Tough to be the SC in this one
Tough to be the SC in this one
Posted Dec 30, 2024 16:27 UTC (Mon) by NYKevin (subscriber, #129325)In reply to: Tough to be the SC in this one by NYKevin
Parent article: Tim Peters returns to the Python community
Posted Dec 30, 2024 17:23 UTC (Mon)
by pizza (subscriber, #46)
[Link] (11 responses)
Except, as Peters has repeatedly pointed out, the PSF still *publicly* states that he was suspended for unspecified CoC violations. This sort of thing can have pretty serious reputational consequences that will adversely affect one's actual employment options.
It is not unreasonable to demand that they either substantiate those claims [1] or formally retract them.
...Live by the policy book, die by the policy book.
[1] eg by specifying exactly what and when, so you can even know what they're talking about, to say nothing of being able to actually defend yourself.
Posted Dec 30, 2024 17:48 UTC (Mon)
by Wol (subscriber, #4433)
[Link] (10 responses)
This is basically what appears to be pretty much the *entire* problem. By making public accusations, with apparently no substance to them, the SC is engaging in a pretty blatant case of slander. Which can carry serious consequences.
If Tim went to court (yes I know that's not a good idea) and said "I don't understand what I'm accused of", and the court agreed with him, the SC would be in deep doo-doo.
In civilised Western Society, it is considered a basic right that you are entitled to know what you are accused of.
Cheers,
Posted Dec 30, 2024 18:41 UTC (Mon)
by gnu_lorien (subscriber, #44036)
[Link] (8 responses)
Perhaps this is a US court versus a UK court thing, but my experience with courts is that this isn't true. I've personally been both in court and in jail where I did not know all of the details of the specific crimes I was accused of. I assure you that my misunderstanding of those accusations had absolutely no bearing on whether the system considered me guilty of those crimes.
Now if the court agreed with the *facts* that Tim presented, I would expect you to be right. Unfortunately for Tim he's already agreed that his posting style needed to change in order to interact on this forum in a way the SC would like. I expect that would undermine his claims of slander or defamation in a formal setting.
> In civilised Western Society, it is considered a basic right that you are entitled to know what you are accused of.
To my understanding though Tim Peters was told what he stood accused of. He doesn't *agree* with those accusations.
I think this may have dragged us off course from what I meant by using these examples though, so I'll bring it back to that with a more local motivating example:
We've been going on in this thread for a while. I think we've generally had civil disagreement and it has been a good conversation. Maybe the LWN editors *don't* agree and they pop into this thread telling us to stop. If they tell me to stop commenting on this, and I continue to do this, whether or not I agree with why they told me to stop, I am the one that is out of line. They don't owe me a series of emails explaining it.
If the editors did send me an email pointing to a specific message and said, "We don't like this." If I don't agree with them, they have no obligation to go ten rounds with me in email until I understand every bit of what I did wrong. I would also expect that if I kept posting the same style of messages that the editors didn't like that eventually I'd get banned from commenting or that my account may be revoked. This is their forum and I was misbehaving in it. My understanding of their criteria would not be a requisite for this, even though I probably would also be mad if I was banned for a reason I didn't understand or agree with.
If it got so bad and I was so intransigent that they decided to make a big post about my banning I'm sure I would personally think this a bit rude and probably be a bit defensive. Maybe I reply to that post with an opening paragraph about how much you all love me around here and how I've been in many productive conversations. From my perspective that's a wildly disrespectful move on my part and I would expect the editors to see it that they way too.
To me this is the fundamental disconnect I seem to be having with you and others I'm discussing this topic with. To me it was plain that Tim Peters was out of line. He *acknowledged* that he did not fully consider the complaint that was made against him until after the banning. Him continuing to complain about specific claims that he hasn't accepted yet feels like a smokescreen that has worked wonders, despite the bits of this that Tim has personally admitted to.
It is also plain to me that the ways in which forums operate that the moderators are obligated to prune and maintain the forum in accordance with *their* understanding of it. Perhaps they were wrong about whether Tim Peters behavior did violate the CoC. Despite that though, if they *did* believe he violated it, that he was continuing to violate it, and that their attempts to curtail his behavior had failed up to that point it would have been negligent of them not to take the next steps in order to stop it.
Posted Dec 30, 2024 19:16 UTC (Mon)
by pizza (subscriber, #46)
[Link] (7 responses)
This isn't about a "forum" -- This is about the PSF suspending one of its "Core Members" from participating in _all official activities_ and from utilizing any official resources (including a forum and other communication channels), due to "CoC Violations".
If the target's entire professional career revolves around this sort of work, this is effectively a career-killing event, which opens up a massive pile of potential legal liability -- A point that Peters has also made.
This is why actual ProfessionalOrganizations [1] have exhaustively comprehensive disciplinary processes (closer than not to what you'd see in an actual court of law) least of which is "don't announce disciplinary actions until _after_ the accused is told how/what/were/when and given the opportunity to meaningfully respond in an open-to-interested-parties-to-attend manner."
[1] ie professions which have legal/certification barriers to entry; doctors, lawyers, home inspectors, plumbers, Professional/Certified Engineers, and many more.
Posted Dec 30, 2024 20:34 UTC (Mon)
by viro (subscriber, #7872)
[Link] (3 responses)
It's not about due process of any kind - it's about a (theoretical) power available to be wielded whenever something is not to their liking.
Posted Dec 30, 2024 20:46 UTC (Mon)
by gnu_lorien (subscriber, #44036)
[Link] (2 responses)
This is an rude mischaracterization of what I'm talking about here, and I think you know it. If you're intent here is to defend Tim Peters, trolling and insults may not be the winning strategy you think it is. One of the first things Tim Peters was accused of was sowing FUD and emotional responses that derailed productive conversation. If he's inspired you to come here with this ad hominem attack then you're giving the SC further evidence against Peters.
Posted Dec 30, 2024 21:36 UTC (Mon)
by viro (subscriber, #7872)
[Link] (1 responses)
* I am not concerned with defending Tim Peters (or SC, for that matter)
And yes, you do come across as somebody whose primary concern is fear of Those Scary People (in this case, somebody who presumably might get away with something you disapprove of due to their reputation in their community) and fervent wish to see The Authority (SC, in this case) demonstrate that such fears are unfounded. It may or may not be a miscommunication, but your postings (here - I've no idea if I'd ever seen your postings on Linux maillists and I don't read any python-related lists or fora) really sound that way.
Posted Dec 30, 2024 22:33 UTC (Mon)
by gnu_lorien (subscriber, #44036)
[Link]
You didn't say "you seem to be talking past each other." You said:
> There is the third role in that, and this is what gnu_lorien seems to identify with
I find it very hard to believe that you didn't intend the use of this term as an insult. Your overall tone is combative enough that it's hard to give you the benefit of the doubt.
> I could not care less whether you consider my impression of your motivation insulting (and I strongly suspect that you could not care less whether I would be insulted by your characterization of my motives)
You have a pretty low subscriber number, so I presume you also have some eminence in these communities. I am regularly saddened and let down when I find skilled people that have no consideration whatsoever for how they talk to others. Part of why you don't see me post on Linux mailing lists is because of how acceptable it is to be a jerk, and then pretend like you don't understand you were being a jerk.
> And yes, you do come across as somebody whose primary concern is fear of Those Scary People (in this case, somebody who presumably might get away with something you disapprove of due to their reputation in their community) and fervent wish to see The Authority (SC, in this case) demonstrate that such fears are unfounded.
This description is confusing enough to me that I'm not really sure that's even what you claimed I believed originally. It seems like what you're saying is that I'm the type of person who prefers a forum with moderators. Yes, that is true. Without moderators the only way to really redress your grievances is to leave the forum entirely. The SC would rather be more inclusive and give participants options other than simply abandoning that part of the python community entirely when somebody is generating grievances. This isn't about some fear that somebody got away with something, it's about the very real participatory chilling effect that misbehaving core people have on a community.
I'm taking the position in support of the SC on some level because I've been in their shoes before many times when running social organizations. A lot of the defenses I've seen of Tim Peters just seem untenable and like they're written by somebody who has never really faced the challenges of organizational management like this. What I've been trying to do is present examples and arguments in hopes of helping people break out of, what seems to me, to be a mental lock-in that they don't believe Tim Peters could have done *anything* worthy of a suspension. Unfortunately all of our heroes may disappoint us in this regard.
Posted Dec 30, 2024 20:38 UTC (Mon)
by gnu_lorien (subscriber, #44036)
[Link] (2 responses)
This is a tricky consideration to make. The history of decision making that goes like "We will not punish this person not because they're innocent, but because of how bad it would be for the person that is punished" is fraught with abuse. Hearing this defense is a huge red flag to me and a big part of why a lot of the defense of Tim Peters feels way more like it's eminence rather than evidence based. I think Gregory Smith of the SC responded to that very well though: "Having done a bunch of useful things in the past does not grant anyone freedom to behave however they want in the future."
> This is why actual ProfessionalOrganizations [1] have exhaustively comprehensive disciplinary processes (closer than not to what you'd see in an actual court of law) least of which is "don't announce disciplinary actions until _after_ the accused is told how/what/were/when and given the opportunity to meaningfully respond in an open-to-interested-parties-to-attend manner."
> [1] ie professions which have legal/certification barriers to entry; doctors, lawyers, home inspectors, plumbers, Professional/Certified Engineers, and many more.
Whatever other consequences there may be to other people seeing the accusations against Tim Peters and decided to extrapolate that into other punishments, all the SC did here was suspend him from utilizing private resources for three months. If there were such a thing as a Python license that Tim Peters had paid for and the SC was deciding to permanently enjoin him from coding in Python, then I *would* expect such a licensing body to have more stringent standards.
Although, it is my understanding that even many of those sorts of professional organizations would be allowed to do what the SC did here. You can temporarily suspend somebody's license while the board considers whether or not to take it away permanently. This is a way that a professional organization lets somebody know that they're serious.
Posted Dec 31, 2024 1:12 UTC (Tue)
by pizza (subscriber, #46)
[Link]
...and "let's publicly slander and punish this person with no justification beyond 'because we said so'" isn't fraught with abuse?
When there is a wide disparity in the relative power of the parties, restraints are supposed to be placed on the party with more power to prevent the other from being steamrolled.
> Hearing this defense is a huge red flag to me
You've clearly never been on the receiving end of this attitude. For your sake, I hope you never are.
> Whatever other consequences there may be to other people seeing the accusations against Tim Peters and decided to extrapolate that into other punishments, all the SC did here was suspend him from utilizing private resources for three months
No, they also publicly accused him of violating _something_ in the PSF's Code of Conduct, which enumerates at least 28 different things that are cause for discipline, including several that are outright criminal in most jurisdictions. Additionally, they appear to have not followed their own documented enforcement procedures, notably the section titled "follow up with the reported person" which is supposed to contain "A description of the person's behavior in neutral language".
(I note that their enforcement process document doesn't actually require any sort of pre-judgement outreach to the reported person, Which... is a *huge* red flag.)
So, is it "better to punish a hundred innocent people than let one go unpunished" or "better to let a hundred guilty go unpunished than punish a single innocent person"?
Posted Dec 31, 2024 10:08 UTC (Tue)
by smurf (subscriber, #17840)
[Link]
So is "we will punish this person whether or not they did anything materially wrong, because if we don't and it turns out they did do/commit something actionable after all, we'll look bad".
And so is "we will punish this person because somebody is (or just might be) uncomfortable with what they do / did and we're afraid of the huge stink said somebody threatens to raise / is raising / might possibly raise on Asocial Media, even though there is/was no rule against it / it happened between mostly-consenting participants / take-your-pick".
Yes, handling such cases is No Fun. For anybody. But that doesn't absolve you from being taken to task for doing it badly and, worse, not even seeing the problem. I mean, Mr. Peters apparently didn't see the problem either, so there's some parity there, but Peters has significantly less power over the SC than vice versa.
Posted Dec 30, 2024 19:06 UTC (Mon)
by NYKevin (subscriber, #129325)
[Link]
* Truth (plaintiff must prove the defendant's statement was factually false, not just mean or unfair).
The problem here is that most of the SC's statement is either substantially true (i.e. they can point to specific messages sent by Tim that roughly match the description given in the statement, even if you think that description is biased or unfair) or opinion based on disclosed facts (i.e. when they claimed that Tim's messages were harmful, they did not say anything to suggest that they were relying on evidence other than the messages themselves in order to reach that conclusion, so it does not create the implication that Tim did anything other than sending messages that the SC didn't like). If they made any minor mistakes in the wording of the statement, it is probably defensible under the actual malice and/or substantial truth doctrines.
Here is a law professor explaining the opinion-based-on-disclosed-facts doctrine in greater depth (as applied to a different case): https://wapo.st/3PlLvFG
In short: If I accuse you of sending messages that I don't like, and you really did send those messages, you probably can't sue me for libel or slander, no matter how nasty and unfair my description of those messages is, unless it is factually false. If I accuse you of referencing an SNL skit, and you really did reference an SNL skit, then that is not factually false, and the court is not going to inquire into whether there was anything wrong with referencing said skit.
Tough to be the SC in this one
Tough to be the SC in this one
Wol
Tough to be the SC in this one
Tough to be the SC in this one
Tough to be the SC in this one
Tough to be the SC in this one
Tough to be the SC in this one
* I am not interested in power plays of any kind whatsoever, in _any_ community, so "winning strategy" would be lacking an objective in the first place.
* I could not care less whether you consider my impression of your motivation insulting (and I strongly suspect that you could not care less whether I would be insulted by your characterization of my motives)
* I honestly wonder which reading of what I wrote might fit ad hominem - "you seem to be talking past each other" is hard to interpret as "their arguments are to be disregarded due to some bad qualities they presumably have".
Tough to be the SC in this one
> I think the current US slang for that is "Karen",
Tough to be the SC in this one
Tough to be the SC in this one
Tough to be the SC in this one
Tough to be the SC in this one
* Substantial truth (plaintiff must prove that the "gist or sting" of the defendant's statement was false, not just the literal wording).
* Actual malice (plaintiff must prove that defendant knew the statement was false or was reckless as to its falsity, which is a higher standard than "ordinary" negligence).
* Opinion (defendant is not liable for statements that cannot be meaningfully proved true or false).
* Opinion based on disclosed facts (defendant is not liable if the statement was an interpretation of disclosed or commonly-known facts, unless it implies the existence of additional facts).
* Depending on where the suit is brought, state-level anti-SLAPP laws (a procedural mechanism for quickly throwing out cases that are otherwise deficient without going through costly discovery, and defendant may also be eligible for attorney's fees if successful).
* Depending on the organizational relationship between the SC and the PSF, possibly section 230 (but then you would just sue the SC instead, so let's ignore this for the sake of argument).