The SC prepared to lie to us, and what we can do about it [whistleblow]

[pbsds]

Hi, I have been approached and asked to help aid a whistleblowing SC member as an independent and neutral party. Honored by this significant display of trust, I chose to review leaked evidence, help draft this statement, and publish it under my own account, staking my own reputation instead of releasing said confidential material.

The facts

The SC prepared to lie about their rationale in voting to remove a moderator from the moderation team.

I have reviewed select evidence of private SC discussions. I can confirm the following facts, using that material alone and not the surrounding context I was provided. Everything in quotes is a direct quote, one with added [context]:

• After the SC voted to remove K900 from the moderation team, John Ericson discussed the need to “phrase the wording of the removal carefully”. He stated that the SC cannot admit that “it’s insubordination”, and proposed to improve the public reception of the decision by deliberately lying about the reason. He offered “better suited for this one team than this other team” and “being a mod and being on the Nixpkgs [core team] is too much power” as two potential options.

• John admitted in private that the SC reached its decision based on “accumulated vibes”, while publicly affirming Robert’s statement that the goal was to “steer towards more objective moderation behavior” based on the Code of Conduct rather than “opinions and interpersonal tradeoffs”.

• To legitimize this “vibes” decision after the fact, John requested for a “List of bad things k900 did” to be “retroactively put together”, in an act of what he described as “parallel construction” of a “good reference for any back and forth” that was nonetheless “not to be shared” publicly or with the moderation team.

• The SC has continued to discuss the need to “workshop the announcement/rationale behind the K900 removal” as recently as Monday.

We believe regardless of our or anyone’s opinions of K900 or of the moderation team, that John’s proposal and preparation to lie to the community that elected him to be incompatible with our community values.

The raw evidence is not being released at this time to avoid breaching the confidentiality of SC discussions more than is necessary.

My own personal opinions and speculation

I am truly impressed by the whistleblowing SC member I represent, Winter, who is willing to risk retribution for the good of our community. My heart and stress levels have been pounding ever since learning of this a few days ago. On that note, I would like to point out that multiple SC election candidates have expressed interest in installing passive board observers to certify SC meeting minutes and other communications, because they too would have the ability and expectation to blow the whistle on future misconduct that fails to get addressed internally.

I do not publish this wanting to burn John as a scapegoat, to the contrary I still highly respect him and I would love to collaborate with him in the future. Likewise do I not even believe that a scapegoat is what the community needs!

If I were to be caught in that pickle, voted into that corner, having to enact those changes, in that culture, with no going back, then I fear that I too may have explored the same options that John did. There should however have been a plethora of off-ramps on the highway towards that pickle, and as a total outsider (except access to select material) I speculate that many of the issues at the SC have resulted from a secretive system that on a structural level weaves a stronger and stronger culture of no going back, distrust, and then burnout. Change is needed on a structural level. I believe that John is able to operate and represent us excellently in a transparent-by-default SC, but this conduct that we have revealed today indicates to me that he is not the one we need right now to build such an SC.

Our Call to Action

We do not ask for community outrage, we’ve had enough of that.
We ask you to lend us your voice so we together can ask for this:

We ask John Ericson to resign from the SC.

Elections are upon us, and John is one of the two remaining continuity members. The best case scenario would be for John to gracefully resign and vacate his seat before election, as to not immediately burden the next Steering Committee with the pain of having to discuss and possibly vote for a removal for conduct followed by a special election. If he does not choose to do so, we encourage the rest of current SC to vote on removing him for this conduct.

Again, we ask that you lend us your voice in asking for one thing in this thread:

I ask John Ericson to resign from the SC.

[tgerbet]

I was granted access to the undisclosed material before this post was published. I can confirm that the published information is accurate based on the evidence provided to me.

This is not a good day for our community, but I remain hopeful that we can build something constructive moving forward. For now, I can only support the resignation call so we can start rebuilding trust.

In case the evidences end up being published:

SHA256 digest:

b39acd5e7442b347966c0cd0ec2be67d80c0a51cd161067e3047cd05946dcea8
962cb34c4280b3c237db5219183d79db48cd9fab2f7150f6c7bfb669f3a84ef4
62ddb3ba925a4f8fc41bc3c6015a72c74ab3dc47fb5757aa3f85663c56f0d70b

Cosign signatures of the evidences made with GH account:

MEUCIBQsvO0eoWl5lNW2Y+tqUtmAPy2BBgX7PsAkQtzT9nCcAiEAy0spv+b1VxgqMciN1LEaq6V9Hi6atX7IEWGdZFKwhkM=
MEUCIAf/gHdy2kxLE211CaX0TB2aorYveHzaQv9vqNalPPVmAiEAz4KyFRBvx+7gq13MCLSeay+6I00YBHeJ1333DV8Vxsg=
MEUCICKcLYtwetonG1efWb+qvINOH0j3XkKknp0AfFUVEQLiAiEAmj7kso28kLs2yRFn71UwwToELXaXZovCCk4rHDlpFio=

Corresponding entries in Sigstore public good instance:

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[leona]

I have read the evidence behind this, and can confirm the accuracy of this post. I second the call for resignation or removal by vote of John Ericson in the Steering Committee under the circumstances given in the post.

[nyanbinary]

I have also come across additional independent evidence/leaks supporting this, and can confirm from my own perspective that this post is accurate.

Furthermore, I ask John Ericson to resign from the SC.

[ElvishJerricco]

From the other post

@ElvishJerricco

It doesn’t matter that you disagreed with them; it matters that you chose the wrong methods to address your disagreement.

This hurts.

[2xsaiko]

What, K900 is the moderator that was supposed to be removed??? Absolutely vile.

[wolfgangwalther]

This is worse than expected.

I ask John Ericson to resign from the SC.

[niklaskorz]

I honor the explicitly stated wish of avoiding discussion and thus will only say:

I ask John Ericson to resign from the SC.

[Lun]

Thanks for whistleblowing. Speaking up like this can be scary. I appreciate the call to action in a specific way over generalized outrage, and the reported behavior is quite damning.

I ask John Ericson to resign from the SC.

[isabelroses]

Thanks for coming out with this information.

I ask John Ericson to resign from the SC.

[azahi]

Is there any information on exactly why K900 was being voted out?

[pluiedev]

O tempora, O mores! I am utterly disappointed, disheartened and disgusted by the backhanded actions that were undertaken here, especially for a body that is supposed to be impartial, accountable and transparent for the actions of both itself and other teams.

I ask John Ericson to resign from the SC.

[phaer]

I was trusted with access as well and, sadly, can confirm that above statement is an accurate summary of the events as outlined in the evidence described above.

I am personally torn about calling for resignation of individual SC members. Most of the escalation up to the resignation of about all mods seems to originate from majority votes after all.
I do think that the existing SC - collectively and individually - does owe the wider community an explanation of the events that led to the recent changes to & resignation of the moderation team. Urgently so, in order to keep the electorate well informed in time for the upcoming elections, voting starts in 2 weeks.

I do urge all eligible voters to vote and to strongly consider initiatives around transparency & community management during their vote. We are lucky to have incredibly qualified candidates with proposals in this direction. The current SC has sadly lost my trust in this regard, and so I hope for fresh ideas and majorities after the elections!

[K900]

I have not yet gotten authorization to speak on behalf of the ex-moderation team, but as far as I can personally tell, this story is accurate, and no rationale has been provided to me or any of the moderation spaces I’m still in as of the time of writing this post, 2025-09-30 20:43 UTC.

[pyrox]

This is disappointing.

I ask John Ericson to resign from the SC.

[nyanbinary]

In addition I can add on that numinit was the intended replacement moderator from what I gathered.

[pluiedev]

If the SC has the power to arbitrarily pick and choose which moderators to remove and replace based on “vibes”, it’s no different from tyranny. It’s absolutely bewildering to think how certain SC members are either okay with or are complicit in something which is clearly illegal. Shame on us all.

[kiara]

Thanks for the transparency.

I ask John Ericson to resign from the SC.

[crertel]

@pluiedev

If the SC has the power to arbitrarily pick and choose which moderators to remove and replace based on “vibes”, it’s no different from tyranny.

Purely practical question:

How else do you propose that be handled?

The mod team is not democratically elected. If they get a mod or two in there that are constantly causing problems, what’s the recourse? If the mod team routinely shows bias against members of the community–or routinely fails to protect them–what’s the recourse?

Remember–the status quo of the mod team was unelected tyranny…some people just happened to be friends with the tyrants. This all kicked off because (to my understanding) the mod team wouldn’t be transparent and couldn’t/wouldn’t find a way of working with the SC’s requests.

In such a case, it seems obvious that a change in composition would be required. Again, historically, cops don’t frequently act to self-censure or self-regulate.

[delroth]

I’m not sure why the focus is only on Ericson needing to leave the SC. Clearly he was being enabled and approved by the other members of the committee - with the notable exception of those who left or spoke against it publicly. It’s not one bad apple, it’s the whole batch, and everyone who was supposed to get a 2nd term or who’s going for re-election shouldn’t get a free pass from having participated in this deceptive behavior.