On Sun, Feb 20, 2022 at 10:03 PM Scott Kitterman <deb...@kitterman.com> wrote: > > On Sunday, February 20, 2022 5:24:47 PM EST Sam Hartman wrote: > > >>>>> "Felix" == Felix Lechner <felix.lech...@lease-up.com> writes: > > In the interest of full disclosure, I no longer have any affiliation > > with DAM. > > > > Felix> With regard to disciplinary proceedings, however, Debian has > > Felix> a long way to go in implementing basic precepts of > > Felix> justice. For example, it would be good to hold hearings in > > Felix> which the accused can make a statement before any action is > > Felix> taken. > > > > I think phrasing this in terms of justice and rights for keeping > > governments accountable is likely to get a knee-jerk reaction from a > > number of people who do not want to think of things that. > > It's fairly clear to a number of us that maintaining standards of a > > private community is a very different problem than maintaining justice > > for people who have the power to deny life and liberty. > > > > I do think there are standards of fairness and desirable conduct in > > managing a community, but I don't think going back to the Magna Carta or > > other documents of human rights is very productive in moving the > > discussion forward. > > > > However, I do find there are areas where I agree with you. > > I'm going to focus on DAM in this message rather than listmaster or the > > community team. > > I think the calculus for each group works out differently. > > As an example, because the community team cannot (for the most part) > > take formal action, I think it is desirable to avoid too much process > > for them. > > <snip> > > While it is true that Debian is not a government and has no power to deprive > someone of life or liberty, it's also not just a social club from which > expulsion has no real consequences. For some people, their professional work > is connected to Debian and being expelled from Debian effectively causes them > to have to get a new job. Many Debian Developers have a lot of personal > identity wrapped up in Debian (myself included). Being expelled from Debian > would also be an emotional blow. > <snip>
I believe that the Debian community values fairness. I also believe that the community encourages idealism -- it was founded around free-software ideals, after all. I think this contributes to some of the arguments we see: people here want the perfect solution. I think one of the things we are arguing about here is fairness. Humans believe they are acting fairly most of the time; however, there is plenty of historical and current evidence to the contrary. I think this is the reason for pointing to justice system procesess: It is the area where there has been the most effort expended toward making the process fair (and it's still far from perfect). I submit that it is impossible for people to be perfectly fair, and any process with serious implications should formally recognize that. I found a draft from 2019 that I never sent to this list that mostly boils down to this: it is really easy to misunderstand someone and make a bad judgement; especially with all of the cultural differences in our community. As a hopefully innocuous example: there are cultures where commenting on someone's weight is considered extremely rude and mean, while in other cultures it is considered a fact and normal to talk about or even call a person fat. Would calling someone a fatzo immediately warrant a formal warning? I am not on -private, so I'm not entirely sure on the details of what we are arguing about. The same thing happened with Daniel Pocock -- I never really understood exactly what happened to cause him to feel the way he did, just vague insinuations of misconduct from leadership. I feel like before whatever wrong he perceived, he was a relatively normal DD (at least in public), but I agree that his behavior was completely unacceptable. I can say from the interactions on the list that he did not feel heard, which seems all too common. I also would like to point out that the project has some non-obvious forces that could be contributing to the list culture. Having every interaction with Debian lists permanently committed to the public record is extremely intimidating, which may be a source of selection bias for new members (and also a major hurdle to participation, beyond the strong personalities who frequent these lists). I think it also encourages posts only from people who feel _very_ strongly about what they are posting about, which isn't the most conducive to constructive discussion. -- Eldon Koyle
