Dear List, as Gentoo is not the only project with large mailing lists, others suffer from similar problems. This is an overview on how other (well know) (community driven) projects handle flaming and similar things.
Only use this thread to add further links or information as well as to correct me, if my information was wrong (which it hopefully not, of course). Add where you got the information from, if you do so please. Please start new threads with new titles if you want to comment on this email. (Projects are in no particular order.) OpenBSD: A Netiquette exists ( http://www.openbsd.org/mail.html ). #openbsd information: The practise is to ignore people locally and personally, like an ignore list on IRC. If someone who is usually ignored (should be easily doable by setting up a filter that marks to-be-ignored-mail accordingly) posts something important anyway, one will usually notice this since there are followups referencing this mail which were sent by other people, thus arent masked... Debian: Several codes of behaviour exist ( http://www.debian.org/MailingLists/ and linked pages). IRC was not very responsive, no further information. FreeBSD: Excerpts from http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/eresources.html : "Personal attacks and profanity (in the context of an argument) are not allowed, and that includes users and developers alike." "All FreeBSD mailing lists have certain basic rules which must be adhered to by anyone using them. Failure to comply with these guidelines will result in two (2) written warnings from the FreeBSD Postmaster <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, after which, on a third offense, the poster will removed from all FreeBSD mailing lists and filtered from further posting to them." Codes of behaviour exist and can be found either directly or indirectly via the above link. NetBSD: Seems to be a semi-ideal world here. Taken from http://www.netbsd.org/MailingLists/ : "Please note that while the majority of the NetBSD mailing lists are normally unmoderated, there are circumstances which will occasionally cause a mailing list to be moderated by its manager." IRC information: Nothing known of banning, yet "moderation" in the sentence cited above might well include the right to do so. Behaviour is quite good in general, so that no further rules and so on are needed up to this point. Nevertheless people who get on others nerves are usually ignored, see OpenBSD. KDE: Points out to http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html . Got no (real) information on IRC. Additional information anyone? Gnome: Nothing found on the website except for (un)subscribe information, and that cross-posting is to be avoided. IRC replys were not helpfull. Ubuntu: A general "Code of Conduct" can be found here http://www.ubuntu.com/community/conduct One quote specific to mailings lists and forums taken from it: "Please avoid flamewars, trolling, personal attacks, and repetitive arguments. On technical matters, the Technical Review Board can make a final decision. On matters of community governance, the Community Council can make a final decision." Another specific document on mailinglists is here http://www.ubuntu.com/community/lists/etiquette OpenSUSE: There is a netiquette here http://en.opensuse.org/Opensuse_mailing_list_netiquette IRC information: Someone who said to read both dev and user lists said there are few flame wars, and a more major problem for the project would be off-topic threads. Fedora: A guideline exits here http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Communicate/MailingListGuidelines Each list is owned by a specific operator, which can be found on this page http://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/ when following the correct link (see the very bottom of the (un)subscribe pages, search for "list run by"). IRC information: Those moderators are allowed to warn than ban. People who flame are excluded from the community by telling them flamers are not wanted and similar. Sincerely, Daniel P.S.: Spaces around URLs on purpose for easier copy&paste. -- gentoo-dev@gentoo.org mailing list
