Martin Steigerwald writes ("Re: Censorship in Debian"):
> Ian Jackson - 05.01.19, 18:17:
> > Very competently toxic people will calculate precisely what they can
> > get away with: they will ride roughshod over weak victims or in
> > situations with less visibility; when challenged by an authority who
> > can impose consequences, they will lie and obfuscate and distract as
> > much as they can get away with. They will turn the dispute about
> > their personal bad behaviour into a big poltical fight so as to
> > increase the cost of enforcing the rules against them. And if that
> > fails they will do precisely as much as is needed to avoid further
> > punishment.
>
> Have you actually really seen such kind of behavior?
Yes.
> I disagree with calling people toxic.
Well, I don't want to name names, of course. But it hardly seems
controversial that toxic people exist ? We have maybe 1000-10,000
active contributors.
So, making for a moment the assumption that there is no correlation
either way with someone's toxicity and being a Debian contributor, we
should expect our community to have between 1 and 10 people who are
more toxic/abrasive/dishonest/whatever than 99.9% of the population.
We can make a much nicer community by applying a gatekeeping
function...
> Also I am not sure how you'd come to know about about any agenda behind
> the behavior. How do you know about the intentions?
It is not actually necessary to infer intention. Since it is not
necessary, in order to take action, to prove that bad behaviour is
malicious.
Rather, it is sufficient to observe that continuation of the behaviour
is harmful, and that lesser efforts to stop it have failed.
But, it is useful to understand intentions because they can be
predictive. This is true even for intentions inferred from past
behaviour (which is the only way you will ever discover the real
intention of someone dishonest, obviously):
> One part of the code of conduct as I got it is to assume good
> intentions, here, if I got you correctly you assume bad, harmful
> intentions for at least some people, people that you call toxic.
No, I am not assuming bad behaviour. My first assumption if I see an
abrasive message is that the person is having a bad day. My first
assumption if I see someone stating a falsehood is that they are
mistaken.
These assumptions can, however, be overcome by evidence.
In particular, things like: refusal to acknowledge error or apologise;
use of sophistry of various kinds; escalation in response to every
criticism; making mutually inconsistent statements or repeating
falsehoods already debunked; significantly worse behaviour to weaker
victims or in less auditable scenarios. Recurrence of the above.
> For me, any code of conduct and its enforcement needs to be based on
> actual behavior, never on assuming intentions or assuming about how
> people are.
Once again, there is a difference between *assuming* and *inferring*.
I doubt this will really convince you. But I couldn't let stand the
claim that I am *assuming* bad intentions. I most certainly am not.
Ian.
--
Ian Jackson <ijack...@chiark.greenend.org.uk> These opinions are my own.
If I emailed you from an address @fyvzl.net or @evade.org.uk, that is
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