Turmoil for Drupal
Turmoil for Drupal
Posted Apr 26, 2017 20:03 UTC (Wed) by drag (guest, #31333)In reply to: Turmoil for Drupal by jospoortvliet
Parent article: Turmoil for Drupal
I believe strongly in freedom of association so if you don't want to be given a physical by a guy that dresses up in a rubber suit in the evening and uses safe words with a partner... then that is your own choice and I believe you have the right to take your business elsewhere.
But trying to form a thought police swat team that will either secretly work to undermine or openly deny a person their living because they have unfashionable sexuality is not acceptable. The guy's public statement was just a response to what seems from here people attempting to do a sort of blackmail campaign him into stepping down. Publicly airing your dirty laundry is really one of the few ways you can put this sort of damaging behavior in it's place, unfortunately.
Maybe there is something big and terrible he did that I am missing here?
I really didn't like the moralizing and thought police-style behavior that swept through the USA during the heyday of the 'Moral Majority'/Reagan-era and I think it's really sad that this sort of stuff is starting to happen in open source communities.
Posted Apr 26, 2017 21:39 UTC (Wed)
by mjg59 (subscriber, #23239)
[Link] (56 responses)
The article says that the Drupal Executive Director has stated that the decision was made in response to confidential information provided to the board, and not because of his sexuality.
Posted Apr 26, 2017 22:28 UTC (Wed)
by jkingweb (subscriber, #113039)
[Link] (49 responses)
Posted Apr 26, 2017 23:13 UTC (Wed)
by mjg59 (subscriber, #23239)
[Link] (48 responses)
The reason we don't trust secret trials in general is that the people making the decisions are unaccountable - their positions are supported by the power of the state and its attendant forces. Individuals can't, for the most part, opt out of their jurisdiction and either choose another or build their own.
In this case the separation between the people that made the decision and normal members of the community is much smaller. The community as a whole can't be threatened - if they are they'll just leave and form a new community, as we've seen several times in the past when communities have lost trust in their leadership. The continued existence of the current Drupal community depends on the people who made this decision convincing people that they socialise with as basically equals that they take their responsibilities seriously and acted appropriately. They have nothing to gain from abusing that.
Posted Apr 27, 2017 8:39 UTC (Thu)
by aggelos (subscriber, #41752)
[Link]
For one thing, "basically equal" does not really describe most communities. That much should be uncontroversial. People who have been part of a project for years have bonds with other long-term members of the community. People who regularly contribute more code changes have status. People who code typically have higher status than other contributors. Companies and their representatives carry different weight. Etc.
For another, "The people who made this decision have nothing to gain from abusing that ['that' being authority I guess]" could be used to present any abusive decision whatsoever as necessarily OK (otherwise, there would have been a fork, QED). I think this fails to account for a number of factors that make it both hard and undesirable to fork a community. Leaving behind the abusive 'leadership' is never easy and is pretty much impossible unless you can form a large enough group of experienced developers. What happens if you're a single person and others won't stand up for you? What if the leadership, i.e. the people who took this hypothetical abusive decision, are (as is common) some of the most experienced developers in the project? What if your financial well-being is closely connected to the success and vitality of the project? What happens when you need to leave people you consider friends behind?
There is more to be said for the inadequacy of secret trials, such as the one described, in terms of being able to form a defense (secret evidence and secret accusations?). I agree that this is a different matter to an actual secret court. Yet these considerations are not irrelevant to an opt-in community (which your comment seems to me to suggest).
Posted Apr 27, 2017 10:52 UTC (Thu)
by branden (guest, #7029)
[Link] (46 responses)
What's the point of being a BDFL, especially a SABDFL, if this is not the case?
Posted Apr 27, 2017 12:34 UTC (Thu)
by epa (subscriber, #39769)
[Link] (45 responses)
Posted Apr 28, 2017 22:32 UTC (Fri)
by rahvin (guest, #16953)
[Link] (44 responses)
Posted Apr 28, 2017 22:40 UTC (Fri)
by mjg59 (subscriber, #23239)
[Link] (43 responses)
Posted Apr 29, 2017 0:30 UTC (Sat)
by pizza (subscriber, #46)
[Link] (42 responses)
Remember who started this -- Drupal's CWG, acting through Buytaert, attempted to perform a career-wrecking excommunication. They have to justify that *somehow*, and I'm sorry, but "trust us, it's sooper seekrit national security reasons" doesn't cut it, even if such an action didn't directly contradict of Drupal's code of conduct [1] and their conflict resolution policy [2].
By everyone's admission, Garfield did not violate the Drupal code of conduct in any way, in person or otherwise. In his shoes, you or I would be screaming bloody murder too!
[1] https://www.drupal.org/dcoc
Posted Apr 29, 2017 0:44 UTC (Sat)
by mjg59 (subscriber, #23239)
[Link] (41 responses)
1) The information made available to the people involved justifies the decision
Whether the information is public or not doesn't change whether it's (1) or (2). What it changes is whether you're inclined to believe that it's (1) or (2). So, the question remains - why, in this specific case, do you believe (2) (ie, several people are jointly lying about something) rather than (1)?
Posted Apr 29, 2017 1:41 UTC (Sat)
by sfeam (subscriber, #2841)
[Link] (36 responses)
Posted Apr 29, 2017 3:24 UTC (Sat)
by mjg59 (subscriber, #23239)
[Link] (35 responses)
Why? If someone brings them some verifiable information on condition of confidentiality, and if that information demonstrates that someone violated community boundaries, why should they not act?
Posted Apr 29, 2017 4:13 UTC (Sat)
by sfeam (subscriber, #2841)
[Link] (32 responses)
Posted Apr 29, 2017 4:29 UTC (Sat)
by mjg59 (subscriber, #23239)
[Link] (31 responses)
Why?
> In this case that appears to mean obtaining permission from the complainant[s] to make public the basis for any action taken.
And if that permission is not forthcoming, you have to choose between allowing someone you know to have violated community norms to remain within the community or potentially losing the trust of your community. As you say, neither option is attractive. But there's no reason to assert that the former is clearly superior.
Posted May 1, 2017 15:03 UTC (Mon)
by rahvin (guest, #16953)
[Link] (30 responses)
I take this a bit personally because I'm afflicted by a similar kink and BDSM is very tricky to deal with in the real world where 80% of the population likes to judge mercilessly the people involved. You don't get to choose the kinks that get you going and to punish him for this is IMO akin to punishing someone for being gay.
Posted May 1, 2017 15:59 UTC (Mon)
by mjg59 (subscriber, #23239)
[Link] (29 responses)
No.
> Because unless there are some other facts present here other than what's been revealed and frankly I don't trust a "trust us" statement they took action against him for things he does in his personal time.
They've explicitly said that there are facts present here other than what's been revealed.
Posted May 1, 2017 16:56 UTC (Mon)
by ms-tg (subscriber, #89231)
[Link] (28 responses)
Are there particular facts and/or statements that are leading you to think that this is believable and not simply a justification which can't be checked?
Posted May 1, 2017 17:06 UTC (Mon)
by mjg59 (subscriber, #23239)
[Link] (27 responses)
The people making the claims are people I have reason to trust.
Posted May 1, 2017 20:11 UTC (Mon)
by rahvin (guest, #16953)
[Link] (26 responses)
Posted May 1, 2017 21:18 UTC (Mon)
by mjg59 (subscriber, #23239)
[Link] (25 responses)
Is there a specific reason you don't trust these people, or is it just that you assume anyone in their position would behave the same way?
> What he does in his free time with consenting adults is no one's damn business
I agree.
Posted May 2, 2017 17:29 UTC (Tue)
by Jandar (subscriber, #85683)
[Link] (23 responses)
He already answered the question in his comment:
Posted May 2, 2017 17:52 UTC (Tue)
by mjg59 (subscriber, #23239)
[Link] (22 responses)
That suggests that they assume anyone in that position would behave the same way, but it's possible that there's something specific about this situation that biases the position.
Posted May 2, 2017 20:18 UTC (Tue)
by Jandar (subscriber, #85683)
[Link] (21 responses)
> I've seen completely rational normally non-judgemental people become radically judgemental of anyone that participates in it.
In my view it's clear that he doesn't trust anyone per se to be rational especially about this topic.
This position I find very sensible because this is my observation too.
It's your observation that most people are rational and non-judgemental about fringe sexual fetishes? If yes, you must be living in a very enlightened community.
Posted May 2, 2017 20:31 UTC (Tue)
by mjg59 (subscriber, #23239)
[Link] (20 responses)
The problem with this is that it presents no way for handling cases where someone who's a member of the BDSM community *does* behave inappropriately.
> It's your observation that most people are rational and non-judgemental about fringe sexual fetishes? If yes, you must be living in a very enlightened community.
I'm in the San Francisco bay area, so probably? A pretty high percentage of my friends are involved in at least one fringe sexual fetish.
Posted May 2, 2017 21:51 UTC (Tue)
by pizza (subscriber, #46)
[Link] (18 responses)
Sure there is: Drupal already spells out, in their Code of Conduct, what they consider "inappropriate", and their dispute resolution process document shows how they adjudicate things. If those documents are somehow deficient and there are further classes of "inappropriateness" left out (or they use a different process than published), then those documents should be updated to whatever is the actual standard.
(Furthermore, for particularly egregious inappropriateness, a call can be made to the local constabulary.)
Posted May 2, 2017 22:12 UTC (Tue)
by mjg59 (subscriber, #23239)
[Link] (17 responses)
Posted May 2, 2017 22:46 UTC (Tue)
by sfeam (subscriber, #2841)
[Link] (16 responses)
Transparency and appeals
IMHO you are way out into a gray area at best when "omit details" is interpreted to include "we won't tell you the reason at all".
Posted May 2, 2017 22:53 UTC (Tue)
by mjg59 (subscriber, #23239)
[Link] (15 responses)
Posted May 2, 2017 23:04 UTC (Tue)
by sfeam (subscriber, #2841)
[Link] (14 responses)
Posted May 2, 2017 23:18 UTC (Tue)
by mjg59 (subscriber, #23239)
[Link] (13 responses)
Posted May 3, 2017 18:06 UTC (Wed)
by rahvin (guest, #16953)
[Link] (12 responses)
This fringe sexual activity is hated by significant numbers of people and without full disclosure it paints a pictures of bias. Particularly as I've seen no evidence they provided this information to the accused as they should.
Posted May 3, 2017 18:16 UTC (Wed)
by mjg59 (subscriber, #23239)
[Link] (11 responses)
Posted May 5, 2017 0:09 UTC (Fri)
by rahvin (guest, #16953)
[Link] (10 responses)
It's really quite sad because the lack of information leaves two major possibilities, that they reacted to his private sexual life or that the he did something terrible that was not covered by the code of conduct but which should be. People like me are going to believe number 1 but more people are going to believe number 2 (like you) and honestly that's more damaging to his career than just stating what the reason was because it leaves innuendo and imagination to come up with an explanation for what he did. Every HR person from now till eternity is going to fill in behavior X to explain it where X is whatever they want it to be.
Posted May 5, 2017 0:19 UTC (Fri)
by mjg59 (subscriber, #23239)
[Link] (9 responses)
Posted May 6, 2017 0:19 UTC (Sat)
by dlang (guest, #313)
[Link] (7 responses)
I also seriously question if activity that takes place outside the community should be grounds for ejecting someone from the community. Taking that approach leads to big brother type investigations of people you don't like to find an excuse for ejecting them.
If the person is well behaved and contributes usefully within the community, why should it matter what they have done elsewhere?
Our communities are supposed to be based on ability and contributions, now who the person is outside the community.
Posted May 6, 2017 0:26 UTC (Sat)
by mjg59 (subscriber, #23239)
[Link] (6 responses)
Because that argument says that if Hitler turns up to a Jewish community meeting and asks to be let in, you have to tolerate him up until the point where he murders everyone.
Posted May 6, 2017 0:38 UTC (Sat)
by dlang (guest, #313)
[Link] (5 responses)
Especially with an online community, if a person's words within the community are respectful, there's no reason to care what their beliefs, physical appearance, personal hygiene, etc are.
Posted May 6, 2017 1:06 UTC (Sat)
by mjg59 (subscriber, #23239)
[Link] (4 responses)
Posted May 6, 2017 6:40 UTC (Sat)
by dlang (guest, #313)
[Link] (3 responses)
As to your question of a Jewish community refusing to allow Hitler to join. Prior to 1920 or so, they would have no more reason to prevent him from joining than they would have had to refuse any Gentile. By 1945, he had shown his bad behavior to that community directly, so it's not a case of ignoring outside behavior and only taking into account the actions within that community.
Posted May 6, 2017 7:52 UTC (Sat)
by mjg59 (subscriber, #23239)
[Link] (2 responses)
The question that you raised was whether a community should reject someone based on their behaviour outside the community This hypothetical is absolutely related to that question.
> By 1945, he had shown his bad behavior to that community directly,
So it's reasonable to exclude someone who treats, say, women badly from a community that either includes or aspires to include women?
Posted May 7, 2017 16:15 UTC (Sun)
by pizza (subscriber, #46)
[Link]
Meanwhile, we're all still waiting for even a modicum of evidence to back up that claim. Heck, even the "accused" here is publicly asking for said evidence -- or even a specific allegation of bad behaviour.
Posted Jul 15, 2017 17:47 UTC (Sat)
by paulj (subscriber, #341)
[Link]
Transparency is critical here.
Posted Jul 15, 2017 17:45 UTC (Sat)
by paulj (subscriber, #341)
[Link]
Down that path lies excommunicating people from a range of communities that have backwards attitudes to women, or certain minorities, or certain nationals. A number of religious communities particularly. Is that correct?
There are people I've worked with whose political views I find highly regressive, and I'm sure many others would too. Should technical communities exclude people with certain views? I actually feel like I /would/ to sometimes, when those political views are so disgusting, and I have an emotional reaction. Then I think about it more rationally and wonder if that kind of divisiveness would help in the longer run, how objective it could be, where this kind of approach would end up, etc.
Posted May 2, 2017 22:02 UTC (Tue)
by madscientist (subscriber, #16861)
[Link]
Then it's up to the accused as to whether or not they want to make the allegations public.
Posted Jul 15, 2017 17:37 UTC (Sat)
by paulj (subscriber, #341)
[Link]
Posted Apr 29, 2017 4:17 UTC (Sat)
by pizza (subscriber, #46)
[Link] (1 responses)
By "acting" do you include punishing the accused while making public statements saying that "no community boundaries were violated but we're punishing them for other, unspecified reasons?"
Come on... I get the point you're making, but it doesn't seem particularly relevant given the public record in this case.
Posted Apr 29, 2017 4:29 UTC (Sat)
by mjg59 (subscriber, #23239)
[Link]
Which specific statement are you referring to?
Posted Apr 29, 2017 4:08 UTC (Sat)
by pizza (subscriber, #46)
[Link] (2 responses)
I'm not accusing Drupal of actually lying here -- Indeed, I'm taking them at their word that Garfield did nothing illegal nor anything that violated the Drupal Code of Conduct. The problem is (as mentioned in TFA), if one assumes good faith and that this was entirely justified, what does that actually leave that would be grounds of excommunication? Perhaps I (and many others) lack sufficient imagination here, but I'm left scratching my head.
Meanwhile, back to the smell test, while I may be biased towards (2) due to personal experience, that doesn't necessarily mean that the CWG and BFD lied or acted in bad faith. Indeed, based on the outcome described in TFA, this appears to have been what happened, with the actual bad actor stepping down and apologizing (having violated the Drupal CoC and arguably commiting an actual crime or two along the way), along with governance changes that should hopefully prevent things from escalating to this point in the future. Not that it mitigates the damage already done -- to both Garfield and trust in Drupal's governance.
Posted Apr 29, 2017 4:23 UTC (Sat)
by mjg59 (subscriber, #23239)
[Link] (1 responses)
Posted Apr 29, 2017 4:39 UTC (Sat)
by pizza (subscriber, #46)
[Link]
Fair enough.
It appears that a sizeable portion of said community/constituency pitched quite a fit over the way this was initially handled, which led the CWG to backtrack and revisit it, followed by a promise to make some specific changes to the project governance. Time will tell if that's sufficient.
Posted Jul 15, 2017 17:35 UTC (Sat)
by paulj (subscriber, #341)
[Link]
That's a terrible process. It's extremely subvertible, without detection. Good people therefore wouldn't ask others to have to trust in such a process, for such a momentous decision (and to the person excommunicated, this was momentous).
Also, even good people can have biases that lead them astray. Firstly, the bias may lead them into making some poor decision. Second, self-justification biases may then lead them to defend a bad decision no matter what, because of the implications to themselves and their standing if they were to concede it was a bad decision.
I still have no idea whether it's option 1 or 2, but - for sure - it's a dreadful process that's been followed. Which doesn't completely help the casual observer have faith that it's option 1.
Posted Apr 27, 2017 8:51 UTC (Thu)
by epa (subscriber, #39769)
[Link] (5 responses)
Posted Apr 27, 2017 17:50 UTC (Thu)
by mjg59 (subscriber, #23239)
[Link] (2 responses)
Why?
Posted Apr 28, 2017 12:23 UTC (Fri)
by epa (subscriber, #39769)
[Link] (1 responses)
Posted Apr 28, 2017 21:05 UTC (Fri)
by mjg59 (subscriber, #23239)
[Link]
In this case the people making the decision were aware of the evidence and so could take it into account.
> These are basic steps necessary for people to have confidence in the institutions, and to avoid both corruption ("sunlight is the best disinfectant") and just plain stupidity.
That was my point. In a legal setting we need transparency because there is no other reason to have confidence in the decision making process. In this setting we have that confidence because the people making the decisions are people that we have other social connections with and other mechanisms by which to judge whether they're corrupt or prone to act maliciously.
> These rules don't apply as strongly to organizations that exist for their own benefit or that of a particular group of shareholders, so for-profit company boards don't have the same need for openness
Why should shareholders have confidence that their board (a set of people with an incentive to act in their own interests) is acting in their interests but the Drupal community not have confidence that their board (a set of people with significantly less incentive to act in their own interests) is acting in their interests? This seems like an odd distinction to draw.
Posted Apr 27, 2017 19:07 UTC (Thu)
by seyman (subscriber, #1172)
[Link] (1 responses)
Out of curiosity, if the board does not act and a crime is later committed (which they could have prevented had they taken action), is the board liable?
Posted Apr 28, 2017 12:24 UTC (Fri)
by epa (subscriber, #39769)
[Link]
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[2] https://www.drupal.org/conflict-resolution
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2) The information made available to the people involved does not justify the decision
This is a false dichotomy. If there is an expectation that the actions of a committee are transparent, and I think this should always be the case for a community project, then they should not hide the reasons for their actions. If they cannot make their reasoning public then they should not act. If this information, whatever it is, was brought to them under condition of secrecy then they should throw the decision back to whoever brought it to them - "if you won't allow us to make the information public then we can not act on it; if you want us to act, you must allow us to justify our action and that means we cannot promise secrecy."
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The obligation to act, if there is such an obligation, derives from a broader obligation to act on behalf of the community. But the obligation for transparency is also an obligation to the community. In the case of conflicting obligations they should strive to resolve the conflict before violating either one. In this case that appears to mean obtaining permission from the complainant[s] to make public the basis for any action taken. Ideally that ends up with both obligations being satisfied - a win/win result. As it is they have created a state where the community knows the obligation for transparency has been violated, and cannot verify whether the obligation for responsible action has been honored or not. No wins in sight.
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>The people making the claims are people I have reason to trust.Turmoil for Drupal
I don't. BDSM is a kink that is extremely misunderstood and people are beyond judgemental of. I've seen completely rational normally non-judgemental people become radically judgemental of anyone that participates in it. I completely believe these "external facts" are his participation in these BDSM groups and that the blackmailer threatened to expose his participation and paint the project with it and they caved.
Why do I think this? For one I've seen this happen before where a BDSM lifestyle became knowledgeable to an employer and someone at the top disliked it. For another I know how badly perceived this kink is in the general public (you may not realize how badly maligned it is) and finally the public statements by the project made clear that no project rules were broken and the guy has obviously not been charged with a crime, this leaves IMO only one reason to get rid of him, and that's his extra-curricular activities are publicly "distasteful" and people at the top didn't want them associated with the project even though they were completely unrelated. And I'm fully convinced that the "unreleased facts" are his participation in the Gorean group and that the blackmailer and management have twisted that around to mean he abuses women for fun.
What he does in his free time with consenting adults is no one's damn business, I feel very sorry for him as this is going to probably ruin his career. Because of the public stigma of BDSM this will likely follow him around for the rest of his days. It's damned unfortunate that this happened because of people at the top making blanket decisions for publicity reasons about things completely unrelated to the project. And the worst part is the blackmailer proved it works, they can now find someone else in the project with a kink and publicly out them to get them fired as well.
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>
> Is there a specific reason you don't trust these people, or is it just that you assume anyone in their position would behave the same way?
> Why do I think this? For one I've seen ...
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from the Community Working Group Charter:Turmoil for Drupal
The CWG aims to be as transparent as possible by deliberating and documenting its decisions publicly when able. In sensitive situations, however, the group may omit details out of respect for the privacy of the individuals involved.
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"That's the CWG charter. The decision wasn't made by the CWG."Turmoil for Drupal
In that case the conflict resolution procedure, linked from the Code of Conduct, was not followed. It directs that unresolved conflicts will be escalated to the CWG.
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