Turmoil for Drupal [LWN.net]

Turmoil for Drupal

Posted Apr 29, 2017 1:41 UTC (Sat) by sfeam (subscriber, #2841) [Link] (36 responses)

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."

Turmoil for Drupal

Posted Apr 29, 2017 3:24 UTC (Sat) by mjg59 (subscriber, #23239) [Link] (35 responses)

> If they cannot make their reasoning public then they should not act.

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?

Turmoil for Drupal

Posted Apr 29, 2017 4:13 UTC (Sat) by sfeam (subscriber, #2841) [Link] (32 responses)

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.

Turmoil for Drupal

Posted Apr 29, 2017 4:29 UTC (Sat) by mjg59 (subscriber, #23239) [Link] (31 responses)

> But the obligation for transparency is also an obligation to the community.

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.

Turmoil for Drupal

Posted May 1, 2017 15:03 UTC (Mon) by rahvin (guest, #16953) [Link] (30 responses)

They punished the guy for stuff he does on his personal time, they were clear this had nothing to do with the project. Do you really want to live in a world where you can be fired for stuff you do in your personal time in your bedroom with consenting adults? 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.

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.

Turmoil for Drupal

Posted May 1, 2017 15:59 UTC (Mon) by mjg59 (subscriber, #23239) [Link] (29 responses)

> Do you really want to live in a world where you can be fired for stuff you do in your personal time in your bedroom with consenting adults?

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.

Turmoil for Drupal

Posted May 1, 2017 16:56 UTC (Mon) by ms-tg (subscriber, #89231) [Link] (28 responses)

> They've explicitly said that there are facts present here other than what's been revealed.

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?

Turmoil for Drupal

Posted May 1, 2017 17:06 UTC (Mon) by mjg59 (subscriber, #23239) [Link] (27 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?

The people making the claims are people I have reason to trust.

Turmoil for Drupal

Posted May 1, 2017 20:11 UTC (Mon) by rahvin (guest, #16953) [Link] (26 responses)

>The people making the claims are people I have reason to trust.

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.

Turmoil for Drupal

Posted May 1, 2017 21:18 UTC (Mon) by mjg59 (subscriber, #23239) [Link] (25 responses)

> I don't.

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.

Turmoil for Drupal

Posted May 2, 2017 17:29 UTC (Tue) by Jandar (subscriber, #85683) [Link] (23 responses)

> > I don't.
>
> 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?

He already answered the question in his comment:
> Why do I think this? For one I've seen ...

Turmoil for Drupal

Posted May 2, 2017 17:52 UTC (Tue) by mjg59 (subscriber, #23239) [Link] (22 responses)

> He already answered the question in his comment:

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.

Turmoil for Drupal

Posted May 2, 2017 20:18 UTC (Tue) by Jandar (subscriber, #85683) [Link] (21 responses)

He said:

> 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.

Turmoil for Drupal

Posted May 2, 2017 20:31 UTC (Tue) by mjg59 (subscriber, #23239) [Link] (20 responses)

> In my view it's clear that he doesn't trust anyone per se to be rational especially about this topic.

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.

Turmoil for Drupal

Posted May 2, 2017 21:51 UTC (Tue) by pizza (subscriber, #46) [Link] (18 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.

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.)

Turmoil for Drupal

Posted May 2, 2017 22:12 UTC (Tue) by mjg59 (subscriber, #23239) [Link] (17 responses)

The dispute resolution process was followed and failed to result in resolution, at which point the issue was escalated to the project leadership who made a decision based on information that hasn't been made public. Which bit of their procedure do you feel wasn't followed?

Turmoil for Drupal

Posted May 2, 2017 22:46 UTC (Tue) by sfeam (subscriber, #2841) [Link] (16 responses)

from the Community Working Group Charter:

Transparency and appeals
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.

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".

Turmoil for Drupal

Posted May 2, 2017 22:53 UTC (Tue) by mjg59 (subscriber, #23239) [Link] (15 responses)

That's the CWG charter. The decision wasn't made by the CWG.

Turmoil for Drupal

Posted May 2, 2017 23:04 UTC (Tue) by sfeam (subscriber, #2841) [Link] (14 responses)

"That's the CWG charter. The decision wasn't made by the CWG."
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.

Turmoil for Drupal

Posted May 2, 2017 23:18 UTC (Tue) by mjg59 (subscriber, #23239) [Link] (13 responses)

> Much of that information had been turned over to the Drupal Community Working Group (CWG), which "initially found that there were no Code of Conduct violations by Larry" the group said in a statement. The CWG tried to mediate between the parties (Garfield and Klaus Purer, evidently, though only Garfield names Purer), which failed. At that point, the CWG escalated the matter to Buytaert.

Turmoil for Drupal

Posted May 3, 2017 18:06 UTC (Wed) by rahvin (guest, #16953) [Link] (12 responses)

Mathew, I appreciate that your personal knowledge and experience with the people involved gives you confidence they didn't do anything inappropriate, maybe if I knew them personally I might be more inclined to believe but I've seen far too many people react badly to BDSM. These range from all way on the left in women's rights activists to the far right conservative Christians. I've seen perfectly rational people argue this activity between consenting adults is rape and assault.

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.

Turmoil for Drupal

Posted May 3, 2017 18:16 UTC (Wed) by mjg59 (subscriber, #23239) [Link] (11 responses)

I have no idea what the withheld information is, but there are certainly scenarios where releasing it could involve (say) outing other people (and, again, I have no evidence that this is the case here). I strongly disagree with the fact that information about someone's sexual preferences was released against their will. I think that doing so should be considered a gross violation of community standards and handled appropriately. But I also don't want us to end up in a situation where being a member of a persecuted group means that someone is able to get away with unacceptable behaviour.

Turmoil for Drupal

Posted May 5, 2017 0:09 UTC (Fri) by rahvin (guest, #16953) [Link] (10 responses)

I don't disagree but would like to point out again they stated affirmatively that there was no violation of the code of conduct. If the code of conduct covers all the important stuff I don't understand how he could have done anything while working for the project to get him tossed without the fringe sexual activities in his personal life playing a role in the decision making process.

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.

Turmoil for Drupal

Posted May 5, 2017 0:19 UTC (Fri) by mjg59 (subscriber, #23239) [Link] (9 responses)

The code of conduct talks about behaviour within the community. One hypothetical reason for the observed outcome is that behaviour that would have been unacceptable inside the community was found to have occurred outside the community. That would explain the CWG not taking action, but also it being referred to community leadership.

Turmoil for Drupal

Posted May 6, 2017 0:19 UTC (Sat) by dlang (guest, #313) [Link] (7 responses)

This sort of speculation and rumormongering is exactly what the prior poster is concerned about.

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.

Turmoil for Drupal

Posted May 6, 2017 0:26 UTC (Sat) by mjg59 (subscriber, #23239) [Link] (6 responses)

> If the person is well behaved and contributes usefully within the community, why should it matter what they have done elsewhere?

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.

Turmoil for Drupal

Posted May 6, 2017 0:38 UTC (Sat) by dlang (guest, #313) [Link] (5 responses)

nice try, but there is a lot of space between "showing up somewhere" and "murdering everybody"

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.

Turmoil for Drupal

Posted May 6, 2017 1:06 UTC (Sat) by mjg59 (subscriber, #23239) [Link] (4 responses)

Would it be wrong for a Jewish community group to refuse to let Hitler join, even if he promised to be good?

Turmoil for Drupal

Posted May 6, 2017 6:40 UTC (Sat) by dlang (guest, #313) [Link] (3 responses)

that's not the question here, the question here is if the guy who has been extremely helpful to the community for years is going to be thrown out because of things he did outside.

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.

Turmoil for Drupal

Posted May 6, 2017 7:52 UTC (Sat) by mjg59 (subscriber, #23239) [Link] (2 responses)

> that's not the question here

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?

Turmoil for Drupal

Posted May 7, 2017 16:15 UTC (Sun) by pizza (subscriber, #46) [Link]

If he had demonstrated actual bad behaviour towards women, sure.

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.

Turmoil for Drupal

Posted Jul 15, 2017 17:47 UTC (Sat) by paulj (subscriber, #341) [Link]

If it is reasonable, the community needs to be sure the views are indeed beyond the pale to the vast majority of the community. You can not achieve that by allowing a very small section of the community to rule in secret.

Transparency is critical here.

Turmoil for Drupal

Posted Jul 15, 2017 17:45 UTC (Sat) by paulj (subscriber, #341) [Link]

So it's due behaviour entirely outside the Drupal community?

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.

Turmoil for Drupal

Posted May 2, 2017 22:02 UTC (Tue) by madscientist (subscriber, #16861) [Link]

The absolute bare minimum requirement in any action such as this is to share the complete set of specific allegations used as the reason for the action, with the person against whom the action is taken. How can you even begin to have a fair process if the accused isn't provided with all the allegations, and given an opportunity to respond?

Then it's up to the accused as to whether or not they want to make the allegations public.

Turmoil for Drupal

Posted Jul 15, 2017 17:37 UTC (Sat) by paulj (subscriber, #341) [Link]

This is not a process that 'trustworthy' people would ask others to put all their faith into. Quite the reverse.

Turmoil for Drupal

Posted Apr 29, 2017 4:17 UTC (Sat) by pizza (subscriber, #46) [Link] (1 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?

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.

Turmoil for Drupal

Posted Apr 29, 2017 4:29 UTC (Sat) by mjg59 (subscriber, #23239) [Link]

> 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?"

Which specific statement are you referring to?

Turmoil for Drupal

Posted Apr 29, 2017 4:08 UTC (Sat) by pizza (subscriber, #46) [Link] (2 responses)

You left out (0) -- The initial actions taken (combined with the undisputed public facts) badly fail the smell test, and as the saying goes, where there's um, smoke, there's fire.

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.

Turmoil for Drupal

Posted Apr 29, 2017 4:23 UTC (Sat) by mjg59 (subscriber, #23239) [Link] (1 responses)

The documented conflict resolution process permits someone to be ejected from some or all project spaces. There's no requirement that the basis of the conflict be something that would be an explicit breach of the code of conduct. We've been told that the people who had to make that decision as part of that process were given confidential information that led them to conclude that doing so would be in the best interests of the project. Reasonable people could certainly find that story implausible - the important thing is whether the Drupal community does, and whether the leadership retains the trust of its constituency.

Turmoil for Drupal

Posted Apr 29, 2017 4:39 UTC (Sat) by pizza (subscriber, #46) [Link]

> Reasonable people could certainly find that story implausible - the important thing is whether the Drupal community does, and whether the leadership retains the trust of its constituency.

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.

Turmoil for Drupal

Posted Jul 15, 2017 17:35 UTC (Sat) by paulj (subscriber, #341) [Link]

I think the issue is that, if you allow secret evidence, you make it possible for unethical people to band together and carry things out, and the legitimacy of the process to come entirely down to whether 3rd parties would choose option 1 or option 2 as you've presented them.

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.