I’ve conveyed an idea to the team on different channels, but also want to disclose for more general scrutiny by the interested audience. It looks like:
make a moderation entry log each time the team changes (just as for the ban log) and state the current team composition. → This allows the general public to audit diversity of opinions within the Mod Team and to better assess how much of their trust each individual contributor places into the people involved. It also allows to find tendencies and correlations and thus harden or dismantle an initial suspicion about bias (which I can’t quite get rid of based on the overall context).
Slightly expand on the ban context, without creating too much overhead that would be otherwise unreasonable to the team. Limit to 200 chars each of the following mandatory log contents:
Accusation (anonymous)
Counterpledge (by the accused)
Decision (by the mod team)
The latter is very cheap to implement and not an unreasonable process clarification but very effective in preventing power abuse (or even only suspected power abuse), which the current model is prone to.
I think the very conduct of this thread points out (yet again) that there is (so far) no unequivocal, visible and serious commitment to accountability and checks and balances, so calling for transparency might almost seem visionary, at this point.
I don’t know what you hope to accomplish by repeatedly asserting that there are no checks and balances. The team has been very clear about this: they are subordinate to the RFC process. The community can use RFCs to hold them accountable and impose any checks and balances the community can get through the RFC process. If you have a specific proposal, make an RFC for it.
If you do make such an RFC, and if it is accepted, and the mod team for some reason refuses to abide by it, then it’s time to say oh no, there is no accountability. But the rules of the game seem pretty clear to me right now, with no evidence that they won’t be followed.
Quite obviously: that there will be over time an emerging insight that accountability is in the best self interest of the team.
The success of a policy-driven RFC is quite low, in my opinion, due to the incentive structures of RFCs. Realistically, accountability seems to be an issue that can only resolve out of the team itself, when it is realized that it is not enough to mobilize a few with the team’s decision, but the vast majority of silent onlookers, and in doubt keep a cool hand and head.
And, despide the staked word, I hope nobody takes this advocacy (naivly) negatively, that’d be a missed opportunity to improve, and not in accordance with my stance.
It would be refreshing to hear any sort of commitment to improve, if a clear and serious commitment to accountability is already asking for too much. Tiny steps are good steps, too.
I’ve been overjoyed at the adoption of a code of conduct, but personally, after having had very bad interactions with member of the moderation team, where they unequivocally treated me against the terms laid out in this code of conduct, and without any sort of transparency as what happened to the member that did treat me this way, I also have concerns.
With this is mind, I do have to agree that there is an accountability issue. As much as I am glad that we finally have a code of conduct, as much as I don’t think there has been any lines crossed in the adoption of this code of conduct that shouldn’t have been crossed, I still have to point out that there are voices on both sides here calling for more transparency into the process.
At my most cynical, I fear without this transparency, the code of conduct will be little more than for show. For the community to be able to hold the moderation team accountable, we need more insight into their process.
At the same this, we need this insight in a way that doesn’t put any potential victims at risk.
And even if this accountability technically exists, having to read through several RFCs to find out the details isn’t sufficient, without discoverability they don’t exist.
And yes, the lack of insight into whether or not a person who treated me intolerably is still part of the moderation team does heavily discourage my continued participation in the project. Since said member asked what I even do for NixOS, I’d like to put this into context.
In October, I reviewed 160 nixpkgs PRs and opened 43 nixpkgs PRs, of which 37 where merged, and 3 still are on hold, as I have little intention of finishing them.
In November, I reviewed 4 PRs and opened 5 PRs, so far, mostly just for my own software releases.
I’m personally probably permanently burned after this bad interaction, but hopefully you can pull yourself together so the next person isn’t.
Thinking that creation of the moderation team has changed the processes or the style of moderation is mistaken. The RFC, when compared to reality before it, effectively said that the people doing the moderation are given specific places for announcing team changes and bans, and otherwise continue whatever they were doing before.
I do agree that even the briefest summary of what moderators found the key unacceptable component of world-visible behaviour — have we ever had a ban purely for unacceptable PMs? — would be a useful addition to posting a general summary of moderation principles (call it CoC ot whatever), maybe even a more useful thing than CoC on its own (although it is useful to say that moderators agree that the general policy of enforcement aligns with some text).
Then Moderation Team: please provide the secret reason for the ban.
The Moderation Team can ban anyone without publishing who did the decision and why but anyone oppugn them has to open an RFC?
And now, in this thread, The Moderation Team just hidden all posts they don’t like without a reason?
My account here is not linked to any personal account because I don’t want to be a target of GOVERNMENT CENSORSHIP but it seems this can also save me from the NixOS Moderation Team.
I understand I should assume good faith. But trusts is hard to establish. If a controversial is made and then clarified later, then I can trust the team. How can I trust someone who keep banning people in black box?
Quoting myself here from elsewhere: “Posts that get flagged by Discourse community members with a sufficient trust level get automatically hidden at first, although the moderators eventually have the final say (there is a review queue). Please don’t make any bad faith assumptions.”
We are currently hiding all posts that are off-topic or inflammatory.
Glad to know that the reason is not a secret. It’s a big step toward a more transparent administration and the Moderation Team gets more trust from me. Unfortunately the reason is published late and only by a team member in a reply. This can’t dispel all misgivings though so I still hope to see more details.
The reason is not published by default because it’s a public log and people that got banned might get into trouble in their personal life/carrier i.e. if they maybe in a few years later they try to apply for a job. We always tell the person in question in private why they got banned. In this case we made an exception because the person explicitly allowed this.
Someone pointed out that the recently adopted CoC FAQ states:
Contributor Covenant only applies in project spaces and when an individual is representing a project. Your conduct outside of these situations is not governed by the code of conduct.
Revisiting srid. Knowing now that he was misguided in posting a public poll about the state of his moderation, what do you think was the catalyst that lead him to that misguided action?
This is important IMO. We can’t (and I’m glad we don’t) have a rule that the reasons for a moderation decision have to be made public. They might be confidential, not only because of embarrassment to an individual (although I guess that’s the most likely reason) but also for all sorts of other moral reasons and also legal reasons.
Or maybe logical consistency is just more important to some folks than others. Also curious why this post hasn’t been blocked like all the other supposedly “imflammatory” posts in this thread. This seems a bit more deliberate than some of those
To address your obviously sarcastic point, so if someone feels hurt or threatened by something of the correct persuasion, it is encumbant on the community to protect them, but if they are of the undesirable persuasion then it’s cool to ridicule them and imply they have mental health issues?
I agree that @polygon 's post (and it’s non-flagging) reads like a raw and undisguised expression of the general problem in this forum.
And as another contributors pointed out, maybe the flagging feature is not helpful to the moderation team’s work as the passive aggressive nature that often goes along with (cheap and anonymous) flagging not only gives cause to injury, but also to suspicion.
Funnily, the absolute harmless comment itself who bore this insight is flagged and hidden now. Lol.
This makes the moderation team’s work considerably harder, because they (even though a discourse feature), are now obviously subject to all scrutiny arising from the abuse of the flagging feature, by extension of organ-responsibility.
So yes, accountability is important, but more so may be even a general vision and thought process about sane and safe communication design.
Flagging is probably not one, and maybe not even emoji reactions, if you really thing through the fact that in Srid’s poll 60% of a sizeable body of participants seemed to disagree with the ban decision, while in this forum (anecdotally based on the heart reactions), one might feel echoed into believing that there is majority support for the ban.
All this to uncover the obvious: the moderation team itself hasn’t, as of yet, found a suitable, trust-inspiring, integrating and reconciliatory response to the concerns raised throughout the ongoing discussion.
And the task seems to keep growing. I wish the mod team wisdom and a lucky hand and hope they’ll find the strength to systemically address the issues uncovering before our eyes.
Perhaps if you had been more willing to presume goodwill from your interlocutor, you would have seen that
was a response to
i.e., the (sarcastic, yes) suggestion was to employ a psychologist to analyze Srid’s motivations, not to fix some implied mental health issue of tgunnoe’s.
This exchange does indeed illustrate a general problem, but perhaps not the problem you were intending to highlight.
No dunk was intended. My point is what I opened the post with: presuming lack of goodwill leads to perceiving lack of goodwill, in a vicious cycle. This is a sensitive topic, passions are flaring, and it’s fine for people to express themselves passionately (if respectfully). But in order for that to work, we need to acknowledge each other’s value and not be looking around every corner for someone trying to persecute you for wrongthink—because if you presume it, you will find all the evidence you need to convince yourself, regardless of what the rest of the world thinks.
These various moderation-related threads have had a lot of that, it seems to me, and not enough pausing to consider the best ways something might be interpreted. If the question is ‘why isn’t this post flagged?’ for example, is your first impulse to find the evil thing in the community that permits this post while rejecting others? Or could it be to find the good (or at least neutral) thing that this post does but is absent in others? Do you presume persecution and unfairness, or do you presume that someone else has a different perspective and try to understand it? Same question, different attitudes, different outcomes for likelihood of reconciliation of the community.
All things considered, I genuinely appreciate the thoughful response, please allow me a chance to respond to some of your points to hopefully clarify my position…
Agreed, however I also believe in honesty in difficult conversations, and after years of seeing the same general trend with no real solution, my good faith has honestly been totally exhausted. I would be lying if I said otherwise.
Again agreed, and I really don’t intend to persecute anyone. It’s not my bag, personally. I am and have always been interested in this community for technical reasons, and I find the political aspects draining and unrewarding personally. It isn’t my intention to see anyone banned or punished.
However, from my own point of view, it does seem there are some very real biases that exist that are not being properly addressed and indeed are being systematically dismissed any and every time a member of the community attempts to address them. Further, these issues, at least the ones I have had exposure too, only seem to bias in one direction, which is the root of my concern.
It is my belief that good leaders are rare, and I am more than willing to extend copious amounts of grace to those who attempt to step up. What I am not willing to support, however, is an attitude which boils down to, “I’m right, and if you disagree I will simply ban you.”
In my view, It’s more or less fine to have that attitude as a regular community member; it is your perogative, but for a leadership position I find it inappropriate. Further, I feel it is a mark of bad leadership when someone is unwilling to at least consider their own biases, especially when being critical of others.
Also agree. I would simply say that, from my perspective at least, part of the problem is that I have tried to do just that, and each and every time I’ve been met with a wall of utter resistence that seems unwilling to advance beyond their own narrow worldview. Indeed, the impression I have gotten several times is that any opposition should just be exhausted until they literally just give up.
This may create an illusion of consensus or closure, but in reality it sometimes seems almost intentional. Human beings have limitations, and it is far easier to fluster your opponent into an ineffective angry rant and proceed to character assasinate them than it is to understand them. We’d be lying if we pretend this isn’t a factor.
Unequivocally no. I do not presume to know anything about the intentions of others. All I can speak to are the general trends that I myself, and others have pointed out. I am very interested in alleviating my ignorance, in as far as that is possible, and I make real effort to attempt to understand the viewpoints of others. That said, I do not believe all viewpoints are equal or valid, and part of my issue here is that I simply cannot understand the rationale behind a lot of these decisions, and any time I inquire, it seems the response is more or less, “that’s the way it is, deal with it.” Although never that bluntly, thankfully.
This is a programming community after all, I would presume that we are generally more interested in logically sound ideas than the general public would be. However, I am failing to find a logically consistent thread here at all. Again, as I have said, I am more than willing to extend grace, and I realize that mistakes and oversights are commonplace. I am also freely willing to admit the possibility that it is me who is mistaken. I’m not upset if things don’t go my way, and it really doesn’t bother me personally.
I really feel more compelled to speak on behalf of other members of the community, who I know have hit the same wall I have, and yet seem reluctant to speak up, giving an illusion of consensus where one does not exist. If I can, I’d like to express the shared frustration in a way that is hopefully productive, but also, as I said in the beginning, my patience has been spread fairly thin at this point. And if things continue in this way, the most likely response is that I will simply resign once again.
But this is all meta, it seems we can never really get into the meat of the issue without somebody getting blocked or silenced, which I guess is the best way I can concisely express the issue. I’m more than willing to consider the possibility that perhaps in my current position, I am simply not equiped to express the problem in a productive manner, but for the sake of the community at large and those I feel are not recieving a fair voice, I’ll venture to try.
