On Sun, Oct 27, 2013 at 09:00:20AM +0900, Charles Plessy wrote: > Le Sat, Oct 26, 2013 at 10:46:41AM -0700, Steve Langasek a écrit : > > > > What do the rest of you think? > > Given how arbitrarly other bans have been proposed, I think that the > outcome should stay private unless the banned person wishes so.
I don't understand this at all. Are you saying Debian listmasters, who decide on bans, have been making arbitrary, and therefore badly justified, bans? In other words, are you saying that they have prevented, without sufficient justification, people from posting to Debian mailing lists? If that's what you're saying, could you give examples of this? I doubt it has happened, but if it has, that's an excellent reason make decisions about banning people from lists public. What's better? a) Someone gets banned from the lists, and nobody is told they have been or at least nobody is told publically. The person might deduce it from the fact that their mails never show up in the list archives, or that people stop responding to them, but that's not always very likely. Other people probably won't realise it at all. It's nearly impossible to argue against a ban you don't agree with, or the reasons for the ban, if everything is kept secret. b) Someone gets banned from the lists, and an explanation of why this happened is posted in public. Anyone can review the decision, and if it seems inappropriate, action can be taken. There is no room for insinuating that the listmasters are abusing their powers. If the ban was, in fact, inappropriate, it can be overturned, and the banned person's reputation is cleared. To me, b) is obviously the better choice. PS. I realise you phrased your objection such that a literal interpretation makes it be about the _proposed_ bans only. I understand that even less. People can, and do, propose bans willy-nilly regardless of how public the bans are. -- http://www.cafepress.com/trunktees -- geeky funny T-shirts http://gtdfh.branchable.com/ -- GTD for hackers -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-project-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/20131027075803.GV4353@holywood
