Both users have been muted / silenced on respective platforms. How long for each user? Both are great contributors to this community and would hate to see either of them go. Hmmm. I miss @worldofpeace at times like this. Could we close this thread? Could a mod try to summarize all the decisions made and why? One of these users is a current release manager. This causes me mild concern−I think there is no linchpin here or anywhere in the end but nevertheless…
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The moderation team moderates according to the Code of Conduct. Did delroth’s comments violate the Code of Conduct or not? If they did violate the Code of Conduct, on what basis should the moderation team reverse or apologize for their decision?
I can’t see the Matrix logs, but someone already commented that the remarks were insults and personal attacks, which are both listed under “examples of unacceptable behavior” in the CoC. Given the situation, it’s certainly understandable. But if being sufficiently frustrated justified ignoring the CoC, what would be the point of having it?
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After days of passive scrolling through discourse I just wanted to mention that I’m really sad to see how some people cannot stand from deviating off from writing factful posts into insulting. This is absolutely not the way to achieve anything neither is it an appropriate way of communication in any case of emotional state. And I know for one this one is pretty emotional.
Since I don’t know where this should go I’ll just leave it here. Sorry for interrupting, but I just had to get this out of my head.
EDIT: this is not an entry to this discussion, is addressed to everyone on any side and is not intended to be used to pull me into any discussion
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I beg you all not to turn this into the ‘every problem all at once’ thread.
With respect to delroth, the moderation team will review the decision in due time (the delroth mute specifically is not our highest priority issue at the moment, and if we take too long hold us accountable). As a matter of factual update, delroth is no longer muted in the channel, and though I was not the moderator to mute (or unmute) them I believe the intent was always for this to be a very temporary mute to keep that conversation from exploding.
With respect to other individuals, expect information from us soon—I think I can safely say for the team that we all feel that it has taken us too long to address some long-standing problems.
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sorry but “no violence” is absolutely not “superficial decorum” and is certainly not the same as typing a few swear words, even if those swears are directed as a specific individual.
If the moderation is done merely by enforcing the word of the policy, then you’re always going to have outcomes like this. I think part of what long standing people in the community earn is a little bit of grace granted. Everyone is going to have a bad day/reactioin/mood at some point, and it is important to give them that and then grant them the grace to recover from it.
Instead of being vague, please be concrete in your statements.
Same as above, please don’t be vague or smug. If you did ban them, own it and be transparent. “Maybe i did it” is not helpful.
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My view of the series of events - as someone who was present for both conversations - is that an explicit singular “fuck off” in response to activity that has directly resulted in people leaving the project shouldn’t result in an immediate muting when the same actions are permitted as long as they are worded politely (nice words do not always represent nice sentiments).
Delroth’s response in this instance might have been impolite. But when (either through malintent or genuine ignorance, it doesn’t matter) driving away minority participation by (baselessly) classifying representation as discriminatory in threads like this is ok because they are written “civilly”, the only real difference is that one of them was direct and to the point.
This highlights a serious issue with our uneven code of conduct application. If any of the long threads on Discourse and GitHub where exclusion of minoritised groups is argued for through the proxy of “fairness” and vague allegations of “discrimination” aren’t treated as bad faith concern trolling that lead to even temporary suspensions - neither should a simple “fuck off” from someone tired of their peers being pushed out of the project. Both are explicitly called out in the code of conduct as unacceptable behaviour, but the decision to only act on one is tacit approval of exclusionary sentiments.
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FWIW it was not singular:
I completely agree, but you are applying the uneveness differently than many others have already pointed out.
So its okay to lower our dialog and communication to delroth’s level if its for “the right reasons”? I think not.
I and many others share this same sentiment for the last few years or so. It goes both ways.
100%
What rule did he violate? Where’s the moderation log today?
This is completely out of control.
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For the record, I was the one who issued the mute. First of all, let me say that generally I am very much aware about the issue of tone policing, and for that reason I want to allow people to be angry and express frustration within reasonably large bounds. See also for example me explicitly not acting upon Joepie telling Jonringer to fuck off months ago (n.b. see a pattern?), because of the context of situation which caused that statement.
You can also see concurrent reactions by two effectively asking for disengagement, followed by another message from delroth. (In retrospect, that may have been written earlier due to federation delays, but that is only of secondary importance.) In that moment, I saw a situation escalating further and the quickest way I could find to force disengagement was to issue a mute. Delroth immediately left the room thereafter.
In my moderation actions, I make a difference between actions targeting people and actions targeting situations. However this is a difference in intent, and may not easily be differentiated from the outside without additional communication. The latter is usually quick and temporal in nature, and thus only documented in rare occasions (imagine writing down every time a thread gets locked). The former is a lot heavier and usually takes a lot longer, especially since many actions require a wider team consensus.
In retrospect, I think I made the wrong judgement call in a heated situation. But more importantly, there was a communication breakdown, because there was no clarification about the intent of the actions taken. I deeply regret that this turned out to be the one drop too much for a person already on the edge of leaving.
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Damned if you do, damned if you don’t.
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Hey
Thanks for giving context and sharing your thoughts. I think we all are trying our best, and even when we try our best we sometimes mess up. And that’s okay; we learn, we do better, and we move on. I can’t see the whole conversation but I don’t think I need to. I can guess based off of what you shared that the conversation had been heated for a bit. Based on what I can see, I don’t think that a temp mute is the worst decision. And arguably it is a good move when tensions are running high and people need to step away for a moment. Still it is sad to see delroth leave because of it.
Lastly, thanks for being a mod and doing this incredibly tough job. I appreciate your and the rest of the mod team’s hard work.
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I’m not sure, but I think you and the other mods are doing a fantastic job in general. Thank you!
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The moderation log has since been updated after deliberations in the moderation team.
If you want to discuss the ban specifically, please note that we have a policy in place, about where that discussion needs to happen. Further interaction on this particular subthread will be considered off-topic.
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Second this. The usual approach to moderating public spaces is to not allow sensitive discussion at all: not as a policy of censorship, but as a policy of not burning out the entire moderation team within a week.
NixOS moderation team actually facilitates difficult conversations, and imo they are doing an excellent job here, given the inherent complexity of the problem and the sheer amount of hard work this requires.
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To clarify the flagging you are seeing: there is some combination of users, trusted users, and limits that will have this effect when people hit the “flag” button under the messages. The exact limitations and whose flag is weighted how is a configurable setting. You are likely seeing not the direct action of a moderator, but the result of such flagging by regular users. (though, someone can correct me if i’m wrong)
Let me also add that I do not think that this muting incident sent a troubling message as mentioned in the original post, but actually sent a message that moderation can be applied equally and fairly to everyone.
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I believe you intended to post in the other topic.
I could see that message being validly posted as on-topic in either of these discussions, as it broaches the intersection of them.
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Occam’s razor has joined the chat
Its fine if a general rule needs to be radified on the spot, and its fine to ban-then-figure-it-out over a couple days. But after a couple bans absolutely need to follow some kind of rubrick to avoid discrimination and picking favorites. Rules should be applied uniformly, with evidence of that rule being broken.
I think a rule that a user should be banned from a conversation if/when they make a bad-faith counterpoint (scarcasm, personal attack, etc) to an argument would help this situation. This means not only scarcasm, blatant staw man arguments, false dichotomies, etc without apology when corrected. And while sealioning/baiting is much harder to confirm, they do fall under near this; Moderators would have to use judgment on whether or not an argument was made in bad faith but I think that is within their jurisdiction to do.
I disagree with Jon. I have searched Matrix, Discord, and Discourse, and have read each message in context. I’m still looking for a bannable offence because disagreement alone dosn’t make him deserve a 6 week ban. If he does deserve a ban, the evidence should be presented.
If anyone stays banned for 6 weeks with no rule broken, then this truly is the beginning of the unraveling of the nix community.
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No, moderators should have discretion to moderate as human persons and not merely hot-blooded rule-applying algorithims. We don’t need to have a list of every possible bad word someone could say, we don’t need an exhaustive set of every possible misbehavior. The moderation team must act in the name of the common good, and be free to make judgement calls.
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