Felix Lechner <felix.lech...@lease-up.com> writes: > On Sun, Feb 20, 2022 at 10:43 PM Russ Allbery <r...@debian.org> wrote:
>> Or, let me put this another way: one of the fears that I've seen >> expressed around warnings is that it's a permanent record sort of >> thing, or it starts a file on someone, or otherwise creates a >> presumption of future bad behavior. [...] This bothers me a lot. I >> think this perception is very harmful to the project because it creates >> excessive shame and anger and fear, which can be quite >> counterproductive in attempting to just get someone to shift their >> behavior. > Okay, so now you are saying I am being "very harmful to the project > because [my perception] creates excessive shame and anger and fear"? That is precisely the opposite of what I meant. What I'm trying to express is that the warning *entirely reasonably* made you feel shamed and attacked for a number of reasons, including the fact that it was public, and that making you feel that way was unnecessary and probably counterproductive. In other words, I think your reactions were understandable and are evidence that the warning system is not working the way that I think that it should because it doesn't provide enough psychological space for people to understand it as I think it should be intended. And to be clear I think this is a problem with the tools that we have available and the process we're currently using, not with how people are trying to use the imperfect tools that we have. > Your statement is plainly contradicted by the DAM warning I received. > It included this line: > If you continue resorting to personal insults when you interact with > other people, the DAMs will have no choice but to review your > membership in the project. > Upon receipt, it was reasonable for me to express, in your words, my > "fears [...] around warnings [...] that it's a permanent record sort > of thing, or it starts a file on someone, or otherwise creates a > presumption of future bad behavior." Exactly. This is why I do not like the way that we are currently doing warnings. The first step by a team that is serious enough to not be ignored already feels like a threat of expulsion. I think we're starting with too large of a hammer because we don't have the right tools to try to course-correct earlier in a way that doesn't make people feel publicly attacked, and the announcement of the warning to the project (an entirely well-intentioned process that grew out of trying to solve a different problem) makes people quite reasonably feel like they're being publicly shamed. -- Russ Allbery (r...@debian.org) <https://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/>
