon made a good point further up which is worth reiterating. Yes RFCs are usually closed if there are not enough shepherds due to potential "lack of interest". However, in this case, given all the drama preceeding it, and the very long conversation here, as well as the drama that followed this RFC, I'd say it'd be nearly impossible to argue that there is a "lack of interest" on this subject. |
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I view the expectation of attack as paranoid. I view the need for moderation outside of case-by-case, post-by-post, username excluded discussion to be an abject perversion of justice. I view the appointment of any adjudicator that is not elected by democratic process to be an authoritarian dictatorship. By my viewpoint, the entire existent moderation argument, this post included; is paranoia and conspiracy - most likely triggered by vulnerable adults misunderstanding the posts of people who in many nations are considered not legally adults. I'm not trying to change this post, or it's value in the discorce of governance and the use of authority. I am saying that anyone refuting an argument as paranoia or bad-faith without well reasoned debate is themselves bad faith. To quote an old friend "the accusation of a strawman argument, is itself a strawman argument" |
Equating skin color with what human rights you think people should have is grossly irresponsible. Being racist is certainly a political view, and it is also very much part of the content of someone's character. This is dangerous levels of false equivalence. |
Yes. And how does that snippet disagree in any way? I don't think anyone here is defending someone having more or less rights based on their skin color or political opinions. |
Good thing I wasn't equating the two, feels like this was an attempt to straw man my argument with a different proposition. "regardless of color of skin or political lean -> Equating skin color with what human rights you think people should have".
If someone hates me for my skin color (or similar concept like infidel), but able to keep a civil working relationship, then I'm fine with them sticking around. Eventually the cognitive dissonance of hatred toward me but having a healthy collaborative relationship needs to resolve. And hopefully that will resolve with their bigotry being lessened. The cure for bigotry is exposure to counter examples which prove the beliefs false.
It wasn't meant as an equivalence, let me rephrase:
There's quite a few people who are vocal ACAB supporters in the Nix community. Do you not think it's uncomfortable for me as a veteran to interact with them? I would rather have them around to demonstrate that "hey, I used to wear the uniform, and I don't fit into your world view of all cops/military being universally evil". |
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I'd like to point out that the participants of this discussion are not even trying to keep this discussion on topic, nor is anybody else with moderation authority stepping in to guide this back on track. The General Politics Debate Club is elsewhere, please go away |
Commentary from @Qyriad and @nat-418 still probably reflect a non-zero percentage of the Nix community, so I don't think their commentary should be excluded, if at least tangential to an RFC about equitable moderation. Would I appreciate if their feedback was more related to the RFC? yes.
Yea, let's draw the line in the sand. "These are the expectations within the community" and move on. |
I would generally ask that one please define "off-topic" when making such sweeping claims, especially concerning a non-technical policy issue. There isn't a very clear and obvious boundary in that case, especially considering the controversy; there might not be one at all that we can all agree on. In such situations, it is typically best to allow people to voice their genuine concerns and opinions earnestly, in order to arrive at an informed conclusion. Dismissiveness necessarily precludes this possibility. That said, I'd love to comment on actual discussion or criticism of the RFC content, and for those that have I have tried to be responsive. |
I waited a long time, to wait and see how things would pan out. It turns out obvious problems can't be dealt with, in an appropriate timing and manner. Thanks to one individual, backed by a possee of previously banned individuals, and additional perma-banned individuals did it. Thanks to all of you, I am quitting NixOS. The continuous concern trolling, the continuous bigotted discussions, the continued hostile tone, the actions made despite the numerous times you were told to do better. The constant FUD. The constant waste of time. It's not a single event. It is a pattern. I do not think that this situation can be salvaged anymore. Systemic issue in the lack of governance enabled this. While some will put the fault entirely on the shoulders of the organization, I will say that they share the blame, but the bullying and pressure from the individuals ***who fully understand what they are doing*** is what did it. Couple that with the structural inability for action by the moderation team being abused by those bad actors, and you have a recipe for alienating and burning-out the leftover important contributors. Let it be written here that I have discussed with organization members and moderation team members about the continued behaviour of casting FUD on the community by this individual. This was done this individual's ban. It happened in what was (and still) tacitly agreed toe be a NixOS community place, the subreddit. Probably elsewhere too. Nothing was done, no mention of re-considering the duration of the ban, and as far as I know, not even some discussion about how continuing the behaviour that was the reason for being banned is unwelcome. His name is jonringer (Jonathan Ringer). What made me snap? Not long after the ban being lifted, this individual continued with weird persecution plots and conspiracy theories casting doubts on the legitimacy of the moderation team's actions. - NixOS/rfcs#175 And in the least self-aware way possible, continued this discourse of persecution and conspiracies, again casting FUD and divisiveness when asking for what, with a reasonable person, would have a formality. See the original comment contents. - NixOS#50105 (comment) This continued into the same behaviour that brought up the initial warnings and ban, on the unmoderated community-adjacent subreddit. - https://old.reddit.com/r/NixOS/comments/1djuxpx/drama_will_jonringers_commit_bit_be_restored/ https://archive.is/sCJJw This continued onto the discourse into the same behaviour that brought up the initial warnings and ban. - https://discourse.nixos.org/t/should-jonringer-get-his-commit-bit-back/47267/46 The absolute insolence, consistently twisting the words I wrote to fit in his imagined narrative, took me over the edge. Then the moderator decision to *increase the time-out delay* to twelve hours, which at one hour was already causing the bad behaviour of mass-dumping information into single messages, meant there was no way for me to correct the facts and act in this manner without relitigating elsewhere gave me the time and energy to do it. That's it. The behaviour of this person. No political beliefs (I still don't know what they are). No employer (while I know and hate it, it is what it is). No plot form some shadow bagel trying to somehow do... Only jon knows what it would do... No take-over plot... Only the unacceptable behaviour, or character if you will, of that person. Someone who from the start always had an equal opportunity to participate, regardless of his attributes. This person should have been accountable for his actions, but couldn't understand it. This was not helped by their posse harrassing me personally, on top of all that. In other words, the organization and community is not tooled to protect its valued members. ***So I am quitting with prejudice.*** Even though I helped build the NixOS project for over seven years, helped the community be the best it could in the IRC times, helped direct some of the community decisions. I did not want to leave this community, because this is not only my home, but I built it with collaborators who cared. It seems like there is no one who cares left anymore. And I was pushed out against my best efforts. Mostly thankless to the end. — samueldr Signed-off-by: Samuel Dionne-Riel <samuel@dionne-riel.com>
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RFCSC: We don't think this RFC has a realistic path towards being accepted currently. We will close it for now, and recommend postponing this topic until after the constitutional assembly has completed their work. We have confirmation from the RFC's authors that they are okay with it being closed and thank them for their understanding. |
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This pull request has been mentioned on NixOS Discourse. There might be relevant details there: https://discourse.nixos.org/t/rfcsc-meeting-2024-06-24/47589/1 |
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This pull request has been mentioned on NixOS Discourse. There might be relevant details there: https://discourse.nixos.org/t/nix-community-survey-2024-results-gender-distribution/55489/72 |
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I come from a marginally group and I feel very uncomfortable in this ecosystem. It's insulting when people take offense on my behalf and act shocked when I don't find something offensive. I'm okay, I will be okay, just stop policing everyone on how to behave. |
Rendered
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