Well there has been a large debate about this the past months so this isn’t true. There are people with different opinions on the matter, and that leads to debate. But you can’t simply assert that someone’s mind should change and expect any outcome. Some aspect of the circumstances has to change for the situation to change, whether that’s one side or the other or something external. With nothing changing, this is pointless relitigation. I’m open to the idea that something has changed, but at this point it has not been clearly stated.
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Speaking as an observer, not as a supporter. jonringer was officially suspended according to the moderation log:
jonringer was suspended for 6 weeks (until 2024-06-10) for repeatedly derailing sensitive discussions and willfully furthering the division in the community. For more information, see Why was Jon Ringer banned from GitHub? - #23
In ordinary terms, a suspension is temporary, and requiring users to re-apply for their suspended privileges after the suspension term has potential for abuse. If the moderation action was “suspension pending permanent ban”, and we had defined and equitable process in place to follow through on the ban decision, that would be different. But that is not the decision that was made, and concerns about whether a user has “learned their lesson” or “accepts the reasons for their banning” are re-litigating the issue.
In short, if we want to reduce the drama in this project, then we should follow our own moderation decisions. The door is always open for additional suspensions or a permanent ban in the future if a reinstated user continues their problematic behavior.
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From the issue:
Why make such a public post?
- I was asked to post on this thread, as it has served as a record of who was given commit bits
- Who did you consult with?
- Did they ask you to relitigate the whole issue again from zero?
I’m asking question number one because, first, I don’t even think the process thought as far as “when reinstating a committer to the github org, what should be done with their previous access rights?”
To me, arguing either way at this moment, unless there was a decision already written down around the process, is wrong.
Then, question two is because I can’t see what you wanted to achieve by doing such a splash when it is most likely an oversight. Frankly, it smells like you were fishing for a reaction. I don’t like this. This is exactly the kind of behaviour that makes me judge on the character of the person. And that is a bad character. This is not behaviour I want to see in the community.
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I am speaking purely concerning the discrepancy between the moderation log and reality. The reason given is this:
jonringer was suspended for 6 weeks (until 2024-06-10) for repeatedly derailing sensitive discussions and willfully furthering the division in the community. For more information, see Why was Jon Ringer banned from GitHub? - #23
If you follow that thread, you will find a lengthy post attempting to justify the ban. However, the reality is that jonringer was banned almost immediately after volunteering to shepherd RFC 175. If there is a genuine reason for his ban, it is hard to argue that this wasn’t it, even though it was never explicitly mentioned. My co-author and I were also banned without any reason given, which further supports this view.
The long, vague explanations appear as merely damage control and misdirection. It seems straightforward that this was a reactionary ban and, therefore, inappropriate. The fact that we were all reinstated is a quiet acknowledgment of this fact, without having to explicitly acknowledge it for mere political reasons. So again, his commit bit should be restored without debate.
Moreover, trying to cover up the simple truth behind his ban is not a genuine debate but rather more destructive and counterproductive politicking. This behavior is more harmful to the project than anything Jon or I have done, by a large margin, yet continues largely unhindered it seems.
For these reasons, dismissing this issue while expressing concerns about Jon’s demeanor is either disingenuous or ill-informed. While many things are a matter of opinion, I believe that logic can assist us in triaging and resolving these problems. If you can show me where my train of logic is flawed, I would be more than happy to amend my viewpoint.
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The one who usually gives out commit access, domen. He asked, “can you request it on the commit issue?”
Did they ask you to relitigate the whole issue again from zero?
No, I took it upon myself as it’s odd for a previous Release manager to ask for a commit bit again, especially when they have never misused the power. I would say my almost 10k PR reviews (and 50%+ of those being merges) have been of great benefit to the community.
I’m asking question number one because, first, I don’t even think the process thought as far as “when reinstating a committer to the github org, what should be done with their previous access rights?”
Correct, there’s no established process
Then, question two is because I can’t see what you wanted to achieve by doing such a splash when it is most likely an oversight. Frankly, it smells like you were fishing for a reaction. I don’t like this. This is exactly the kind of behaviour that makes me judge on the character of the person. And that is a bad character. This is not behaviour I want to see in the community.
More or less I was explaining the chain of events around why my commit bit was taken away. And that I personally feel like I was on the receiving end of unjust punishment.
This is a really strange request to me. It clearly indicates that you still do not accept the reasons for your banning.
I really don’t. As I mentioned in my commit request, there’s a lot of “you need to have similar sensibilities to see that this behavior is wrong”. But nothing really framed in context of the CoC or other document which establishes behavioral norms.
What you’re really asking is, “are you going to comply with our world perspective?”.
No, jonringer has not demonstrated that anything has changed, so why should jonringer get jonringer’s commit bit back?
What criteria should be applied to all nixpkgs committers?
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This is, again, relitigation. Your insistence that you should just re-assert your opinion unchanged and claim no other opinion is valid is extremely unproductive.
I think this will be my last comment on this thread. For there to be any outcome, circumstances must change, and no one has shown they have. We cannot have this literal exact same argument every single month.
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This is exactly what you’re doing again here. There is an established and working process to ask for commit rights, and it does not involve writing a lengthy appeal and incite further discussions about it on both Reddit and Discourse. The only result you get from this is further community division and drama, distracting more people from the technology and contributing to their burnout.
I am not authoritative on this (neither a mod here nor can I give you commit access), but for the sake of everybody’s sanity, I ask you to please disengage, self-reflect, and focus your energy on what you excel at: Technical contributions.
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Clearly not considering that he doesn’t seem to be able to have a productive conversation without attempting to relitigate his previous ban and drum up hysteria. I think a good amount of people would’ve said “yes” if you hadn’t decided to start things off by co-opting the GitHub issue to try and argue yet again. All you had to say was “Hey, I was recently given a temporary ban which removed my commit access. Now that it is over I would like to resume contributing.” Not arguing on the issue about your ban, not immediately posting to Discourse, and not immediately attempting to drum up support on Reddit.
https://www.reddit.com/r/NixOS/comments/1djuxpx/drama_will_jonringers_commit_bit_be_restored/
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I have removed the section about my personal grievances with moderation decisions, out of respect for you and the what the assembly are trying to achieve.
I will ask everyone to see how having dozens of people of people downvote and trying to squeeze you out of what you used to consider a home can be perceived. As much as I would like to come off a emotionally hardened stalwart of Nix excellence, I’m also human. I have emotions and aspirations of my own. Being met by hatred and vile everywhere for being stubborn about what I think are reasonable opinions (e.g. universal inclusivity, fair moderation) feels just bad.
and not immediately attempting to drum up support on Reddit.
It was done in a similar spirit to starting this thread. Reddit’s audience is just less “invested” in nix than this forum.
Maybe I just want to gauge if I really am out of line? Consensus seems to be yes, and I have changed my original post on the commit issue to remove my personal grievances about the moderation actions. That was not a good platform to do so.
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Well, that’s just the thing: a lot of the community doesn’t think there is an “established and working” process. Jon isn’t being divisive by simply pointing out the division that exists.
It’s true that more discussion on this topic isn’t likely to be productive, so maybe the Assembly could simply say “give us more time”?
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@TLATER Please keep it civil. You’re talking to a human being with their own beliefs, and you don’t have to make animosity between you two.
To a significant degree I agree with your ideas about what this post means, but I really don’t want us to be being awful to people like that.
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Yes, you’re right. Sorry about the rather unfiltered accusations, it’s certainly not helping defuse the situation.
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Just… Wow. Is this a deliberate attempt at torpedoing the community?
No
This amount of tactlessness, shared on all social media simultaneously to get the maximum amount of visibility?
Timeline of events:
- June 11th, one day after suspension release: ask domen for my commit bit back
- June 19th, 03:36 PST: domen asks if I could “post on the commits issue”
- 10:36 PST: I reply “sure”
- ~12:00 PST: Me: If I need to justify my activity, may as well justify why my commit bit was lost
- 14:13 PST: I post my initial commit request
- 14:40 PST: Already see ~4 posts in outcry, make discussion on discourse to allow for outlet of responses
- 14:43 PST: May as well see what reddit thinks if I’m going to get shutdown on discourse. Looks like my fears of dangling my commit bit might be true.
- Go on errands for 2 hours, and comeback to this.
Even labeling it drama before the drama happens to ensure half of reddit will fall for the clickbait?
During the zulip discussions, a lot of member of r/nixos expressed oversatuation of all the drama stuff, I said that I agree it was tiring, and wish we had some labels, one of which being drama.
Provocative question as a title, prompting readers to engage and respond, hijacking the algorithm?
As I mention above, one of my fears post suspension was to dangle my commit bit back, and use it as a means to publicly humiliate me (again, e.g. this thread and others).
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It’s frankly amazing to me that what you managed to turn a completely trivial situation (“oh, my commit bit didn’t come back after the suspension, I don’t think this was intended, could I get it back?”) into yet another case of spewing conspiracy theories, broadcasted to all committers on #50105.
Then you managed to somehow still make it worse 3 times in a row within the span of 6 hours by 1. creating this discourse thread with an obvious misrepresentation as the thread subject (from the point you started ranting on a high-visibility issue about being a victim of the “moderation team’s agenda”, your commit bit stopped being the primary topic of discussion); 2. trying to go and pose as a victim on reddit, which somehow still backfired on you even though /r/nixos hasn’t been particularly smart about noticing your (plural - you, srid, & friends)… biased representation of complex long-running situations in the past; 3. then coming to pose as a victim on this thread too as if you hadn’t entirely caused this problem yourself (“use it as a means to publicly humiliate me” - sorry, nobody forced you to humiliate yourself here, that was all on you).
All for something that could have been (with 90% likelihood) handled by a simple DM to hexa or Jonas to fix your github permissions post-suspension so they match the pre-suspension ones…
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Trying to put a new mod hat on. I toggled slow mode. I’ll need some time to get an idea on what to do here, but at least for now I can see some people here are trying to soothe the situation: you people have my deepest thanks 
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Yes, Jon should get his commit access back - Seems like the time was served so what else is left to discuss?
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Yes. He is a good contributor with a long track record.
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I do not agree with this suggestion. Forgiveness in a group setting required repentance, repentance for a situation that is public requires public repentance and trust. This does not qualify to those requirements at all, as the behaviour has been doubled down on instead of changed. Unless jonringer becomes a staunch ally, I will not agree to this situation changing and request a higher standard we put the community to for harm, repentance, and healing.
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Its clear jonringer has not learnt any lessons from his suspension
EDIT: This wasn’t intended as a “stir the pot”
Why have you titled your reddit post “DRAMA: …” then?
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Yes, Jon should get his commit access back - Seems like the time was served so what else is left to discuss?
That is my clear feeling as well.
Had the commit access just been restored silently after the temporary suspension was over, no drama would ever have happened. Same goes for the initial reactions to Jon’s reapplication. None of these were necessary. And some are quite condescending I have to say.
Why have you titled your reddit post “DRAMA: …” then?
I think this happened after the things were already stirring if I see this correctly. Jon’s timeline of events is there.
Other than that @nrdxp made an excellent post earlier that was sadly flagged. This abusive kind of flagging should stop.
Edit:
Link to nrxdp’s post: Should jonringer get his commit bit back? - #10 by nrdxp
Edit 2:
It appears the post that was flagged has been restored, thanks!
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