LWN: Comments on "Handling attacks on a community"

Criminal Behaviour

flussence — Tue, 31 Mar 2020 04:46:27 +0000

Curious account — coming out of the woodwork solely to defend someone whose actions clearly run afoul of both the Computer Misuse Act and libel law.

Handling attacks on a community

elvis_ — Mon, 30 Mar 2020 04:54:45 +0000

I found his post quite insightful, he at least took the time to explain where he was coming from, which was a lot more than the people who replied to him did. All they did was snipe and you supported them. You might think you are inclusive, but to some people you are not.

Criminal Behaviour

elvis_ — Mon, 30 Mar 2020 04:45:34 +0000

You want someone locked up for that? I don't know who is nastier, you or him.

Daniel Pocock and Debian

gray_-_wolf — Mon, 23 Mar 2020 13:11:34 +0000

> require either signed email

which should be sane default anyway...

Handling attacks on a community

pizza — Sun, 22 Mar 2020 13:15:42 +0000

The thing is, in the middle of that fedora-devel thread (and some others) Pocock raised appropriate and relevant technical feedback and concerns about the work he was doing for/with Fedora systems.

Unfortunately, he seems constitutionally incapable of leaving it at that, projecting onto everyone else the behaviour he's aptly escalating himself.

Handling attacks on a community

flussence — Sat, 21 Mar 2020 00:11:11 +0000

> People don't go to such extreme lengths and cause so much noise for nothing, much less out of some childish malice.

You have a lot more faith left in humanity than I do. The joe-jobbing was where it crossed the line for me.

Handling attacks on a community

martin.langhoff — Fri, 20 Mar 2020 22:04:40 +0000

He recently started a few Fedora-Devel threads requesting his blog be reinstanted on Fedora Planet (it got dropped over the posts about Debian) and it all led to a big rant on how Debian has treated him unfairly.

Oh man, got to let go of it.

Handling attacks on a community

mpr22 — Fri, 20 Mar 2020 08:29:59 +0000

> It seems more like a crusade.

My leisure reading includes the search results returned by canlii.ca for the single search term "vexatious", which yields a fascinating selection of material (which is occasionally quite unpleasant to read; those of a sensitive disposition might wish to avoid reading the cases where individual parties are referred to by initials instead of a surname).

Observing this fine gentleman reminds me of the former schoolteacher who, having been unsuccessful in pursuing his labour dispute in the province where his former employer is situated and he was living at the time of the matter under dispute, and then in the Federal courts, has attempted to relitigate the matter not only in the province he now inhabits, but in most of the others, many or even all of which he has never inhabited (and, obviously, his former employer has no presence in).

Handling attacks on a community

karkhaz — Fri, 20 Mar 2020 00:55:23 +0000

The post appears to be at least somewhat a response to [0], which clarifies what Debian's official communication channels are.

It was posted on https://debian.community. But I found another copy of it on a site I hadn't seen before, https://uncensored.debian.community [1]. That site's design looks confusingly similar to Debian's official web pages. It aggregates real blog posts by Debian project members, interspersed with "debian community news" posts, without any distinction. The "community news" post that you mentioned was posted immediately after the aggregated post from bits.d.o.

The sheer volume and extent of this person's effort is baffling. Best wishes to everybody affected.

[0] https://bits.debian.org/2020/03/official-communication-ch...
[1] https://uncensored.debian.community/#https://debian.commu...

Handling attacks on a community

nix — Thu, 19 Mar 2020 21:58:27 +0000

Wow that's unethical. He talks about "a long standing volunteer" without once suggesting that *he's talking about himself*.

Handling attacks on a community

andrejp — Thu, 19 Mar 2020 20:50:23 +0000

Negative. As any good engineer will concur, the above is a generalization. The actual preferred properties very much depend on the purpose and project at hand - neither is "better" per se.

On topic though, having admittedly read only a little bit of the presented material, I do anyway find the so called "offender" articulate, intelligent, capable and disposed to reason and arguments. People don't go to such extreme lengths and cause so much noise for nothing, much less out of some childish malice. Usually it's because some deeply held and fundamental value has been profoundly violated. To me it doesn't seem like a bit of ego was bruised. It seems more like a crusade.

Having also read some of the related material outlined (such as the mentioned blog post https://www.preining.info/blog/2018/09/sharp-did-it-again/), I can't say I disagree with his position either. Much of the "group" response comes across as passive aggressive at best, glossing over the issues presented and ignoring the arguments, and after failing at that, attempting to silence and ban the dissenters presenting uncomfortable opinions. Which is exactly the argument that the so called "offender" seems to present. And which, at least to me, seems like it extracted exactly the kind of response the group got from this individual. :)

Handling attacks on a community

flussence — Thu, 19 Mar 2020 03:41:41 +0000

Amazing. A sneering narcissistic quip targeting just about every post in this thread, like some bad cartoon villain. Or a 4chan teenager throwing a public tantrum. The “anonymity” suits him well.

Clearly he's trying to make the history books like the previous worst troll, that one from OpenOffice I can't remember the name of any more. ;-)

Handling attacks on a community

flussence — Thu, 19 Mar 2020 03:28:34 +0000

And as any good engineer will concur, better to bend than to be brittle.

Handling attacks on a community

flussence — Thu, 19 Mar 2020 03:25:54 +0000

Like most of the population currently, they're grounded.

Handling attacks on a community

yoe — Wed, 18 Mar 2020 09:30:27 +0000

Unsurprisingly, Daniel has now added LWN to his list of targets:

https://debian.community/debian-community-news-is-indepen...

If you ever run into him, run for the hills. Don't pause to wait and see what happens.

Daniel Pocock and Debian

rgmoore — Tue, 17 Mar 2020 20:39:03 +0000

It shouldn't be too hard to block what he's doing in this case; he's using a different email address and only forging the screen name. In the long run, though, blocking spoofing might require either signed email or a move to something other than email that would let Debian vet the poster's ID better than a spoofable email address.

Handling attacks on a community

nix — Tue, 17 Mar 2020 19:42:07 +0000

(Um. I double-negatived that up rather badly, didn't I.)

Handling attacks on a community

nix — Tue, 17 Mar 2020 19:41:44 +0000

> Codes of Conduct (CoC) have become expected, imposed and as we see, enforced.
>
> Many folks today appear to be what is colloquially termed "snowflakes"

So not wanting people's names to be used in forged, widely-distributed public emails that claim you said something that you did not in fact say and that you may well disagree with is acceptable behaviour to you?!

Daniel Pocock and Debian

nix — Tue, 17 Mar 2020 19:35:09 +0000

Maybe I'm being an idiot, but... how would moderation of new members help when Pocock is forging messages from *existing* members? Wouldn't they go through anyway?

Handling attacks on a community

mvdwege — Tue, 17 Mar 2020 15:42:21 +0000

Overall I'm quite happy with how Sam handled his duties.

Unfortunately, the project has recently had a few very toxic episodes where I think the better solution would be to just expel the members who keep stoking the flames, regarding of past contributions. The way they keep people away is, I think, a bigger loss than the potential contributions of less abrasive replacements.

This of course is not the DPL's responsibility under the constitution, unless it gets so bad it falls under "3. Make any decision which requires urgent action." But Sam did use his power under "9. Lead discussions amongst Developers."[1] to quench toxic threads on the mailing lists, and in my personal opinion too many times waited 2 or 3 mails too long.

[1] I assume that is the article Sam used to declare threads closed, from my reading of the constitution.

When Consensus is Appropriate

mvdwege — Tue, 17 Mar 2020 15:32:56 +0000

Oh, I've read enough of your contributions on the mailing lists to know that you're not *endlessly* searching for consensus. And in fact I like that you are judicious; I myself am a black-and-white kind of person.

That difference in personality also means that sometimes I thought when a discussion was exploding "I wish Sam was a little more decisive". You do eventually come to the conclusion that consensus is impossible, and then you are decisive. I just think that you left it a few iterations of discussion too long on occasion.

And yes, I picked the recent flare-up of systemd as an example, because on debian-devel and debian-project you were focusing more on process issues and less on keeping the Devuan supporters in line, IMO. I could have read that wrong, that's inherent in non-FtF communication. In that case I apologise.

Sounds like a blatant GDPR violation

Wol — Tue, 17 Mar 2020 12:35:58 +0000

Subject says it all.

Cheers,
Wol

Handling attacks on a community

dvdeug — Tue, 17 Mar 2020 12:13:27 +0000

One of the things RMS is accused of is treating women as potential dates instead of potential colleagues. Had he been gay and openly treated men as potential dates instead of as potential colleagues, he would have gotten himself ostracized; at no point in the last hundred years have gay men in the US been able to get away with hitting indiscriminately on other men. In fact, while RMS was in college, homosexuality was still illegal in Massachusetts. I imagine that the Free Software community has only gotten more tolerant of gay men hitting on people at conferences and the like.

Which is the problem with the idea of "snowflakes". People have always been "so emotionally fragile"; if you don't want to talk about gay panic, we could talk about how people freaked out about everything vaguely Twin Towers related after 9/11, including a Starbucks ad with two drinks, a dragonfly, and the logo "Collapse into cool". There's a serious discussion here, but that can't start so long as people are acting like "snowflakes" are something new, nor if you use a term also used by people who would criminalize flag burning and blasphemy.

> "Snowflakes" want momma to make all the bad words disappear. Staunch free speech upholders want rigorous and robust discussions, with the right to, at least sometimes, offend the "wilting flower" types.

Rigorous and robust discussion doesn't involve saying things like "Snowflakes want momma to make all the bad words disappear". It involves understanding the positions of other people and treating them seriously. In my experiences, rigorous and robust discussions often get derailed by free speech, and having a code of conduct can keep every discussion from disintegrating into an argument about someone's bête noire or some dead horse.

And no, many free speech upholders simply want to shitpost and cause offense and disruption, or push their own goals with no concern about anyone else.

Handling attacks on a community

jond — Tue, 17 Mar 2020 11:12:46 +0000

"knee-bending", FWIW, is a serious red-flag to me that the author is drinking the kool aid.

Handling attacks on a community

pabs — Tue, 17 Mar 2020 02:09:48 +0000

Apologies, both sides of the debate appeared to embrace the word in question. It was a mistake for me to continue use of the term.

When Consensus is Appropriate

hartmans — Mon, 16 Mar 2020 16:39:12 +0000

I'll admit to being somewhat confused. I never tried to build consensus between people who believe systemd is the focus and people who wish more of the project to focus on alternatives.
Consensus was not possible there, and it was obvious to me by the time I was elected that was true.
Similarly, I have never tried to engage with Daniel Pocock in a consensus discussion while I was DPL.
Why didn't I fully ban Daniel from the project earlier? Honestly, by the time I became DPL, I thought that had effectively been done.
I didn't consider that he'd use the bug tracking system in that way until he did.
Why didn't we make a public statement about Daniel earlier?
For a while, we weren't sure it was necessary. Especially during the first part of my term, I was deferring to others.
Later, though, we weren't quite sure how to do it. But then the time for immediate action was at hand and I made that statement because it was necessary.
In no point was this about building a consensus with Daniel.
Some parts of Debian's response did involve waiting for consensus to emerge within teams responsible for handling harassment. And some decisions aren't entirely the DPL's to make and so I waited on others to come to their decisions.
Consensus is a valuable tool, but I assure you it is not always the right answer.

Handling attacks on a community

corbet — Mon, 16 Mar 2020 13:41:40 +0000

I hate to have to say this but ... name-calling and such aren't really better just because $WE do it, for whatever value of $WE. Let's try to avoid that, please?

Handling attacks on a community

beagnach — Mon, 16 Mar 2020 11:13:30 +0000

> Please make use of it elsewhere; we really do not need more trolling here.

Thanks

Seems to be a rather higher incidence of trolling in the last week or two... what's with that?

Handling attacks on a community

timrichardson — Mon, 16 Mar 2020 11:04:08 +0000

If you read his DPL manifesto, his style can not possibly be the slightest bit surprising: https://www.debian.org/vote/2019/platforms/hartmans
It would arguably be more disappointing if he wasn't faithful to his manifesto, which is kind of a social contract.

Handling attacks on a community

Cyberax — Mon, 16 Mar 2020 05:57:12 +0000

This kind of non-CoC can actually work in small-to-medium projects. Most people can just stick to technical issues and keep discussions professional.

But it breaks down in large projects when a broflake decides that somebody is oppressing them.

Handling attacks on a community

pabs — Mon, 16 Mar 2020 04:00:26 +0000

This appears to be the broflake CoC:

https://nocodeofconduct.com/

Handling attacks on a community

mebrown — Mon, 16 Mar 2020 01:12:53 +0000

Nice. Thank you. This is why I pay for my subscription to LWN.

Handling attacks on a community

corbet — Sun, 15 Mar 2020 15:33:28 +0000

Please make use of it elsewhere; we really do not need more trolling here.

Thank you.

Handling attacks on a community

zenaan — Sun, 15 Mar 2020 11:25:37 +0000

>> So is it fair to assume then that you agree with all the resignations (RMS), knee-bending (Torvalds), and turmoil (openSUSE and many others)?

> Absolutely. People should learn to behave like decent human beings, and not like entitled brats.

In other words:

Cyberax: "Richard Matthew Stallman, founder of the Free Software Foundation (FSF) and staunch catalyst, visionary, upholder and all around grandfather for the entire FLOSS/Libre movement for ~30 years now, behaved or spoke, in my ever so high opinion, "like an entitled brat," and so therefore (I say) it is a great thing that he was "resigned" from his FSF."

So ... speaking of "entitled brats" ...

["Mummy told me I am fully entitled to be free from all confronting words by anyone forever." - You know, that's not a bad definition of "snowflake", not bad at all ... we shall be making use of that :D]

Handling attacks on a community

mvdwege — Sun, 15 Mar 2020 11:15:17 +0000

While I understand a longing for consensus, as a Debian user following all this I must say I am disappointed in Sam Hartman's tenure as DPL on one aspect: his continuing to try and build consensus with people who are quite simply not interested.

At a certain point you just have to say: "Don't like systemd? Move to Devuan"; "Harassing asshole? Get out". That it took until Daniel's meltdown for Sam to finally lose his patience has not helped detoxifying the community.

Handling attacks on a community

Cyberax — Sun, 15 Mar 2020 05:58:52 +0000

> So is it fair to assume then that you agree with all the resignations (RMS), knee-bending (Torvalds), and turmoil (openSUSE and many others)?
Absolutely. People should learn to behave like decent human beings, and not like entitled brats.

Handling attacks on a community

dskoll — Sun, 15 Mar 2020 04:25:00 +0000

See you later, then...

Handling attacks on a community

zenaan — Sun, 15 Mar 2020 01:54:42 +0000

>> "Snowflakes" want momma to make all the bad words disappear.
> Just like you crying here, begging for CoCs to disappear? What a broflake.

Not what I said, but meh...

So is it fair to assume then that you agree with all the resignations (RMS), knee-bending (Torvalds), and turmoil (openSUSE and many others)?

It is of course your right to agree with such treatment of various founders, as we have witnessed a fair bit of in recent times. Good lessons for future founders (to enshrine their "broflake" power CoCs before the snowflakes have a chance to usurp power and damage the founders).

Long term, I believe this is a functional parting of the ways between humans with different preferred ways of being in this world.

The CoC for those of robust temperament, is a different CoC to those of snowflake temperament.

Snowflakes are entitled to their CoC, "broflakes" and those who prefer more freedom in their communication environment, are entitled to their CoC - although I have yet to see a broflake CoC in writing :)

In the mean time we continue in this time of turmoil where unspoken expectations of some, in some cases many, have begun to be put first into CoCs and then into force, and this clash of expectations and turmoil is made public. Over, and over, again.

I have a sneaking suspicion that the "broflakes", those of robust emotional temperament, though evidently a minority, are inherently pioneers, willing and able to blaze new trails which few others see or would dare, until the land is cleared and first settlements built.

Most are settlers or homies.

'Tis the way of things.

Handling attacks on a community

Cyberax — Sat, 14 Mar 2020 17:43:50 +0000

> "Snowflakes" want momma to make all the bad words disappear.
Just like you crying here, begging for CoCs to disappear? What a broflake.

Handling attacks on a community

mpr22 — Sat, 14 Mar 2020 16:15:32 +0000

What is fascinating to observe in all of this is how "fragile" some of the people complaining about codes of conduct seem to be, to the point that "broflake" looks like a perfectly reasonable coinage for describing them.